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A Great Resource for Collaboration and Discussions
Community Review for Padlet
My Take
When viewing Padlet through the lens of SAMR, it typically falls under Substitution and Augmentation. Padlet can be used to substitute regular class discussions and group work. Students can post their comments and thoughts, which is not something you can do in a traditional environment. Padlet is very easy to use. You can type up your thoughts the same way you'd type on a Google Doc. You can highlight, bold and italicize words along with adding your own pictures to the website. I like that you can design Padlets for the classroom so that they're visually interesting for students. The only issue with Padlet is that it can get cluttered. If you teach bigger classes, there's going to be a lot of posts cluttered on screen. For example, if you have a class of 30 students and each student is expected to comment on one person's post, there will be a jumble of posts on screen. This could be overwhelming to read for both the students and the teacher, so this is something you should watch out for. Padlet works well for smaller classes but can get overwhelming when teaching large classes. Padlet is a great way to integrate beginner-level technology in the classroom if you're unsure about using more complicated tools. This tool in particular is a good way for students to post their independent thoughts and then come together to discuss the content being taught by their instructor.
How I Use It
For our literature class, students were instructed to write in-depth analysis of the current book we were reading. If students were expected to read chapters 1-3 of a book by Wednesday, they were also instructed to write about their thoughts, questions and ideas in Padlet. Students had to post their analysis before the start of class if they wanted credit. This allows students to refer back to their posts when we have group discussions about literature. It also encourages students who are more shy/unsure of their thoughts to participate! Students were required to cite directly from the book so we could refer to certain sections during class. This platform is also good way for students to collaborate on group work. Students can post their notes and ideas on Padlet so it can be easily accessed by their peers. They can engage in each other's posts and comment on other students' ideas as a class, so this is a great resource for collaboration.