Online learning and remote learning have been widely adopted practices in higher education, but there is less experience and research of how they work in basic education. This article focuses on the use, potential benefits, and best practices of interactive visual media in online education and remote learning. We will discuss:

1. What are the main arguments for interactive visual media in online learning?
2. What are some examples and best practices for creating visual learning materials for students?
3. How can students use interactive visual media for documenting and sharing their learning?

Quick links:

1. Interactive visual media in online education
2. Examples of interactive learning materials
3. Examples and best practices for creating remote learning materials for students
4. Supporting student-centered learning with interactive visual media
5. Best practices for developing students’ creativity and digital storytelling skills at home
6. How to get started with using interactive visual media in my school district? Do I need to involve the principal or the superintendent?

Interactive visual media in online education

Interactive images, videos, and virtual tours can support online learning by providing an alternative to text-based communication. Here are three arguments for why this is the case.

Humans remember pictures better than words (the “picture superiority effect”) One explanation to this is Allan Paivio’s dual-coding theory from 1971. According to this theory, if we see an image of a banana, our mind stores this stimulus (‘banana”) both as the word ‘banana’ as well as the image of a banana. This ‘dual coding’ increases the chance of remembering the banana better compared to if the stimulus was only coded in our mind as the word.

Multisensory experience triggers simultaneous associations. Pictures, sounds, and words together with a contextual experience of a place can create memorable learning experiences more efficiently than plain images or written words alone that are not associated with anything real. That’s because a simultaneous visual/auditory/verbal stimulus automatically connects our minds with multiple associations about the world. This could be a previous experience or a personal memory that associates with the new word or concept in our minds. While multisensory learning materials (including interacting with images by touching them) help most learners, they are especially helpful for dyslexic or autistic students. Seeing a new word written under a picture and hearing how it is pronounced, helps us understand and remember what we are looking at.

Virtual tours expand our fields of perception from physical to digital. Whereas previously, learning in a real-world context was limited to a student’s physical environment (and maybe the school’s and parents’ travel budget), 360 images and videos are making it possible to travel anywhere virtually. We can remember and learn on a virtual field trip the same way as we learn on a physical field trip. For example, last summer I went to Machu Picchu in a mixed reality headset, but my memory tells me I was there for real. If I went there again, I would recognize the place.

Examples of interactive learning materials

Creating online learning materials, lessons, and assignments does not have to be difficult, time-consuming, or expensive. Interactive videos, audio posters, narrated screenshots, and virtual tours can be effective tools for online education that help educators and learners work together using not only text-based communication, but also voice, video, and images.

Narrated photos, audio posters and screenshots

Working from home or other remote locations requires extra effort in sharing thoughts and progress with others. Hearing the educator repeat instructions for an assignment is important for many students.

A great way for giving assignments or sharing projects is adding voice instructions to various areas of a photo, poster or a screenshot. Whether this is a math assignment or a wireframe of a UI design, short audio notes from a familiar voice can improve comprehension and make an otherwise abstract visualization or assignment feel more meaningful and personal. For educators, recording audio instructions directly to images means saving time on repeating instructions over email.

Interactive videos

Interactive videos can be used for various purposes: interviews, presentations, introductions, explanations, lectures, training and project assignments. Even a short 5-minute video to explain daily goals or project assignments helps learners stay connected with their teacher instead of just receiving text-based instructions via an LMS.

What should I take into account when planning a video lesson?

Equipment: The good news is, you only need your phone or laptop, so there is no need to invest in additional hardware unless you want to.

Setup: A video lesson can be very similar to your lesson in the classroom. You can use a whiteboard, move around, or address students face-to-face sitting in front of your laptop. As much as being a resource for students, think of this video as a resource for yourself; students can replay it as they prepare for a test, or you can share it with absent students who missed your class.

Recording: Find a place with natural light where you feel comfortable, and start recording. The audience is your students so picture them in front of you, and address them as you would in the class. You may even mention some of them by name to keep their attention!

Duration: Our recommendation is you look at the lesson as a whole and divide it into parts, max 10-15 minutes and ideally 6 minutes each. This makes it easier for students to stay engaged and for you to follow their progress. Similar to YouTube, uploading long videos to ThingLink takes some minutes even with strong wifi connection, so make sure you are in a good wifi spot.

Upload specifications:

• Supported file formats: MP4
• Max Video resolution: 3840 x 1920
• Max File size: 2 GB
• Codecs: H264 video codec and AAC audio codec

Virtual tours

Virtual reality lessons and tours have become more common in classroom learning, but how can they be used in distance education?

From a hardware point of view, it is worth noting first that viewing virtual lessons using virtual reality headsets is not a commonly applicable solution for county public schools or city schools because of the simple fact that most families do not have headsets at home. For this reason, when we talk about virtual tours or virtual learning environments in distance learning, we most often refer to 360-degree image or video viewing on mobile devices and desktop.

The first challenge schools or principals and teachers face is lack of virtual lessons that would be aligned with national Common Core or state standards, but still adjustable for individual classrooms. Should educational publishers provide this content to schools or should teachers in every school start building virtual lessons themselves? To answer the question, let’s first take a closer look at the potential teacher-student connection that virtual tours could support in basic and secondary education.

When Google launched Expeditions in 2015, ThingLink team started getting two kinds of emails from teachers. Most wanted to know if we could support 360 image annotation so that teachers could create their own expeditions and tours together with students. The second question concerned the ability to guide the tour to make sure students would pay attention to things that were relevant for the lesson. This one was tricky, because we did not believe in replicating the traditional classroom experience in VR by setting up twenty-five headsets for a shared VR lesson.

Observing elementary or secondary school students viewing a virtual tour, three things seemed to be true: 1) Students benefit from expert guidance: it helps them pay attention to relevant things, 2) Some students need more repetition than others: it should be possible for students to revisit a tour, and 3) Everybody is different: asynchronous viewing can support personalized learning experiences better than synchronous viewing.

