padlet - Educational Technology at Langara College

Have you worked within a discussion board and wished it was more engaging? Hoped for a platform that had a visually appealing user experience? Have you longed for an intuitive space that allowed intuitive posting across all devices? Padlet may be the tool you are looking for.

Padlet is a digital notice board that allows users to post media, documents and links and collaborate with a “wall” based environment. An online platform that describes itself as “somewhere between a doc and a full-fledged website builder”, Padlet allows open dialogue from all users, instructors or students.

The interactive nature of Padlet is generally described as easy to use and engaging. Users can collaborate on real-time, shared boards by adding and editing posts. Users can add rich multimedia, such as images, links, and documents. Posts can be arranged in various formats to best suit the content, including whiteboards, grids, timelines, and maps. Padlet offers a range of interactive features such as anonymous contributions, comments, and reactions.

An example of how a Padlet wall can be organized.

Padlet is a highly versatile tool, limited only by our imagination. Some of the benefits of using Padlet to improve student engagement include:

Allows brainstorming and live question bank.
Ease of collaboration and organization.
Create a gallery of student work.
Get feedback from students with exit tickets.
Anonymous posting allows for inclusive participation and can empower students to share ideas.
Makes learning visible to the instructor and the students.
Allows the instructor to adjust their level of instruction to fit with students’ current level of learning.
Responses remain on the Padlet board for future reference while being shared in real-time with the whole class.
The Padlet walls can be embedded into the Langara learning management system (Brightspace).

Screenshot of a Padlet wall embedded within a Brightspace course.

Padlet can be used to:

Assess
Collaborate
Communicate
Create
Engage
Reflect

We will explore specific features of Padlet in future posts. If you are interested in triallingPadlet, please email EdTech to request a license. Afterwards, visit the Langara Padlet login page to login with your Langara account. This tool is centrally supported by Langara EdTech, and detailed help is available on our EdTech website or through the Padlet Help website.

Primary photograph by Keira Burton from Pexels used under Pexels License.

References and Additional Reading

Edwards, L. (2020, October 19). What is Padlet and how does it work for education? Retrieved January 11, 2022, from Tech Teaching website.

Meyer, K. A. (2014). Student engagement in online learning: What works and why. In Student Engagement Online: What Works and Why (pp. 1–14). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI link.

Norman, M. (2017). Synchronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students. Faculty Focus. Faculty Focus website.

Padlet Features. (n.d.). Retrieved January 1, 2022, from https://padlet.com/features.

Simon, E. (2018). 10 Tips for Effective Online Discussions. EDUCAUSE Review. EduCause website.

Stake, J. (2021, January 22). Padlet For teachers: The best tips, tricks, and ideas for your classroom. We Are Teachers. We Are Teachers website.

Wondering how to keep your online students engaged? EdTech Advisor and former Chair of Library Tech, Diane Thompson, suggests Padlet, a tool that facilitates interactive and collaborative creativity.

Using Padlet to Enhance Online Group work

The challenge of maintaining teaching continuity in the era of COVID, which has forced the rapid switch from classroom to online activities, requires creativity. Fear not: familiar ways of engaging our students can be modified for online use.

Collaborative work in the classroom is relatively straightforward. Students can be divided into groups and active learning techniques can be employed to explore relevant course topics. In an online course, this is a bit more challenging as students may be in other time zones, or have different schedules.

The goal of technology is to solve a problem. One technology tool that may prove to be very effective in the context of online group work is Padlet. This visual tool allows your students to express their thoughts on a given topic or assignment. Its application allows users to include various content, such as images, videos, documents, and texts in real time communications. In my experience, the collaborative nature of Padlet makes for a great way to explore ideas as a class or in small group projects. Padlet allows for a number of different templates, including a timeline template, grid or map.

Here is an example from an English class where everyone contributed to literary quotes.

Here’s another example from Jessie Smith’s Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) assignment. She used Padlet to explore specific topics for her Latin American Studies course in connection with her partner and class in Argentina.

The last Padlet example demonstrated is from my own course (LIBR 1219) where students collaborate to come up with engaging questions to ask their tour guides when visiting various libraries in our community as part of their field work / practicum course. Students are asked to form groups and come up with categories. Once categories are established, they must then work together to come up with questions pertaining to the workplace. This is all done online.

Overall, Padlet is very easy to use. All you need to do is sign up at padlet.com and start creating. Security levels can be adjusted so that you can share your Padlets publicly or keep them password- protected. Sharing the link to your class is simple and, from your students’ perspective, editing is also straightforward once you have selected the template and explained how to complete the assignment.

The basic version of the programme will allow you to have up to three Padlets, whereas if you choose to sign up for the Pro version (not free), you can have multiple Padlets going at once.

If you have stories to share about how you are using Padlet, I would love to hear them.