Recently I experimented with a new, free tool in my face-to-face session for a STAT 100 course. Padlet is a free tool that basically serves like an online chalkboard where all members of the class can contribute simultaneously. In the past, I’ve used Google Docs and Google Drawings to do something similar, however Padlet is much easier to set up. With one click of the mouse, the “wall” is set up and everyone can start collaborating once they have the link. The wall can be set to private, password protected, hidden link, or totally public. The site does not require users to sign up or login to use it. There is an option to create an account to have a few more features like notifications.
I shared the link, with my students and within less than a minute everyone was contributing. I set up the wall with three categories at the top (mean, median, mode) and assigned the students to a category that I already had set up. Double clicking on the wall allows users to add text, links (including links to videos), files, and webcam photos. Previews of the links, files and videos will appear and will expand when clicked on. The activity was similar to a web quest where they had to use online resources to compile information. The goal was determine when to use each measure of center to represent the “average” of a distribution. After the students compiled their findings on the wall, we had a discussion about each category. Saving the wall is very easy and there are a variety of options. The wall can be exported as a PDF, an image, Excel or CSV file. For my students to view the wall after the class I pasted the embed code on a page in ANGEL. The embedded site has the same functionality as the original.
A Padlet wall could be set up for individual class activities, like my example, or for ongoing projects or discussions throughout the semester. Overall, Padlet is a great free online tool that could be used for various activities in and out of the physical classroom.
Visit Padlet: Paper for the Web and get started.
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