The promise of virtual tours in remote learning is to increase teachers’ online instructional time without putting in more hours. This can be done by recording the teacher’s talk, explanations, or instructions to a virtual tour. In this manner students can virtually visit remote places at their own pace and time, but do so in the presence of their own — or another — teacher. The experience would still be shared with fellow students, but viewing would happen asynchronously.

Could a large educational publisher do this? They could definitely provide a course catalog and lesson templates, but in a situation where students are learning from home, it becomes challenging to apply the flipped classroom model with blended online and offline learning strategies. In this situation maintaining a daily connection with students becomes one of the most important aspects to consider. Online students need a whole new learning system. Part of this system is the learning materials we provide to students, and the strategies we use to create them.

Hotspots: what are they and how do they work?

The purpose of the clickable hotspots or tags is to give the viewer further information and resources on the topic they are learning about. Teachers and students can add various types of content in the hotspots, such as text, additional closeup images, video, sound, links and embedded web content such as maps or forms. These resources can serve any of the following functions:

1. Building perspective by linking to related materials
2. Improving comprehension of the topic by highlighting key concepts and vocabulary
3. Zooming into details in a scene
4. Creating a feedback loop by including a call to action

In order to create a engaging and effective learning materials, one does not necessarily need to use all the different tag types in one asset, but it’s good to keep these questions in mind when planning new content:

1. What other materials or discussions does this learning asset relate to?
2. What are the key concepts and academic/professional vocabulary I want my viewers to master?
3. Are there any specific details that I want to highlight?
4. What is the call-to-action I want to link to this learning asset?

Building perspective by linking to related materials

The purpose of this resource is to connect your image or video to related materials, may that be other videos or articles on the subject, a summary of the lesson, or a snapshot of the learning goals. The resource itself may be a link to another website, an embedded video, slideshow or a map.

Improving comprehension by highlighting key concepts and vocabulary

If your poster or video includes new concepts and vocabulary, a good practice for improving comprehension is adding short explanations of each concept using the text and media tag. This tag type can include text, image, audio and links. An additional benefit for viewers is that these tags can be opened in Immersive Reader that includes automatic translation to over 80 languages.

Zooming into details in a scene

If your video lesson takes place in a relevant context for learning, or you are using a whiteboard for solving math problems, you may want to guide students’ attention as you speak and highlight specific details in a scene. A good simple way to do this is use the second tag type, text label.

Creating a feedback loop by including a call-to-action

The hardest part of teaching and training remotely is knowing if learners have watched your video or retained any of its content. This is why you want to link your video lesson to further learning activities, may that be some questions to think about, a more formal assignment, or a test. For questionnaires and quizzes, teachers can use embedded Google or Microsoft Forms. It is also possible to share the video to students or team members via an LMS or as a Microsoft Teams assignment.

The importance of teacher training and professional development

In a situation where a teacher may not have the tools, equipment and skills to create engaging and pedagogically sound materials for online learning, it is important to quickly invest in professional learning opportunities and create material for other teachers rather than directly to students. This is a valid argument for why schools also need to make sure their teachers can stay connected with their own learning communities that help them respond to the different learning needs and online learning opportunities together.

Examples and best practices for creating remote learning materials for students

How do elementary and secondary school teachers use interactive images and virtual tours in remote learning? Below is a collection of instructor-led strategies for using interactive media in online learning. Examples range from literacy instruction and language arts to history and religious studies. Rather than being lesson plans, these projects exemplify good practices for maximizing the learning outcomes using audio-visual pedagogy.

1. Explain visuals with text labels

I see a picture of a pyramid, but what am I supposed to pay attention to? Simple annotations help students pay attention to relevant details in images and graphs. In the example below, teacher Irene Londino uses text labels to explain the structure of Egyptian pyramids, and video tags to give more context to the topic.

2. Explain abstract concepts with detailed descriptions

Millions of students have heard about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly, but how many can explain the goals in more detail or take action to reach them? Professor Annamaria Bove from 1. Instituto Comprensivo Nocera Inferiore created a valuable resource for her students and turned the famous UN infographic into an interactive resource, explaining each goal in detail and linking to more information.

3. Explain assignments using your voice

If you like to explain assignments to students verbally, but prefer not to make a selfie video for one reason or another, Astrid Hulsebosch, teacher at the Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) has a solution for you: just snap a photo of yourself, and use the ThingLink voice recorder to add your instruction to students. In this example. Astrid instructs her students on how to use Flipgrid for their assignment!

4. Art history: Introduce a masterpiece

This is a good example of an interactive user-generated learning resource that can be useful for thousands of teachers. In this case, teacher Irene Londino created an introduction to Chagall’s White Crucifixion, presenting both information of Marc Chagall as well as explaining details of the painting.

5. Literature: Interpret a masterpiece

In some cases, a teacher’s devotion to a subject brings out new forms of art. David Del Carlo, docent and teacher trainer at the The Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR), is a connoisseur of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. To celebrate the national Dante Alighieri Day, David and his students from the Lorenzini high school created a digital experience of Dante’s journey through Hell.

6. Read to your students

Many teachers like to read to their students. It can be challenging to keep this up on a video call over unreliable wifi, but there is a solution: you can easily record your reading on an image and send it to students as a link. In this example, high school literature teacher Ileana Orsini from Turin, Italy, created an interactive audio poster lesson introducing her students to the life and thinking of the Buddha.

7. Learn vocabulary in new places

There are many ways to take language learning out of the classroom to real-world contexts. In this example, Ornella Cappucchini, German teacher and instructional technology coach at Instituto Comprensivo Rovereto Est, takes her students to a virtual house tour, moving from one room to another highlighting vocabulary in German.

