Two gems: Padlet & Symbaloo

I am enjoying learning about programs that hold value to a teacher.

This week, Padlet is my new friend. It's a site that allows a teacher to create a board and share with students. This allows students to brainstorm or post an answer on the board.

At first, the randomness of posts and the seeming disorganization of the board was a negative/con for me. I didn't like how kids could click anywhere on the board to haphazardly place their post. After watching more tutorial videos on Padlet, I realized the beauty in this.

First, there's a way to click and put all posts into a grid - nicely organized columns and rows. In literally a simple click, the disorganized mess in put into straight rows and columns.

Then, I realized another value of this randomness is that I, the teacher, can take students' input and rearrange into categories that I see fit. For instance, if I used this as an exit ticket, I could sort the answers into an area of correct and an area of incorrect and know how many (and who) needed more support with the concept taught. [A downside I see to this is that other students can see others' answers, so it would be obvious who wasn't on target. A way to alleviate this would be to have the kids anonymously answer. Then, after they're done posting, under settings, click "attribution" and the authors' names appear.]

Here's a video that explains how to set up a padlet and some basic features and uses:


I see usefulness for padlet in these ways:
- brainstorming
- exit tickets
- quick checks for understanding
- KWL learning charts
I'm sure this list could go on and on.

Here's a sample padlet that I used for my advanced chemistry course.

Another tool I discovered this week is called Symbaloo. I created a webmix, a collection of frequently visited websites. Now, each is just a click away - nicely organized onto this one page that I can share with others.

Here's my Symbaloo webmix:

The webmix I created was done relatively quickly, to fulfill a required assignment for my grad school class. My intention is to revisit this and create a resource that I could share with my students, one that would provide organizational sites as well as study/practice sites. The websites can be organized in different webmixes, or I can organize by color within the one webmix. Either way, it puts all the sites together in one place, easy access for my students because it is so easy to share and it makes the websites a single click for the students.

These are just two more ways to increase my effectiveness as a teacher and to use technology to support my teaching methods. Both of these have significant value in my world! You should give them a try. Let me know how that goes!