Padlet Tutorial for Teachers + 8 Ways to Use With Students

hello there and welcome back to my channel if you are new here my name is michelle emerson and i'm a fourth grade teacher from maryland in today's video i wanted to give you an overview of how to use padlet which is basically an online digital bulletin board plus i'm going to give you ideas of ways to use it with your students [Music] let's jump right into it in order to access padlet you're just going to go to padlet.com but i will also link it for you down in the description box then you're going to want to click on sign up for free personally whenever i sign up for websites i sign up with google if that's an option because it just makes it easier since it's one less username and password that i'm trying to remember so i'm gonna click on sign up with google and i'm gonna go ahead and select my google account once you have created your account you have the option to create padlets let's go over quickly the free version of padlet versus paying the monthly fee i personally have only ever used the free version i have never upgraded the only diff well maybe not the only difference but the main difference is the free version limits you to three padlets at a time but personally i just delete padlets when i'm done with them and create new ones so i never really need more than three at a time so for the sake of this video i'm just going to be going through the free version of padlet now in order to create a padlet i'm just going to click on make a padlet and you will notice i have eight different options i'm actually gonna go through each option with you and give you an idea of how you could use this with your students so let's start with just the wall the wall is going to create this brick like layout meaning if one post is longer than over on the side it might fill with two shorter posts and they're going to piece together like bricks so rather than being in strict columns and rows they're going to kind of piece together based on size so in order to create a wall i'm just going to click select and it's going to automatically choose a background to give my padlet a title but i can go in and edit any of that now one way i really like to use the wall padlets is by doing something i call peach and pit with my class so peach is something good and pit is something not so good typically on monday mornings i will share a peach and pit padlet with my students and i will have them share something good from their weekend and something not so good so let's go ahead and make a peach pit padlet i'm going to title it peach and pit i can give a description if i want so i might tell students create a post to share one peach good thing from your weekend and one pit not so good thing okay then i have the option to select an icon which is basically an emoji i'm gonna go ahead and find the peach icon so i can go to the food section and there's the peach all right that looks good you also can add your own but for time's sake i typically just choose an emoji i'm going to click the back arrow in order to go back the next option is to be able to personalize the url you can do that if you want but i already mentioned that i typically make a padlet and then delete it and make a new one and delete it so i don't really bother with customizing the url i'm just going to leave the one that is already there next is the appearance section so i can change the background now i have the option to use solid colors so since i'm doing peach and pit i might try to find kind of a peachy color like maybe that looks pretty good you also have different gradients textures and patterns pictures or you can add your own so you can customize this as much as you want now i'm going to go back you can choose a light or dark color scheme i usually just choose the light one you also can choose the font but again i typically just keep it as the first one for time's sake now you have some posting settings so you have the option to display the author name above each post personally i don't ever worry about that because i just share the link with my students and so they're not logged into padlet and it's not going to show their name anyway it's just going to show as anonymous but if you have your students actually i guess create padlet accounts honestly i'm not really sure what exactly they have to do but you can have it display the author name or you can just have it off and then have your students list their name which is what i have my students do you can choose the post position so if you want new posts to appear first or last i typically have new posts appear first you also can allow other people to comment on the posts i typically keep the comments off just because you never really know what your students might comment but i do allow them to like the posts you also can have them vote on them star them or grade them but i usually like the like option so i'm gonna go back you also can choose to have to approve any posts before they go on so if you're worried what your students might put on there you probably would want to have that turned on i had that turned on at the beginning when i was using padlets with my students but since then i've been able to have that option off and i've never had a problem you also can have it filter profanity but hopefully that shouldn't be an issue but depending on the grade level you know that might be an issue for you so i'm going to go ahead and hit next and it says i'm already i can start posting so in order for you or students to make a post they're going to click on the plus sign down in the bottom corner typically i have my students put their name as the title so i'm going to put mrs emerson and i always like to make a post first on the padlet as an example for my students it kind of models for them how i want them to structure their post so i might put peach i watched my favorite show on netflix and maybe my pit is that it rained all weekend so i couldn't go outside now those are the basic like