8. Narrate your own virtual lesson

Even if you cannot reach all your students at the same time online, you can simulate an in-person lesson by narrating a digital learning experience, adding additional information and questions along the way using sequential hotspots. Professor Barbara Antoniel from Andrea Scotton Technical Institute in Bassano says: “This is a literature lesson on Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. My objective was to use the flipped classroom method to immerse the student in a process of knowledge discovery through narrative, sound, sensory and visual stimulation.” This year, her institute won the innovative digital school prize in their province.

9. Create a virtual field trip with assignment

The next two examples would probably qualify as a new lesson format. Both use 360-degree images to create a multi-sensory learner journey though a physical place, enriched with various resources and tasks for students. In the first example, Maria Dente used Google Street View photos with illustrations, audio notes, text, photos, as well as embedded word completion games to introduce catacombs to 5th graders. The second example is a virtual field trip to a famous hillside estate, Fondazione il Vittoriale, in the town of Gardone Riviera created by professor Annamaria Bove.

10. Ask students to narrate a virtual audio tour

Teachers and students can collaborate remotely in many ways using ThingLink’s shared folders. For example, a teacher can add base images to a shared folder, where they can be collaboratively edited by students. In this example, 5th grade students of Romea Canini took turns and used their actual voices to tell the legend of the Republic of San Marino, the oldest and the smallest independent state in the world.

To sum up, in the above examples we can on one hand see various efforts to reinvent the traditional classroom experience in an online learning environment. On the other hand we can see plenty of seeds for new learning standards and learning methods using interactive visual media. Although some of the examples include well-articulated learning goals and learning paths that students can explore at their own pace, most examples here help students develop their knowledge and comprehension (see Bloom’s taxonomy).

What’s important is what happens after. With the blended approach, students would next apply the new knowledge in the classroom participating in discussions, group activities and assignments. In the fully online model, the role of the teachers shifts from an instructor to a facilitator of online discussions and meetings. In situations where students cannot access video conferences and online discussions, the learning resources need to include alternative models of asynchronous participation.

What can these models be, and what kind of assignments can students do at home independently that would open up development opportunities on the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy?

Supporting student-centered learning with interactive visual media

Project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and problem-based learning are constructivist approaches to education that develop the learners skills for research, problem-solving and collaboration. The process is based on authentic questions and problems identified by students, and finding information and explanation models to research and solve them.

An important aspect of student-centered learning is documenting the various phases and aspects of the learning process. Sometimes documentation can become the most important learning activity that helps students build a synthesis from diverse elements, using multiple forms of media. The same principle applies to online education. Digital storytelling at its best is an act of putting parts together to form a coherent whole.

The following examples will show how students can use mixed media for completing various kinds of creative assignments and sharing them with their teacher and fellow students.

Best practices for developing students’ creativity and digital storytelling skills at home

School teachers use various visualization techniques as pedagogical tools to engage and help younger students who are having trouble focusing and reading. Educational research suggests that handwriting and doodling notes is better for later memory than typing notes using a keyboard.

When students are working remotely, there are several ways to combine handwriting, drawing, photography, or arts and crafts with student-centered learning projects using ThingLink.

In the following, we summarize 10 easy project ideas for remote learning that encourage students to 1) make handwritten, visual and pictorial notes, collages and artwork, and 2) enhance and explain their work using digital audio/text notes, photos and video. Each of the examples provide a mix of learning opportunities combining traditional student work in the classroom with digital storytelling at home. The projects can be shared to a learning management system or collaboration platform such as Canvas, Schoology, Google Education or Microsoft Teams.

1. Make an interactive greeting card

Project idea: Design an interactive greeting card for a friend or family member. Take a photo of the drawing or setup, and use ThingLink to add your voice greeting or other additional notes.

2. Create an interactive book report

Most elementary school and middle school students read at least 30 minutes every day.

Project idea: Create an interactive book report for each book you have read. Use ThingLink to add voice or text notes about the book.

3. Make a vocabulary poster in a foreign language

This is a true multi-channel exercise that combines an illustration of a word, its written form, as well as its pronunciation in a foreign language.

Project idea: Summarize a list of new words in a chapter or article you have read. Draw/doodle an illustration of each word. Use ThingLink to record the pronunciation for each word.

4. Introduce yourself

Between kindergarten and middle school, students engage in several art projects to introduce themselves to the rest of the classroom.

Project idea: Create an all-about-me poster. Use your phone or tablet to take a photo of it and explain it using text, video, or voice notes.

5. Create an interactive herbarium

Making your own herbarium is a great way for students and their parents to learn about botany and the plants.

Project idea: Go outside and find plants that you don’t already know. Take multiple photos of each plant in their natural habitat, or if you have brought them home, position each on a surface for a photo. Use ThingLink to add more information about them.

6. Make your own comic strips

Self-made comic strips can be used as a visualization technique for any subject. In this example, a 1st grade student took screenshots while playing Minecraft.

Project idea: Make your own comic strip, and add the speech bubbles and sound effects using ThingLink.

7. Create an interactive timeline

Timelines are a great way to memorize sequences of historical periods or events.

Project idea: Make a visualization of a timeline using your preferred technique. Use ThingLink to add more information about each detail.

8. Explain details of a painting

Several museums have recently opened their image archives for public use.

Project idea: Choose a painting and find more information about it online. Use ThingLink to explain the details of the painting to someone who does not know it.

9. Create an interactive map

Drawing maps is another great way to summarize learnings in social studies or science.

Project idea: Draw or paint a map, and use your phone or tablet to take a photo of it. Use ThingLink to add additional information, music, sounds, or interviews to the various spots on the map

10. Build a diorama

Diorama, a three-dimensional miniature model, is a wonderfully creative way for illustrating a story or a sequence of events.

Project idea: Use a combination of materials, techniques or toys to build a scene. Add voice or video narration to your story using ThingLink.

