My Take
Padlet is a great collaboration tool with a finished display that is appealing to the visual learner. I like the feature where students can comment on post uploaded by their classmates and give a star, upvote or like post in support of what was said. There is also the ability to add animations or images to the screen to stimulate greater interaction with the content.
A drawback of padlet that I discovered, is that some students use the opportunity to post items/pictures that are not related to the discussion, which takes a long time on the teacher's end to manually delete. There is currently a profanity filter, but it would be very effective if there was an additional feature where the teacher approves the comment before it is posted.
How I Use It
I use padlet as a bell ringer or in a main activity to spark discussion or collaboration on assigned task among students. It worked very well in engaging students to share their opinion and feedback in a different way, other than verbally expressing themselves. This therefore gives the shy and more reserved student a chance to effectively participate in class discussions.