Tech Tip Thursday: Padlet

Ever need to gather all your students responses or ideas in one place? Need help putting a twist on your everyday activities? Padlet is a wonderful tool to help with that. This week's Tech Thursday is all about using Padlet in the classroom. I was first introduced to Padlet as a way to share learning experiences during my first Ed Tech Team GAFE Summit. I was sucked in from the moment I click on the shared link and starting sharing and reading about my colleagues experiences in the different sessions.

Padlet is an interactive board that reminds me of a cork board or magnet board. You or your students can type a post, share a link, insert a video, insert audio, add a picture; the possibilities are endless. First and foremost, let me say that Padlet is completely FREE. You know how us teachers feel about free stuff. There is a paid version available and there is a new school platform that you can use for free for 30 days.  Padlet is excellent for collaboration or sharing. Padlet is also available online and via apps on iOS, Android and Kindle devices. As an added benefit, you can also make your boards private and secure. You can also give various types of access to your boards that includes: read-only, writing, moderator, or admin access. As quickly as you give that access, you can take it away so you don't have to worry about it being permanent if you have a need to adjust or revoke access for the unworthy. I will share with you generic ideas on how to implement in your classroom and a quick tutorial on how to get started. Feel free to contribute to a padlet with ideas on how to implement in classrooms here.

Padlet in the Classroom

• Respond to the bellringer
• Exit Ticket Activity
• Share thinking during the lesson
• Collaborate on a group activity
• Scavenger Hunt
• Share draft for peer feedback
• Brainstorming
• Anticipatory Activity when beginning a new topic
• As Parking Lot for possible questions
• Classroom Discussion
• KWL Chart
• Debate 
• Video Responses
• Audio Responses
• Lab Results
• Display Graphs from Data
• Survey
• Homework Check
• Crowdsourcing Assignments or Homework
• Share final product for a project (With one another or share beyond to provide an authentic audience.)

Now that you've seen all these wonderful ideas and probably have a couple of ideas not listed of your own I bet you are wondering, "How can I get started?" Don't fret, I plan to show you how.

Disclaimer: I mentioned a Chrome Extension that I thought was visible but to my surprise, it was not. The Chrome Extension is Goo.gl Url Shortener. I love it because I can quickly grab links or qr codes to share with my students. You can also view analytics for total clicks, devices used, and tons of other things. I find this extension very useful.

I hope you found this little blurb on Padlet useful and you discovered some handy ways to use this tool in your classroom for the littles up through the high schoolers. Don't forget to contribute to the collaborative Padlet here.

Until Next Time,