A note on student collaboration

If you have a School licence, students can work collaboratively on projects using Shared Folders. A shared folder is a collaborative space that lets students edit images collaboratively. For example, teachers can engage students by sharing untagged images or videos and invite them to embed text, narration, and videos in the shared resources. Alternatively, if students can access a mobile device and an outdoor space, teachers can create a hybrid learning environment and assign students to create an interactive presentation using their own photos and videos.

Summary of key points

Online learning has been a widely adopted practice in higher education, but there is limited research on how it works in basic education. When students are learning from home, we need to rethink the existing learning system and methods from multiple perspectives, one of which is learning materials and how they can support maintaining the daily connection between teachers and students.

We believe that the quality of online learning can be significantly improved by adopting new standards and practices for online learning materials, including:

• Consistent explanation of key concepts to improve comprehension and vocabulary development
• Affiliation to source information and related discussions to support transparency and critical thinking
• Integrated reading tools to improve accessibility
• Connection to related assignments or activities to encourage further learning

We hope that the arguments and examples in this article stimulate further discussion on the role of visual media in learning including new research-based models for online learning and online classes in elementary and secondary schools. The school based model of education is not dead, but the home base of the school is not anymore a physical building. The home base of the school is in the cloud as the physical environments for learning change.

How to get started with using interactive visual media in my school district? Do I need to involve the principal or the superintendent?

Several districts and principals are now offering new instructional tools and interactive learning technologies including teacher training and staff development options, webinars, and other online learning resources on setting up a virtual classroom and running online classes. There is a fair chance that someone in your district is already using ThingLink. We recommend that you send a note to the person responsible for instructional technology in your school and request a permission for a free ThingLink pilot for your school.

If your district already uses Office 365, Google Classroom, Canvas, or Clever, activating ThingLink for your school is easy!

Adding AI-assisted image generation to ThingLink’s creation flow

Since 2016, ThingLink has empowered educators and students to create virtual field trips, interactive walkthroughs, and engaging point-and-click games using annotated 360-degree images and videos.

Until now, users have had the option to download or purchase these images from libraries and photo services, or create their own. The integration with Skybox AI adds an exciting new dimension to ThingLink’s creative workflow. Educators and students can now utilize cutting-edge artificial intelligence to generate scenes for immersive learning experiences, storytelling and entry-level game development, further enhancing engagement and educational outcomes.

Embracing the next generation of storytelling

“We are empowering educators and students to become creators and embrace the next generation of storytelling. Using Skybox AI and ThingLink, it’s possible to both design and execute a visually stunning point-and-click game in the same study unit. It is like having a team of the world’s fastest and best illustrators helping visualize your ideas”.

ThingLink founder and CEO Ulla-Maaria Koivula.

ThingLink’s integration with Skybox AI helps streamline the immersive content creation process and saves time from creating visual assets in one service, and interactive projects in another. Previously, ThingLink has announced similar integrations with Canva and Unsplash.

In addition to the technical integration, ThingLink and Blockade Labs have agreed on a strategic partnership through which Skybox AI can be made accessible to entire organizations, instead of just individual users. This lets Blockade Labs quickly test customer interest in new market segments.

“Creating 3D worlds from text prompts without coding is a powerful step towards unlocking human creativity. We are excited for our partnership with ThingLink and for users to interact with these incredibly imaginative easy-to-use tools”.

Marguerite deCourcelle CEO Blockade Labs.

Schools, universities and businesses that have a ThingLink organization account can purchase Skybox AI as an add-on service for all of their users. The entry level package, priced at $1,000, includes 15,000 image generations per year.

About ThingLink

ThingLink is a trusted immersive learning technology partner for leading businesses and educational institutions in Europe and North America. Thousands of companies, schools, and higher education institutions use ThingLink to create interactive 2D, 3D, VR, and AR learning experiences, such as virtual tours, guided field trips, employee trainings, and branched multimedia simulations.

About Blockade Labs 

Blockade Labs specializes in AI-assisted 360-degree image generation technology. With Skybox AI, Blockade Labs aims to make the world of 360-degree imaging more dynamic, interactive, and accessible to all.

Connect News and Stories

ThingLink X (Twitter) and Blockade Labs X (Twitter)

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Press Contact 

For additional information or to schedule an interview, please contact

Louise Jones

Community and Engagement @ ThingLink

louise@thinglink.com

In the past months, our team has had several internal discussions about the potential of AI in immersive content creation. AI as a topic is not new.  We have been thinking about AI in 360 learning environment since 2016,  explored automatic image clustering, and tested ideas around a virtual learning assistant (the first version used Microsoft Chatbot), but none of these experiments have been integrated into our main product.

The launch of Chat GPT3 and 4 and the related developer tools opened up new possibilities. At BETT, we participated in the Open AI roundtable discussion organized by Microsoft, which again spurred new ideas for both internal and external tools. One evening, our CPO and I sketched the different use cases on a napkin, and made it into the following four-field matrix. The first focus area for development, we decided, would be content creation; how the current AI-powered tools can assist educators and HR management to create new immersive and interactive learning experiences. 

Goal: Supporting our users to create better learning experiences in shorter time

In this first phase of development, we are especially interested in understanding what kind of  tools can:

– Save time in planning and creating immersive learning experiences

– Improve the structure and presentation of information in scenes and learning scenarios

– Guide our first-time users in getting started, and 

– Improve the general user experience at ThingLink.

As we learn more about the points above,  we want to tackle some of the most important AI-related concerns at an early stage: transparency, privacy and control.  

Transparency

Developing new products and features is an iterative process that requires continuous discussion with users, developers and multiple domain experts. Going forward, we are going to be open about our own learning process, so that at any time, ThingLink users will be able to follow and comment on our plans. To kick off the discussion, we are hosting a series of webinars around AI and how it can assist creators, educators and learners today and in the future. 