text posts but students also have the option to upload pictures link to things search on google snap images capture video audio screen drawing like there's so many different options so you can give students you know guidance and say i want you only to use text and pictures or i want you to record a video that's totally up to you i do really like the draw option though because it's a great way to differentiate so students can actually draw right on their screen hit save and then it will post that as a post which is really nice because it just gives them a little bit more flexibility that's looking pretty good i am going to go ahead and just leave that there you can see here is how students will like each other so they can click on the little heart i would then share this padlet out with my students to start adding their own in order to do that i'm going to come up to share and then this is where i can adjust the settings as needed so i typically keep it secret that means only people who get the link are going to be able to access it people aren't going to be able to search and find it and i want visitors to be able to write so this is kind of like with google where you have view settings or edit settings in order for my students to actually edit the padlet and add their own posts i need to make sure that they have the right setting but if i need to change that i can do so here so if i want to make it completely private i can um if i want to make it public i can and then i also have the option to give viewers read access write access or edit access so i always choose the right access that way my students can't delete the padlet or make any of those like settings that i have edited they can only make posts so i'm going to leave that there go ahead and hit back now i have the options for actually sharing it typically i just copy the link by clicking copy link to clipboard and i paste it in the chat on google meet you also have the option to share on google classroom but typically for me that takes a little bit longer so i would rather just copy the link and drop it directly in the chat but you have different options here based on how you want to actually share with your students and at the end because i mentioned i will oftentimes delete these padlets if you want to keep a record of the padlet you can actually save it as an image or a pdf and then you can always bring it back up and still be able to view it but you still have the ability to make more padlets because you've deleted the actual padlet hopefully that makes sense so that's the first one that is the wall option and like i mentioned i really like to use that for peach and pit now since this is a padlet i typically reuse every week once i am done using it for that week and my students have all added their posts and we've gone over them i typically come up to the three dots and then i will go ahead and clear all posts and it's gonna ask me if i'm sure i'm gonna hit clear and then that's going to keep all of the same settings it's just going to erase all of the posts so that's an easy way to reuse a padlet if you're going to use it again and again and again so let's move on to the next one i'm going to click back on padlet to take me back you can see this padlet is now here if i am done with it i can archive it or delete it so archive it is like it's going to take it off my main screen but i still have access and delete it is going to get rid of it all together i'm going to go ahead and delete this padlet it's going to ask me to type in this code just to verify click delete and now it's gone i'm gonna click on make a padlet again and the next option is canvas so canvas is gonna allow you to move the posts around and make connections between posts i really like to do this for things like brainstorming or if i'm gonna have my students complete some type of like a number talk so i'm gonna show you what that would look like i'm gonna go ahead and hit select and again it gives it a random title and background i'm going to name this target number so this is something that i do with my students in order to practice like number fluency and for the description i might say create the number 525 as many ways as possible once again i can edit the icon and all that i'm going to skip over that for now since i've already shown it to you but i am going to change my background maybe i'm going to choose like a cork that looks pretty good okay so i'm gonna go ahead and hit next and start posting i might go ahead and make a post with the number so 525 and i might put that like in the center of the screen as my students add different ways to make that number so different equations or representations i can then move them around on the screen and start making connections so let's go ahead and put some on as an example i might have a student who puts 500 plus 25 i might have a student who puts 550 minus 25 i might have a student who maybe draws it with base 10 blog so i'll get a draw and maybe they do 500 okay this is super sloppy but we're just gonna go with it uh three four five two tens and one two three four five ones save okay maybe i have another addition equation so maybe 200 plus 300 plus 25 okay you get the point so now i have some of these different ones on here as i have a discussion with the class we might start moving them around and grouping them so we might put both of the addition ones together and then we might put the subtraction ones together and then we might put the representation with base 10 blocks over here then as we start making these connections if i click on the three dots and choose connect to a post i can click on another post to connect it so now even as i move this one apart it's going to connect them together and have that arrow so it allows you to start making connections as students are brainstorming or solving a problem like this so i really like this option for students to be able to see connections between their thinking i'm gonna go back to padlet once again i'm going to