Padlet: The Accessible Virtual Post-It Wall

The Wall of Sound and Substance

Padlet is anything but a notepad. Formerly known as WallWisher, Padlet evolved from being an online pinboard where tributes and messages were displayed for friends and family to a tool for collaborative learning and assessment.

It is Graffiti made Good.

Why use Padlet?

I was introduced to Padlet by my tech savvy colleague, Vip Sharma, as a quick way of gathering feedback and initial ideas from a class. At first, I could not see why the same had to be digitised. After all, can't the same be achieved with a couple of post-its in different colours or an A3 sheet (preferably reused) and some felt pens?

Yes really! There is still a lot of merit in having students debate about the placement of ideas on paper or make decisions over classification or connect ideas spontaneously when brainstorming or charting a K-W-L or making a mindmap using coloured pens and paper.

The earliest tech was a chisel and a stone tablet after all... which brings me back to Padlet.

Vip finally showed me the merit in it - that students build on each other's ideas and having them displayed is motivating especially in language classes.

Also, Padlet walls can be a quick and effective option for putting all resources in one area for research or enquiry-based learning. I used this idea for my first Padlet wall for a reading lesson and combined these readings with a PMI (Plus-Minus-Interesting) for note taking instead of the usual pro-con debate structure.

It worked out very well with students dividing the task and being engaged in comparing their ideas and explaining their justification for their point system. We later developed this into a role-play forum (which I recorded using the Voice Recorder Pro app).

Future Projects with Padlet

The next time I use Padlet though, I'd like to explore linear texts and more HOT skills : chronological processes, Thinking Hats, class group writing and Point-Evidence-Elaboration or Question-Answer-Relate strategies for reading.

Also, I do think that it could be used as a personal or group target setting or feedback board. Posting writing samples or targets anonymously (using a QR code), other students could suggest strategies for improvement.

I might try this last one because it has not been done before and will share with you how it went.

Meanwhile, another contender for what Padlet does is the new kid on the wall - RealTimeBoard.
Looks exciting!