Privacy

We have installed OpenAI in our own Azure cloud. This means that the data that we will use in training any of our own algorithms or the data users generate using our tools, will remain in the ThingLink system. It is not available publicly or to Open AI service. We will not save the prompts that our users write.

Control 

Access control: ThingLink’s content creation tools will be available by default only to account admins and educators, not students or learners. The organization admin, however, will be able to turn on AI-assisted tools for all users, if they want to do so.

Editing control: In ThingLink applications, users can approve or dismiss any suggestions from the AI-powered content assistant. 

In our first webinar, Dan Fitzpatrick, one of the authors of “The AI Classroom: The Ultimate Guide to Artificial Intelligence”  inspired us to think how AI is changing the world of education and training. Join us in the next webinar to learn more about the latest tools to assist content creation and contribute to the topical discussion on how to support skills such as creativity and authenticity in the era of AI-assisted learning!

Other Connected Posts

• ThingLink Webinar! AI in Immersive Learning
• Top Six Outstanding Text to Image AI Generation Tools
• The Best AI Content Creation Tools: A Practical Guide
• Webinar 2 In the Series: Thriving with AI and Essential Skills

What are ThingLink Guided Tours?

ThingLink Guided Tours offer an easy way to create structured introductions to a physical space using 360 images. Instead of free-form exploration, ThingLink Guided Tours focuses the viewer’s attention on one single point at a time. The creator of the tour can add subtitles and audio playback for each focal point.

ThingLink Guided Tours is an excellent tool for any educator to increase their virtual training time. On-site, exclusive tours that were previously only accessible to a few at a time, can now be accessed by hundreds or thousands.

Solving key challenges in immersive learning

ThingLink Guided Tours help solve at least two key challenges typically present in immersive learning environments.

1. Ensuring the same viewing experience for all

Guided Tours helps make sure that all learners experience the tour and its elements in the same order. This is especially important in mandatory technical and safety training, but also in cases where an immersive learning environment is part of an exam, certificate or degree. Summative assessment in the end of the training is more reliable if all learners have experienced the same scenes in the same sequence. Some may take more time observing, but the structure of the presentation is nevertheless the same.

2. More flexibility, better accessibility 

The second challenge has to do with organizing instructor-led virtual classes.

The bigger the group and the younger the participants, the harder it is to make everything happen perfectly synchronized, simultaneously. Maybe there are not enough headsets or tablets, some people are absent, unexpected things happen and attention diverts away from the instructor.

ThingLink Guided Tours bring more flexibility to immersive learning by allowing learners to have a shared immersive experience asynchronously. Viewing can take place in small groups, at school or at home. The instructor can be present as a guide and discussion can happen on the LMS afterwards. This way, more learners can attend immersive lessons and field trips, and access them on any mobile device without VR headsets.

Ideas and core assumptions behind Guided Tours

The idea behind ThingLink Guided Tours is similar to the narrated VR tours we launched in 2019. It’s based on the following key assumptions on immersive learning environments:

• Learners benefit from expert guidance 
• Focal points (frames, hotspots) help guide the learner’s attention 
• Shared VR does not have to be live VR; Asynchronous viewing improves access and flexibility.
• Learners should be able to revisit immersive learning experiences and view them at their own pace.

NEW! The easy way to create 360 images for your Guided Tours: Pano to 360

Creating virtual tours, exhibitions, escape rooms and other immersive content just got even easier! ThingLink has now launched Pano to 360 by ThingLink: an easy way to create a 360 photosphere from a panoramic image using any smartphone. For more information, including step-by-step instructions see this helpful support article. 

Health and Safety Guided Tour

Try ThingLink Guided Tours for yourself with this health and safety experience! Click the arrow to move through the focal points in a sequential way. Make sure to click the person speaking icon on the bottom right corner to hear audio narration. When activated this will move you automatically through the experience.

Use cases for ThingLink Guided Tours

Here are some areas where you can use ThingLink Guided Tours:

1. Expert tours to museums, libraries, campuses, and commercial facilities
2. Technical training
3. Safety training
4. Special education
5. Professional evaluations and exams, certifications and degrees

Other posts that might be of interest to you

• Virtual Tours: The Most Powerful Online Marketing Tool for Your School
• Virtual Tours: 10 Examples of How to Visit Colleges or Universities remotely
• 3 Examples of Virtual Training Environments in the Energy Sector
• How to Create Virtual Training Environments for Students
• Check out more examples featured on our blog.

Thousands of companies and schools are investing in building virtual replicas of physical environments, products, company facilities, even cities. 3D virtual models are used in planning and monitoring processes and infrastructure as well as training students and employees. 

Real-time 3D environments and digital twins can accurately simulate reality with live streaming data connection. During development and design review however, large virtual models are slow to share. With many iterations, a developer may end up spending tens of hours just compressing and sharing files.

New use cases for virtual models and 3D environments

Some time ago we teamed up with our friends at 3D Talo and developed a Unity plugin for easily documenting and sharing Unity-based environments. The request came directly from our customers who wanted to include 360 degree snapshots of Unity projects to interactive virtual tours and learning scenarios. 

Three stand-out use cases:

1. Documentation of Unity-based projects
2. Employee/student onboarding and orientation
3. Customer training and maintenance manuals

1. Documentation of Unity-based projects

Developers of Unity environments often need to document and share updates of their work on a weekly or even daily basis.  The ThingLink Unity plugin is a great tool for this purpose.  With one click, 360 degree snapshots of the project are automatically saved in ThingLink, where you can add additional information, comments, questions, and share them with colleagues or customers.

2. Employee/student onboarding and orientation

A 3D simulation helps learners  in various fields acquire new operational skills. For example, with a forklift simulator a trainee can practice operating the forklift, and learn how to recognize dangerous situations in the warehouse. The ThingLink Unity plugin expands use cases for one simulation to other types of training situations, such as familiarizing oneself with the technical environment, associated equipment and learning the operating principles. 

