This week I found Heather Moorefield-Lang’s article “An Exploration and Explanation of Device Agnostic Tools” very interesting. She offers information about teaching tools that will “work across the board,” which means they can be used with several different devices. Some of the tools she offers are Kahoot, Socrative, ClassDojo, and a few more. All of these are excellent tools for teachers to use within their classroom.
The tool I would like to focus on is Padlet. This is a tool for student to use like “pinning notes on a bulletin board (Moorefield-Lang, 2014).” Students and businesses are able to add documents, pictures, and text to their board and share with others. The slogan for Padlet is “Collaborate better. Be more productive (https://padlet.com, 2019).” The idea behind Padlet is for users to be more productive by utilizing this easy-to-navigate resources. This tool can be used on a computer, tablet, or phone device. Information can be added using all these devices. The end result ends up looking like a blog site where information is shared and organized easily.
Padlet is available as a free trial for thirty days. After that the cost is $12 a month for teachers or $99 a year. The tool can also be purchased by a school for $1499 a year. The school account includes teacher and student accounts. This may seem like a lot of money, but would saves schools a lot of money in paper each year. Teachers and students would be able to collaborate on many projects and organize the material in a logical way. The material would also be easily assessable by students from home. There are also safety and privacy features. The information shared on your Padlet will only be able to be seen by your school. The site can also be personalized with your school’s name and logos. The tool also has features to restrict “bad words” and collect data for teachers to use.
This would be a valuable tool for any teacher or student who has technology readily available to them. This will make collaboration and organized information more easily available to students. The site will also allow teacher to monitor student collaboration easily. Overall this is a very useful web 2.0 tool for teachers.
Useful Resources:
Palet – https://padlet.com/
Padlet Tutorial for Teachers- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f51WeQVLeVU
Padlet Tutorial for Students- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsV4ShNddYY
References:
Padlet. (2019). Retrieved from https://padlet.com.
Moorefield-Lang, H. (2014). An exploration and explanation of device agnostic tools. Library Media Connection, 33(1), pp8-9. Retrieved from https://login.pallas2.tcl.sc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=98009373&site=ehost-live.
761 Informational Technology in the School Library 
Thank you for sharing this information. I briefly tried Padlet several years ago and it did not work out well for my plan. I thought to myself that I would revisit it one day because I feel like in a different lesson it would probably work much better for me. My students at the time were a little more immature and I felt that I needed to rethink explanation and application to get better results. Watching the video you supplied gave me some great ideas. Now may be the time I revisit it in my classroom before I finish my degree and move into the library.
Kathryn Blair
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I love Padlet and was so sad to see the creators were unable to sustain it being offered for free. I like to use Padlet to show group work and allow students to learn from each other as they work. For example, I have used Padlet to teach basic citation skills. Students are able to check each other’s work in real time. Padlet is also a great tool for group brainstorming work.
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I have been using Padlet since it was back in its Wallwisher name days. I was very excited to see all the new features they were adding until they switched it to paid. It is amazing for real time collaboration and brainstorming. I am fortunate to have more than the free 3 on my account since the padlets I had already made were “grandfathered”. I am regretting deleting a few before it switched over. We are still using them regularly at my school but with 5 or 6 classes a day in middle school, it would be more ideal to have a separate padlet for each class. It is hard with teachers who weren’t using it before and only have 3 free padlets.
Richard Byrne shared some alternatives but the only one I have really liked has been some of the Google Slides templates: https://www.freetech4teachers.com/2018/04/5-more-alternatives-to-padlet.html and ideas from multiple bloggers including Alice Keeler: http://rechargelearning.blogspot.com/2018/04/i-am-not-giving-up-on-padlet-but-its-ok.html
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Oh yes! I was definitely thinking about use of Padlet for one class at a time, maybe even one group. If not the information on Padlet may become very overwhelming. Thanks for your insight!
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