delete this one type in the code and hit delete so let's click make a padlet again the next option is a stream so a stream is going to look almost like a facebook page or an instagram feed it's going to have the post just listed one after another after another so a really fun way to use this would be having students create an instagram account or a facebook account for a character from a book for example let's say students were reading matilda i don't know the first book that came to mind so matilda and we'll just go ahead and take that out for the wallpaper um let's see if we're making a facebook facebook is like that blue color i might choose a blue so it kind of looks like facebook i'm gonna go back i'm gonna go ahead and keep the settings now as i add the posts maybe they're going to have i could even structure like a journal so maybe this is going to be sunday november 8th and then they could type in that post or that journal entry for that character so i'm just going to put type text here they could add an image if they want but when i add another post it's going to now have it on top in the settings you can change whether you want new posts to go underneath or on top i had it set for the top once again type text here they might add in images so i might search um library because matilda does a lot of reading so maybe she posts something about the library it's going to insert that or not or not okay let's try that one again we're going to go to edit i'm going to take out that picture let's pick a different library post let's try this one there we go so again these posts are just gonna stack on top of each other and this is a great way for students to show their understanding in a variety of ways because they can add drawings videos pictures text and so on you could do this not only with a character from a book but you could do it on a scientist you're learning about or maybe a historical figure that you're learning about there are a lot of different options for using this with your students i'm gonna go back to padlet and i'm gonna go ahead and delete it okay i'm going to make a new padlet and this time i'm going to select the grid so the grid is very similar to the wall except instead of having that brick like format the grid is going to keep everything in rows so the first row is gonna have the first four or five posts even if they're really long the next row is gonna start under the longest post so there will be a little bit more empty space in this one they're not going to all fit together like bricks but it might be a little bit easier to keep track of the pose by having them in clear rows personally i really like to use this for different friday prompts that i give my students so for example famous friday and maybe for the icon i pick a camera find like a picture yeah something like that and then for the wallpaper maybe i choose a picture i think there's one down here it's called like paparazzi you all can tell i use this a lot the fact that i have the names memorized hold on yep there it is so it kind of looks like almost like pictures i don't know like a flash um and then in the description i would tell students if you could meet any celebrity historical figure or other famous person who would you meet and why so i'm just gonna show you what this looks like as you start creating the post so let's say this is student one i would meet oprah okay let's say student two i would meet the rock i don't know i'm just adding random ones in there uh student three i'm going to just type some random things so that you can see that it's longer let's go ahead and do another one i would meet a youtuber i don't know i'm just picking random things and then now you'll notice this post has gone underneath so let me go ahead and add student five and oops let's say they type random stuff okay if i go back and edit this post and i make it even longer you'll notice that the one underneath just keeps moving down so it keeps everything in nice clean rows and it's just a little bit easier to be able to keep track of so for this i love to give my students like i said prompts on friday where they just respond to some kind of question that i give them and i love for them to be able to read each other's responses and it helps to build that classroom community so i really like to use this format for my friday posts okay we're gonna go back to padlet and we're going to delete it once again okay we're going to make a new one and this time we're going to choose shelf so shelf is going to automatically create columns and it's going to allow you to kind of categorize the posts into the columns i actually like to use this in real time with my students by creating a column for each different question that i'm going to ask them so maybe this is going to be book reflection and let's say my students have read a book and they are going to be answering different questions in order to reflect on the book so i can name the first column with the actual question so i don't know i'm making this up who was your favorite character and why so now when students add their responses they're going to add it underneath of this column so maybe student one i liked blah blah blah because and then student two is gonna add their response i liked yada yada and so on and so forth so they're just adding them all under that one column when i'm ready to ask them the next question i can add a column and i can ask them a new question and have them respond there so maybe my next question is if you could change the ending of the story would you change it or not why i don't know save and again they'll be able to respond to that question so this is a great way to be able to have students engage one question at a time and you can use this for any subject area we're gonna go ahead back to padlet again and we're gonna delete this one so we can make a new one again you can have up to three i'm just deleting them as i go the next one is back channel so back channel is almost like a chat format so