360 degree snapshots taken from the Unity environment can be augmented with close-ups of the devices, text and instructional videos. The quality of the training  can be ensured by collecting feedback from the employee at different stages of the virtual orientation, and by including questions to test knowledge from different areas.

3. Customer training and maintenance manuals

Several companies in the manufacturing industry train customers at their own facilities. This is often logistically challenging and expensive. With the ThingLink Unity plugin, companies can easily incorporate scenes of the Unity-based environment into customer training material. For example, maintenance manuals can include interactive visuals that operators can access both online and offline. 

Easy collaboration and sharing with non-developers

Whether it is about sharing an update with customers or colleagues in a design review or building a virtual safety training of a work environment, the ThingLink Unity plugin makes collaboration easier and faster. It saves 360 scenes from a Unity environment to ThingLink with one click, and in a shared file on ThingLink, anyone can add comments or questions to these scenes. ThingLink Unity plugin makes Unity environments accessible and shareable to non-developers.

Read more about the ThingLink Unity plugin and download it for free.

What else is new on ThingLink?

• Elevate Learning: Unlock Skybox’s 360° Features on ThingLink
• ThingLink’s new, free Pano to 360 app
• How to Use ThingLink’s Fantastic Five New Artificial Intelligence Applications

Asiakastarve: 3D mallien helppo jakaminen 

Yhä useammat teolliset ja palvelualan yritykset investoivat digitaalisiin mallinnuksiin, joiden avulla käyttäjä voi liikkua olemassa olevassa tai suunnitteilla olevassa tilassa virtuaalisesti. Näiden pohjalta tuotettuja digitaalisia kaksosia voidaan käyttää mm. prosessien ohjauksessa, suunnittelussa, sekä työntekijöiden perehdytykseen tarkoitetuissa simulaatioissa.

Digitaalisten kaksosten ja simulaattoreiden etuna on niiden kyky simuloida todellisia tuotteita ja tiloja tarkasti eri käyttäjäryhmien tarpeiden mukaisesti. Niiden haittapuolena on tiedostojen suuri koko ja hankala jaettavuus. Esimerkiksi viisi näyttöä vaativa simulaattori on käytettävissä ainoastaan yhdessä tilassa, yksi henkilö kerrallaan.

ThingLinkin ja 3D Talon kehittämällä uudella Unity-työkalulla simulaattorista, digitaalisesta kaksosesta tai muusta Unity-pohjaisesta toteutuksesta voi taltioida 2D tai 360-asteisia näkymiä yhdellä klikkauksella. Näkymiä voi käyttää osana selaimen yli katsottavia virtuaalisia kierroksia sekä työntekijöiden perehdytykseen suunniteltuja oppimisskenaarioita.

Kolme käyttökohdetta

1. Unity-pohjaisen mallinnustyön dokumentointi 
2. Työntekijöiden ja oppilaiden perehdytykset
3. Asiakkaiden koulutukset ja huolto-ohjeet

1. Unity-pohjaisen mallinnustyön dokumentointi

3D-mallien ja Unity-ympäristöjen kehittäjillä on tarve dokumentoida työn etenemistä asiakkaille ja keskustella mallinnukseen liittyvistä yksityiskohdista projektin aikana. ThingLinkin Unity-plugin on mainio työkalu kaikkien Unity-kehittäjien käyttöön. Sen avulla projektin näkymät tallentuvat ThingLinkiin, jossa kuviin voi lisätä kommentteja ja ne voi jakaa kollegoille tai asiakkaalle muutamalla klikkauksella. Aikaa säästyy yhden projektin aikana jopa kymmeniä tunteja, kun tiedostoja ei tarvitse erikseen pakata ja jakaa jokaista katselmointia ja keskustelua varten.

1. Työntekijöiden ja oppilaiden perehdytykset

3D-mallinnettu simulaatio harjoittaa oppijaa omaksumaan uusia operatiivisia taitoja. Esimerkiksi trukki-simulaattorilla työntekijät pääsevät harjoittelemaan trukin käyttöä sekä erilaisten vaaratilanteiden tunnistamista varastotiloissa. 

Tämän lisäksi työntekijän perehdytykseen kuuluu teknisen ympäristön ja siihen kuuluvien laitteiden läpikäynti ja toimintaperiaatteiden opettelu. 360-asteiset kuvat 3D-mallinnetuista simulaatioista ja ympräristöistä palvelevat suoraan teknistä perehdytystä. Simulaattorista otettuihin kuviin voi upottaa lähikuvia laitteista, tekstiä ja ohjevideoita, joiden avulla työntekijä voi perehtyä työympäristöön omassa tahdissa. Perehdytyksen toimivuus voidaan varmistaa keräämällä palautetta työntekijältä perehdytyksen eri vaiheissa ja sisällyttämällä kysymyksiä eri osa-alueista. 

1. Asiakkaiden koulutukset ja tuotteiden huolto-ohjeet

Useat valmistavan teollisuuden yritykset kouluttavat asiakkaita omissa tiloissaan. Koulutusten järjestäminen paikan päällä on kuitenkin logistisesti haastavaa ja kallista. ThingLinkin Unity-työkalun avulla yritys voi helposti sisällyttää 3D-mallin näkymiä asiakkaille suunnattuun koulutusmateriaaliin. Myös esimerkiksi huolto-ohjeet voi toimittaa interaktiivisina kuvina, johon käyttäjä voi palata paikan päällä. 

Lataa plugin itsellesi alla olevasta linkistä

ThingLink Unity Plugin on ladattavissa ThingLinkin sivuilta ja Unity Asset Storesta. Plugin on ilmainen ja sitä voi käyttää suoraan Unityn editorin sisällä tai sen voi lisätä valmiisiin projekteihin. Interaktiivisten kuvien jakaminen vaatii ThingLink-lisenssin.

