Media-rich tags consisting of video, audio, links, images—and now introducing another #spec-tech-ular feature from Thinglink, one of my all-time favorite web tools… Yep, you guessed it—hashtags!

For those of you who might be new to this concept, hashtags are keywords preceded by the hash symbol (#) and used to search, locate and/or categorize content on various social media sites.

So, how does the hashtag impact the Thinglink world? Well, this latest addition to the toolbar allows users to include tags that contain searchable phrases making it pretty simple to discover and follow specific information (topics, schools, classrooms, etc.) within Thinglink. Hashtags also provide a way in which teachers and students can easily organize their interactive images within a safe learning environment.

For instance, if you click on the #edtech hashtag found in the Great Sphinx example shown below, you will be linked to a page on Thinglink that contains other images that have also been tagged with this particular keyword.

Pretty #awesome—and #useful, don’t you think?

Classroom Connection:

With the amount of content available on Thinglink, hashtags make it incredibly easy to quickly locate content for use in the classroom and/or professional development trainings, workshops, etc. Additionally, hashtags provide users with the ability to organize and categorize their own library of images—and to share them with other Thinglink users based on similar interests.

But wait… There’s more! Check out the Six Ways to Use ThingLink Hashtags in Education blog post written by Thinglink guru Susan Oxnevad. It contains a variety of excellent ideas regarding how and why teachers and students can incorporate hashtags into their interactive images.