After
recently attending the Science and Maths Specialist Conference
at the University of Huddersfield (#Hud13) I have decided to try a
few new IT solutions in the classroom. This week I tried Padlet
(formally called Wallwisher) free at http://padlet.com
(in
this image I have removed the names of learners)
I
tested Padlet on five on my classes (none of who had used it before)
and overall it worked very well. Padlet is a web-based service allowing a number of users to 'write' messages onto a 'wall' simultaneously;
the teacher sets up the wall and the students access it via a
hyperlink. The students can edit their own entries but not those of
their peers, the teacher can amend or delete any entry if logged on.
After
some initial confusion as to what to do and how to post entries and
pictures (which I largely let the learners solve for themselves,
encouraging them to explore and help each other as necessary) they
enthusiastically accepted the concept. Indeed we spent rather longer
on the activity than I had initially planned, they seemed to get a lot out of it.
One
of the five classes had a less mature attitude that the others and
initially some silly messages were posted however after a warning they
soon managed to produce some good work. Minor difficulties notwithstanding, all the groups
quickly took to the concept and managed to do some useful research
for their assignments. Ad-hoc collaboration between learners spontaneously developed
and the finished Padlet walls were downloaded and posted onto the VLE
for future reference.
Padlet
is definitely something I will be using regularly form now on.
Tip:
always log on yourself during the session so you can control the wall
dynamically.
Next
week I will be trialling Google Forms
