Sometimes you need to have students share and work with ideas in the ‘same space’. Discussion forums are not always the best tool for student-student interactions and collaboration. Enter Padlet.
Padlet is an interactive ‘whiteboard’ tool that allows participants to submit short text responses, as well as links, images, or videos. Students don’t need any logins to participate, which makes it a good tool for low-stakes, ungraded, just-in-time interaction or sharing of ideas and media. Responses can be organized in various ways such as by columns, or by drawing links between similar ideas. An example prompt to initiate student participation could be something like: “give an argument either for or against the production of biofuels,” or “find and share a recent news article that depicts the issue of wealth inequality in Canada.” Padlet boards can be accessed via a shared, private link or can be embedded directly into online courses.
There are six different types of Padlet boards you can create and share:
- Wall – brick like layout
- Canvas – concept mapping
- Stream – create a top to bottom feed of contributions
- Grid – content is displayed in rows of boxes
- Shelf – have students contribute content under specified columns
- Backchannel – chat like environment
Contributions can be anonymous or set to display names. Students can favourite, upvote, rate, and comment on previous posts.
Find out more at Padlet.