Padlet App: A Super Creative Tool For Your Classroom [2023]

Padlet App: A Super Creative Tool For Your Classroom [2023]

Padlet is a creative tool used to enhance the interactivity in teaching and learning processes.

Padlet tool can help teachers and students with an interactive notice board like space which is very easy to use and is easily accessible from any browser. In short; a creative and a great resource for both teachers and students.

 You can use this digital notice board to feature images, links, videos, and documents, all collated on a “wall” and this wall can be made public or private. With this feature not only teachers but also students can post on the wall.

 This is the best tool for collaborative projects which starts with a blank canvas and then users can start expressing their thoughts on a common topic and also read what others have to say.

 It can be used for getting feedback. Individuals (and large/ small groups) can post their comments, questions and resources in one place that is easily accessible to everyone. 

What is a Padlet?

It’s a place where you can

• Create a single or multiple walls where you can include all the posts you want to share. 
• Post images, videos, audios and documents 
• Collaboratively involve students, teachers and even parents and guardians.

Padlet features:

• User friendly interface and easy of use
• Does not require any software installation, It is web based
• You can add notes, text, images, videos, and drawings to your wall.
• You can add documents from computer to your Padlet wall.
• Offers a wide variety of layouts to choose from.
• Works across various devices including mobile phones.
• Padlet walls you create can be embedded into your blog or website.
• Enhances collaborative work. A Padlet wall can be used by multiple people at the same time to share a post.
• Padlet walls can be exported in various formats like image, PDF, CSV Spreadsheet or Excel.
• Padlet has both free and paid plans. See Padlet pricing

10 Creative Ways to Use Padlet in Class

You can make the Padlet more creative with your imagination. If you have that creativity you can make this educational app really powerful.

Here are some creative ideas that you can use Padlet in your class

• Brainstorming Tool: You can use Padlet as a great brainstorming tool. A Padlet wall can be created for the whole class where they can collect and share ideas about a specific topic

Let’s try it out for this post, Here is a Padlet wall on Creative Ways of using Padlet for Education created by my colleague Dr. Mendus Jacob (A prominent Academician and an Entrepreneur with 30+ years of experience in the Teaching Industry. He has organised, conducted and served as resource person for a number of Faculty Development Programmes including UGC sponsored Refresher Courses. His areas of interests are Outcome Based Education, Accreditations, New Educational Policy etc.) 

Just click on this link, and start collaborating. Let’s see how many ideas we’ll get! Nothing to contribute? Then just take a look! After a while, the board should contain a lot of fun classroom Padlet ideas.

• Backchannel Tool: You can use Padlet as a backchannel tool where students can post comments and feedback based on what they are learning
• Portfolio: Students can use Padlet as portfolio where they display their best work
• Assignments and Homework Reminders: Classroom Padlet wall can be use to post assignments and homework reminders to students
• Engage Parents: Engage parents in the learning by inviting them to visit the classroom Padlet wall
• Students Learning Resources: Links and Resources relevant for a particle topic can be posted on the Padlet classroom wall for students learning
• Book Review: Padlet can be used as a book review page where students post reviews of the books they read
• Cultural Events and Holidays: Padlet can also be used to create walls for major cultural events and holidays of the year and invite students to search for information relevant to each of these events and share them with the class
• Open space for group discussions and sharing ideas: Use Classroom Padlet wall as an open space where students engage in group discussions and they can also exchange ideas
• Sharing Reflections: Students can use Padlet for sharing their reflections on what they have learned and what they need help with

Step By Step Guide on How to Use Padlet?

To Start with Go to www.padlet.com.

1. On the Padlet Website Click “Sign up for free”

2. There are various options available for signups. The easy one would be to sign up with google

3. Choose a plan. To start with and experience this tool you may start with the basic plan.

4. Click “Make a Padlet”.

5. Start Creating with the Various options available

6. Once you select from the options available, you can customize it including your title, description, icon, address and appearance

7. Once you scroll down you will find more options like posting, content filtering and advanced

8. Under posting you can set

1. Attribution: Whether to display author name above each post
2. Comments: Whether to allow viewers to comment on posts
3. Reactions: You have various options for reactions like grade, star, upvotes or like posts.