Lue lisää ja lataa ThingLink Unity-lisenssi täältä.

Sharing projects with users who have a Unity license

Let’s say you are working on game development or a RT3D (real-time 3D) model for a customer and you want feedback and advice from a developer, game designer or colleague in another country. In this case, they have the same version of Unity installed in their machine as you.  What are the easiest ways for you to share your project with them?

Use Unity Collaborate

The simplest way to share your Unity project is to add the other user as a collaborator so you can share a workspace. Unity Teams has a free tier which includes 1GB of Cloud Storage to use with Unity Collaborate. Remember: For each person you want to collaborate with, you must assign them a Unity Teams seat in your organization. Here are some useful links on how to enable Collaborate for a team member,  allow collaboration on individual projects, and manage Unity Teams member access.

Zip and share files via OneDrive or email

Another way for you to share your project is to share the folders via a cloud service or email. If you go down this route, always remember to zip your files first. In addition to making the folders smaller, it’s good practice which avoids any file corruption. Do you need to zip and share all the files? Not necessarily. Most important are Assets and ProjectSettings folders. After zipping and transferring them to a cloud service, the other user can access the folder and download it to their device. Read more about exporting your project into another version control system. It’s also possible to send some or all of your files using Unity Package Manager: you can read more about how to do this on the Unity website here.

Looking for more development time optimization? 

You may be working on a project where you need to make multiple iterations in a short period of time and get concept level feedback as part of the workflow. In this case you may want to consider other ways for sharing your Unity project that will save several hours of waiting for files to compress and upload.

3rd party plugins from Unity Asset Store: ThingLink

The ThingLink Unity plugin offers an easy way for collaborators to see your Unity project from any device – without having to download the project folders and all their project files to a local machine and without any special configuration. The plugin lets you take 360 degree snapshots from any part of your project and share them as links or iFrame embeds. This can be used for sharing work-in-progress with clients or documenting your development work. With customers, use cases include virtual tours, safety drills and employee training. 

The two main benefits are 1) speed of sharing and 2) the ability for the other user to access your project on any device, including Android or iOS mobile phone, computer or even VR headset. Read more about the ThingLink Unity plugin here and also at our dedicated Unity plugin support page.

Other tips for sharing your new projects with users who do not have access to the Unity hub or Unity Editor

If you are sharing work-in-progress with customers or colleagues, you may want to improve the sharing experience with quick text or voice notes, questions or background.

Here is an example of a virtual model where a user has added more information about the functionality of the machines on the shop floor.

FAQs

• Do I need a specific operating system to use the ThingLink Unity plug in?

No – it will work equally well across all common operating systems including Windows and Mac (iOS).

• Does my collaborator need to know how to use Unity to use the plugin?

No – even a complete newcomer to Unity with no experience can view the project in ThingLink – one of the most intuitive and easy to learn platforms available. So no need to worry about sharing source code or walking them through opening the files!

New to ThingLink?

For an introduction to our super simple editor and interface, including step by step tutorials, take a look at our handy Support Pages. For Unity support please visit their support pages, or connect with their community which brings together Unity Answers, Unity Forum and other useful resources.

Why this is great news to Pitch and ThingLink users?

• If you use Pitch for external or internal training, you can now make the experience  much more engaging by adding interactive videos or virtual tours in between your text and image slides. 

• If you use Pitch for marketing and sales, your deck can now contain an interactive product demo or a visit to a virtual showroom. 

Being able to add interactive media to presentations is a popular request we get in our support. ThingLink has oven 8 million registered content creators, and many of them are looking for new presentation tools that in addition to easy design and collaboration options, support multimedia and immersive viewing.

Big thanks to the super fast and responsive Pitch product team! We at ThingLink use Pitch all the time in customer meetings and presentations. Previously, for embedding a demo of a virtual tour to Pitch presentation tool, we had to create an animated gif and embed it to the presentation as an image. Now, we can just embed a live example by pasting a ThingLink URL to the “Other links” box!

Interested in partnering with ThingLink? Contact us at info@thingLink.com.

Q: You have previously worked as a K-12 teacher, a principal, and a teacher trainer.  What are the most common questions teachers have about online learning? 

HP: When teachers were  suddenly forced to transition their classes into online learning environments, the only pedagogic model they could refer to is based on the traditional classroom setup. The challenge is that anyone who tries to repeat the traditional model online quickly realizes that it’s not going to work, or at least it’s not repeatable as such. After this realization, the most common questions that come to mind are:

• How can I make online learning more engaging and meaningful?
• How do I create an authentic connection with my students?
• What kind of methods can I use?
• What tools should I use?
• How can I differentiate learning for different students?
• How can I create opportunities for learners to show their academic progress in more versatile ways?

These past two years when I’ve helped both teachers and companies to create online learning materials has been an eye-opening experience. I’ve realized that businesses are facing the same kind of challenges as schools; there’s a growing demand for online workforce development programs, training, upskilling, and re-skilling. Similar to schools, the challenge is how to design engaging, contextual, and pedagogically solid online training material and find resources to produce it. Combining my background as a teacher with my experience from content production has opened up new and exciting opportunities to help both companies and schools in these matters.

Q: What kind of tools and skills do you need for creating visually engaging learning experiences?

HP: There are a dozen ways to represent information visually and anyone with basic computer skills and time can create a visual online experience.  When it comes to creating pedagogically meaningful, engaging online learning experiences, it is good to remember this is a new area for most classroom teachers and even if we have now been practicing this for a year, teachers need more support and upskilling. Even if the content creation process itself is not difficult, it’s extremely difficult to try to figure this all out alone.

First, it is important to have a basic understanding of learning theories, teaching methods and how they apply to an online environment. This includes being able to point out the most important learning objectives and create a series of learning tasks for learners.

