Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Padlet

In this next installment of “really cool things I got to play with during EdTech” I will talk about Padlet. Essentially, Padlet is an online bulletin board. It lets you organize pictures, links, documents, videos, and nearly any other kind of file you want to post online. Like Google docs, you can invite others to view or edit your boards. You can also customize it in really snazzy ways so bonus point for visual interest.
In the classroom, this means you can have a survey you want your students to do, an article you want them to read, and a video you want them to want without sending them separate link. They can also collaborate and post stuff of their own if you give them the correct permissions. Apparently, my predecessor at my placement used it to organize a ton of lessons. However, this year my placement school is switching to Google Classroom, which serves many of the same purposes. I’m still exploring all of the differences between the two but here’s my current evaluation:
A lot of this comes down to style. For example, Padlet is its own thing. You can upload your own files of almost any kind. Google Classrooms is part of the Google Drive Family which can be good because it links to stuff like Google Sites. That being said, you can easily link a website on your Padlet. Google Classrooms is inherently structured while Padlet can be very relaxed in format.
Realistically, I will probably be using Google Classrooms later in the year to organize the content for my classes. It’s already part of the school system and it’s easily organized and more formal looking. On the other hand, for my own presentation on a tech program you can use in the classroom, in this case Audacity, we chose to use Padlet to make a group project. Why? Really, because it’s cooler. You can drag and drop even audio files and you can arrange the files in basically any order you want. It just feels more like a fun project than a formal school assignment.


3 comments:

  1. Liz, I liked how you compared Padlet with Google Classrooms. I do not know anything about Google Classrooms except for what you have mentioned here, but it seems like a great tool, especially since it is linked to Google Drive. Connecting different applications is always helpful! I noticed that several of the groups in our technology class have used Padlet for their own presentations, which illustrates to me how much people seem to like it. I know that I would definitely use it for organization and presentations. I think students will also really enjoy Padlet because it is so interactive and can be organized according to their own styles. Having this interactive component where the students can explore on their own is important, in my opinion.

    I know you said for your placement you will probably use Google Classrooms, which is understandable. When you get your own classroom in the future, do you think you will lean more towards Padlet, Google Classrooms, or something else?

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    1. Google Classroom still. It connects to everything and I'm more used to it.

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  2. Yeah, I remember feeling like padlet was a lot like google classroom as well, albeit I think it looks a lot better and I think it has a nicer feel to it. However, since my school doesn't use any real type of online organizer besides a little bit of Edmodo, I think that I want to try a bunch of different things over the winter break in order to tinker around with different sites and see what might fit best for my students. I definitely understand the want to stay with google service because it is what we are all used to, and hopefully they continue to innovate or else the competition will become the new leader. I think the biggest thing that you talked about was the ability to collaborate among the students and you can see everything that is going on.

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