maybe this is going to be math questions we all know that we have those students who sometimes don't want to ask questions during class but they're more likely to ask questions if it's anonymous and they don't have to ask in front of the entire group so i might say if you have any questions about this math unit post them here and i'm going to post it notice mine is on the right hand side because i the creator of the padlet have posted any students who post a question it's going to show up on the other side but it's going to show up as anonymous so no one's going to know who asked the question so this might be a continuous padlet that i have throughout the marking period so anytime students have questions they can post them on here this might be a padlet that i actually share out on google classroom and that way students constantly have access to it but rather than asking their question on google classroom where everyone can see who asked it they can ask it on here where it's more anonymous and their classmates aren't going to know who's asking that was pretty basic i'm going to go back and since we're toward the end of making our palettes i'm going to just leave that one there i am going to make a new one and this time i'm going to choose map i really like to use this map format when i'm trying to discuss places during social studies so i'm going to go ahead and just close i'm not going to worry about renaming it um actually i want to go in and show you hold on one second i want to show you the different map styles so there are some that are more like realistic like the usual or if you want it in black and white you can choose silver you can choose the dark one but there also are ones that look different based on what you're using it for so typically i just use the usual but what i really like is you have the ability to mark different locations on the map so we've been working on explorers and talking about explorers and i've realized my students don't have a good sense of geography so as we discuss where the explorers left from i can mark those places on the map and show them so if i click on the plus sign it will allow me to actually search for a place and i can be very specific with an actual address or i can put in the name of like a state or country so i might put spain and it's going to go ahead and mark spain if i zoom out gotta zoom out a lot because it went all the way in there we go so it's got spain marked then maybe if i want to mark oh well this explorer landed in the bahamas i can then add one for bahamas and it helps my students to really be able to see where these things are taking place so anything that you're doing like geography wise highly recommend using the map in real time you can mark those locations and your students have a better idea of where things are taking place and you can add in like files so you could add in like a pdf of an article maybe or you can add in a link to a website or you can add in an image and you can make your map like highly interactive and it can be something that students can look back on throughout the unit okay we have one more to go through i'm gonna click back on padlet and this time we're gonna create a timeline so i'm gonna select this i'm gonna just close out of that you will notice the timeline is down at the bottom when i click on post it's going to go ahead and mark it on the timeline so this is great for marking events in a story so maybe in sequential order you want to mark what has happened in the story or again if you're discussing these like historical events you can actually create a timeline so students have a better visual representation of what's happening so this might be like first and then students can type what happened in the story so this happened in the story okay if i want to create a new post i can choose to add before or after that post so maybe i want to add after so next this happened in the story and so on and so forth so now i can add an event in the middle of those before that one or before the first one so this can even be something as you're reading a book you can put events on there and then if a book has like a flashback you can add that event prior to where you had added the first one so it's very versatile and allows you to really manipulate it as you go it's not like you have to start with the first event or have to start with the last event you can really change it and your padlet can evolve as the assignment evolves so that is it again that's just your basic overview of using padlet i showed you the main features that i use there are definitely other features and other ways to use it i just wanted to kind of spark some ideas within you all and hopefully inspire you to be able to use this with your students i would love to hear from you down in the comments how are you using padlet with your students how are you adapting it to be used in different subject areas i would love for us all to help each other because goodness knows we all need some help right about now if you haven't already please give the video a thumbs up and share it out with your teacher friends hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any future videos and the notification bell and as always thank you for watching i love you all so much don't forget to put your positive pants on and i will catch you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Pocketful of Primary

Views: 155,416

Rating: 4.9596314 out of 5

Keywords: teacher, classroom, vlog, 4th grade, pocketful of primary, tips for new teachers, tips for teachers, new teacher tips, teacher tips, classroom vlog, vlogger, teacher vlog, teacher vlogger, a day in the life of a teacher, a week in the life of a teacher, online teaching, virtual teaching, distance teaching, online learning, virtual learning, distance learning, michelle ferre, padlet, tutorial, padlet tutorial, ways to use padlet, how to use padlet

Id: x9IQVofS43I

Length: 24min 55sec (1495 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2020