Padlet is a digital bulletin board for you and your students. On this digital bulletin board, you and your students can post and save all types of content – videos, images, websites, gifs, and text to name a few. With many schools teaching online or implementing a hybrid program, there are so many useful ways for using Padlet in the classroom.
Follow along below to see how to use Padlet & get started in implementing it in your classroom easily!
Start with Creating an Account
Head over to padlet.com to create your own account! Padlet offers a free account or a Pro account. You should have no problems using the free account. With the free account, you have a limit of only 3 Padlet Boards at once; however, you can always archive or delete a board once it is complete to free up an open space.
Next, Make a Padlet
The Padlet homepage is straight forward which is great for busy teachers. No need to spend a long time getting familiar with this new tool, you’ll be familiar with it right away!
On this homepage, you will see Folders along the side for you to stay organized, along with a few different colored buttons on the top. With these buttons, you can make your own board, join another user’s board, and also check out Padlet Gallery to gather inspiration on the different ways you can use Padlet.
Click Make a Padlet to begin your first board. Next, you can choose a format for displaying the content. With these different options, you can always change up how you and your students are viewing content.
Wall, Grid, and Shelf formats are the best for seeing most content in a structured way.
Then, Format your Padlet
Each Padlet can be customized to fit your needs. Add a title, description, and emoji to make your title stand out.
Every Padlet can be totally different by changing its visual appearance. The wallpaper, color scheme, and font can be changed to suit your subject matter. Choose one of their pre-existing backgrounds, or upload one of your own.
There are also different options for posting on the Padlet. Attribution will display the author’s name above each post. Most of the time, I would keep this on, but sometimes it is nice to leave answers anonymous when discussing new, or heavier topics.
Turn on Commenting and Reactions for the posts to leave feedback on your student’s posts. Students can also comment on their classmates’ posts for a more in-depth discussion. There are plenty of different types of reactions – you can grade posts but assigning the points, or use likes, stars, and votes.
The last customizable option for setting up your Padlet is Content Filtering. Here you can require approval before each post is publicly put on the Padlet. This way you can check over students’ contributions before their other classmates view them. In addition, a great feature of Padlet is that it can automatically filter profanity. This extra measure can be taken just in case, to replace any bad words with nice emojis.
Now, Add a Post to Your Padlet
It is very easy and intuitive to add posts to your Padlet. You can do so in four different ways:
1. Double click
2. Drag from desktop
3. Copy from clipboard
4. Click the plus button located in the bottom right corner
Then you can add your content to the Padlet! You can add various forms of content to the board. Not only can you upload files from your desktop, but you can also snap a photo, embedded a website or video, and even draw on a blank canvas. There are at least 6 other different ways to add content to the Padlet. You and your students will not run out of ways to share ideas through Padlet.
Finally, Share the Padlet With Your Students
Now that you have your Padlet completed, its time to add your students in so that they can begin posting too!
At the top of the screen, there is a toolbar where you can click the share button. Here, there will be different options to share the Padlet with your students. Easily share the link with your students through email or Google Classroom.
On this side menu, you can also export the Padlet in various formats, like CSV and PDF, to save the data and share it with others when it’s completed.
If you need to change any formatting options on your Padlet, just click Modify on the top ribbon!
Different Ways to Use Padlet
Get to Know your Students: Have students submit their photos and some interesting facts about their summer, or what they are most looking forward to in the upcoming year.
Formative Assessments: Turn off Attributions and have students submit anonymous responses for a quick and easy assessment of what they learned in that class.
Group Projects: Student groups can plan by mind-mapping with Padlet, and as they get answers and find more information, they can keep adding to their board.
Group Discussions: Keep a community, even if learning is done online through Padlet. Have a prompt about anything, and students can respond and comment on each other’s posts.
Classroom bulletin board: Make a Class bulletin board for announcements and news. Keep it fun here by posting funny videos, or celebrating the birthdays of those in your class.
Padlet is such a versatile tool, and now you know how to begin using it in your classroom! I would love to hear about all the different ways you are using it in your classroom. Let me know in the comments below & if you have any other questions!