9. Under reactions you can choose from various available options that your users can interact with the posts on the padlet noticeboard wall: Like, vote, star and grade

10. And if you are selecting grade make sure the number is between 1 and 100

11. Under content filtering you have options like require approval and filter profanity. If you require a moderator to approve the post you may choose require approval and if you want to filter bad words then you may use filter profanity.

12. You also have advanced options if you want to map a domain. If you would like to buy a domain for yourself then you can contact ipsr’s custom web application services

13. After you have chosen everything to your liking and click “Next” on the top right corner

14. Click on “START POSTING”

15. And your padlet notice board is ready. Now you may click on share on the top right and share the created noticeboard so that others can collaborate

16. Here you can invite members, set privacy and also get various options to share. 

17. Once you click on change privacy you can keep the padlet private, hidden, members only, secret or public

18. You can also set visitor permissions to Can read, Can write or Can edit

19. Once you are finished. You can start posting by clicking the “+” button or double click anywhere on the padlet or drag and drop files to the padlet.

20. If you wish to return back to homepage at any point of time You can hit the “Padlet” icon in the top left of the screen or change padlets if you are signed into an account

Padlet For Learning Activities

• History: Create a timeline to illustrate related events in a particular period, perhaps a war or governmental change. Create a timeline narrating the key events throughout the life of an important historical figure.
• Governance / Politics: Design a diagram depicting the organization, powers, and history of each branch of the Indian government.
• Geography: Build a collage covering the different regions of a particular country including pictures and descriptions of local wildlife, terrain, climate, etc.
• Literature: Create a book report covering important events and characters, along with descriptions and their relationships to one another.
• Social Studies: Illustrate research on a particular group of people with pictures and information about their traditions, attire, languages, beliefs, etc.
• Biology: Present a certain region’s food chain with images and labels of the animal species.

More Padlet Ideas

• Introductions: Students can create an introductory Padlet at the beginning of the fresher’s year showing things about themselves. They could revisit at the end of the year to see if its changed.
• Bellringer activity: Ask students what they remember from the previous day’s lesson. The ensuing page should summarise what still needs to be taught and should serve as a good place for students to review content.

Some More Padlet Ideas

• Birthday wall
• Predicting activity
• Review of the year
• Collaborative note taking
• Current events
• Classroom news letter
• Notes to peer presentations
• Book discussions
• Prior knowledge assessment
• Gather student work
• Summarising student learning
• Happy Fathers/Mother’s Day
• Student’s reflections on learning
• Workshop expectations 
• Event planning
• Live question bank
• Tops and tips
• Exit ticket
• Online student portfolio 
• Graduation time
• Collect teacher feedback
• QR code Padlet gallery 
• Ask for suggestions or ideas
• Class document hub
• Collect ideas for exploration
• Thinking maps
• Useful for plenaries
• Giving assignments
• White board answers
• Field trip documentation
• Poster presentation
• Environmental pledge
• Research resource gathering
• Class/Club updates
• Collect videos to share in class
• Sub lesson plans
• Interactive story telling
• Image tagging
• Gather response globally

Conclusion

One has to bear in mind a few technical issues regarding use of Padlet tool. Each sticky note is limited to 150 characters.

Also, images heavy on text might not be legible, even in their zoom pop-windows.

If this is the case, viewers can find larger images by either right-clicking the image and saving it to their desktop, or enlarging the zoom view on the computer screen.

Sometimes, the site tends to become tied up and non-responsive because the Padlet fails to load properly.

However, the value of the tool should encourage users to be patient and hope for a more consistent service in future. Padlet is a simple tool, but one that can accentuate the best teaching practices teachers employ on a day- to- day basis. For students, carefully posed questions will allow them to respond in many ways which only helps classroom discussion.

So now it’s your turn! How are you planning to use Padlet? Let us know and contribute your ideas on this Padlet.

Dr. Cherian P. Kurien

Dr. Cherian P. Kurien, the Director, MITLE, Marian College, Kuttikkanam, is an eminent scholar who has made a mark in the field of social welfare education. He was Founder Principal of Yashwantrao Chavan Institute of Social Sciences (Shivaji University), Satara (MS) and Director, Karve Institute (Pune University), Pune. He has extensive experience in Higher Education Accreditation process and has coordinated the accreditation process in three institutions successfully. His experience in developing CSR components in Corporate Organizations, NGO restructuring and conflict management is worthy of special mention.