Second, you need skills to create and edit visual content, also from scratch. This can be anything from pictures to videos, charts to infographics. You have to differentiate what kind of learning content, or what part of it, is best delivered visually, and what by some other means.

Third, you need to understand how you represent the visual information you’ve created in an online setting. How you structure your materials, how to create learning paths, organize navigation, secure that it works on all devices, etc.

Finally, you need a platform to deliver the content. There are many platforms, apps, and LMS’s to do this, but I honestly think that when it comes to visual learning solutions, ThingLink is the most versatile one. When you can combine pictures, video, text, animation, embedded content, and basically whatever you can imagine into one visual representation, you’ve got yourself a new visual media type, accessible with a simple link.

How much time on average it takes to create a virtual tour, can you give some examples of projects you have done?

This really depends on the scale and desired quality of the project. For DIY projects, you can just grab a camera, take a few shots, upload them in ThingLink, and create a few tags. This shouldn’t take more than a few hours but the quality is not ideal.

Typical high-quality content production includes the planning phase with the client, meetings, and collecting project-related material such as texts, charts, images, etc. Then there are 1-2 shooting days at the location (often 360° and drone shots too), post-processing of the images and videos, and of course, turning everything into a virtual tour in ThingLink.

Every step of the way is done through discussion with a client and modifications are done along the way. These projects typically take a few weeks to be finished, depending on the scale and the amount of content. The virtualization of HSY’s underground facilities in Finland is one example of this kind of project.  If the virtual tour content is about upskilling or re-skilling or otherwise pedagogically more in-depth, the planning, curating, and creating content takes longer.

Another project I worked with was creating a virtual exhibition of the work of visual arts students at the  Savonlinna’s upper secondary School of Arts and Music. This project was quite straightforward and it only tooks us a couple of days to finish! 

What areas or segments are you most interested to work on at ThingLink?

HP: I will be responsible for various types of content production initiatives at ThingLink, and one of the areas that I’m really excited about is new forms of teacher training. We are currently developing professional development courses for our partners in India using in-context, interactive learning modules that align with the National Education Policy (NEP), and the feedback so far has been very positive and encouraging. In my new role, I will continue this work in collaboration with experts from Finnish teacher training schools.

Personally, I’ve enjoyed tremendously working with teachers and companies, arranging webinars and teacher training courses. In general, I would say that Thinglink at the core is about giving everybody a chance to be creative. There is no steep learning curve, so I encourage anyone to give it a try. If you need any help, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or the ThingLink Education group on Facebook!

What is your background in eLearning?

I’ve been involved in developing online learning content, tools and practices for the past 9 years.  Before I joined ThingLink, I worked at Aalto University, which is currently the second largest university in Helsinki area, as an eLearning and pedagogical specialist.  I also have experience from teacher training in other countries and cultures.  For example, in my role as Innovation Manager for KOULU Education Group, I participated in building and managing teacher training programs in India, Pakistan, and Turkey. In 2015 I lived in Brisbane Australia for a year and worked at the University of Queensland (eLipse Centre) where we developed MOOCs and learning path visualisations  — that’s where I learned to love wind surfing and bodyboarding!

What does learning design mean to you?

Learning design can be seen as a method which combines several different elements of learning psychology, pedagogy and learner-centred approach. Some of the key questions are:

• How do we motivate the learner to engage?

• What kind of elements do we use to capture the learner’s attention?

• How do we support memory, empathy and reflection?

For a good definition, I would refer to Akseli Huhtanen at Aalto University: 

“Learning design stands at the intersection of pedagogy, service design and modern learning psychology. (…) It is related to service design insofar as it places the end user, in this case the learner, at the centre of the process (instead of the content or teacher, for example). Learning design entails the creation of a kind of support structure that allows the learner to focus on what is important, i.e. learning.”

As to user experience, an important aspect of learning design is to think about how we can help learners feel safe, satisfied and competent, for example by providing the content in “bite-sized chunks” and ensuring a clear structure.

Why pedagogic eLearning expertise is critical for organizations?

One of the main goals for an eLearning expert is to make sure the materials are created and presented in a way that helps the learner to get the big picture; to understand how the various elements are connected and what goals do they serve. This directly impacts motivation and engagement. For example, an eLearning expert can help illustrate a learning path using readings or visual elements, such as videos, quizzes, use cases or small tasks. Organizing materials and activities into interactive modules based on themes also helps to give a sense of structure and accomplishment. 

In addition, it’s important to remember that online learning can often be lonely, and it requires a new kind of self-directed learning skills. An eLearning expert can help design materials with enough opportunities to connect with instructors or peers,  give or receive feedback, ask questions, or share worries or concerns — all this contributes to a successful eLearning experience and providing a variety of activities not only keeps the attention up, but it also supports the development of deeper understanding of the topic.

What is your favorite reading on pedagogic design tools?

Pedagogic design tools are readily available online – an excellent example is the The Design Book for Online Learning – Practical Tools for Designing High-quality Online Learning. The tools included in this book include, among others, an ideation canvas, which can be used in brainstorming workshops while setting up an online course and a checklist for the psychology of learning, which has a set of practical notes to ensure the needs of the learner are met.

What is your favorite ThingLink example that you have seen so far?

The wonderful escape room example from Al-Bayan Bilingual in Kuwait caught my attention, this is a truly engaging and wonderful example of dividing and serving the content to the learner in smaller entities while clearly communicating the learning path.

Another excellent example that comes to mind is this interactive game board designed by teacher education students Ella Pirhonen and Tiina Määttä at the University of Eastern Finland. The design of this learning experience features a classic board game analogy that consists of a numbered path. Each step on the path provides a variety of different kinds of materials, videos and small activities that keep the learner engaged.

Contact Emmi at Emmi@ThingLink.com to see how we can help your organization in designing immersive learning materials!