A few weeks ago when we were introduced to Pinterest as a class tool, it got me thinking about the possibilities of what a collection of educational resources could look like. In trying to leverage Pinterest as a tool to help me catalog resources, I did not find my results to be as I had envisioned. It wasn't as visually appealing as I had wished and the process felt more involved than I had anticipated. For me to really achieve what I had set out to do, I think I would need to really set out on a social media plan involving accompanying blog posts where more meat and context would be included. It is an idea I will keep on the back burner as I think there is merit, but not now.
Enter week seven.
Padlet was a tool that I was introduced to while facilitating a training weekend in my last position. My co-facilitator and I broke our trainees up into small groups and assigned them with the task of creating a presentation by the end of the training weekend. One group utilized Padlet in their presentation and it blew us all away. Given the short turn-around time, we were not expecting something that looked as polished and complete as what that group presented. My co-facilitator and I took note of the tool as something to look into for future training weekends and facilitated events.
While I never got the chance to implement the platform in any official use, I did play around for awhile before putting it back on the shelf in my mind where a lot of dust gathered. I was excited to be reintroduced to Padlet this week.
While there are undoubtedly a plethora of uses for Padlet, I find it to be a wonderful library for resources I come across. It is visually appealing, simple to create and can host links, videos, and plain text in a way that is searchable. There is space to annotate and decipher themes and ideas from outside sources.
I am going to try and keep the Padlet tab open as a reminder to save content that I find interesting or of potential use later on. Perhaps I will eventually embed the board into my blog, as this is a sharing feature of the site alongside QR codes and Google Classroom extensions.
Love that idea for Padlet. I've been experimenting with it also. I think I'm going to embed one that utilizes the stream feature to my class website. I like that kids could post anonymously (which is sometimes an easier way to ask a question) but I would be able to review it before it appears on the site.
ReplyDeleteThe ability for anonymous posting was one of the main reasons my training group chose this platform! I agree that is a great bonus to encourage learners to engage and ask questions without feeling embarrassed.
DeleteThis is the first I am really hearing about Padlet aside from seeing it mentioned in my educator Facebook groups. Definitely sounds like something I could get into-- i do love Pinterest so if its similar, I am going to need to explore it a bit more!
ReplyDeleteI really think Pinterest has the edge as a user for re-pinning content from others on the site, but I think Padlet would be a great alternative for a class resource list or something of that nature! I like that the 'blurbs' come before the linked resource to provide context to learners prior to them clicking on it.
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