Padlet is a virtual wall that students can use to express their thoughts on a predefined topic. Students can literally 'pin' any content on the wall, such as images, videos, documents, text, etc. What is more, the wall can easily be shared among members of a closed group and it can be accessed from a computer, tablet or mobile phone.
The tool can be used for personal note taking, to-do lists, invitations, announcements, feedback, anything that might need input from a lot of people. It is a simple wall and content is posted on it by a simple drag-and-drop or copy-paste. The fact that everything is saved automatically makes it reliable as you will not have to remember to save stuff. The lay-out is simple, pre-defined options are available, content is embeddable, i.e. the wall can be included in a blog, wiki or other type of external online/ offline place. In one word, it is software you already know how to use.
Furthermore, you can see everyone's activity on the wall instantly which means no reload is needed. The wall can be shared among members of a closed group and changes can be controlled by allowing changes or restricting access to viewing only. In other words, if you want to, you can make a public wall for the whole world to see, or you can hide it from everyone.
Now, since any type of multimedia can be put on a Padlet wall, this tool may easily be transformed into a tool for education purposes. I see great value in using it for peer-assessment of written assignments.
Here is an Example Padlet. The purpose of the wall is to introduce peer-assessment of homework essays written as a follow-up to a lesson on writing closing arguments. The idea is based on a rather simple task explained in the description of the wall:
Instruction:
Here is an Example Padlet. The purpose of the wall is to introduce peer-assessment of homework essays written as a follow-up to a lesson on writing closing arguments. The idea is based on a rather simple task explained in the description of the wall:
Instruction:
1. Put your own essay on the wall.
2. Choose one essay written by another student from your class.
3. Tell people about your choice by putting up a note on the Padlet below the respective essay.
4. Download the rubrics assessment sheet posted for you in the upper left corner.
5. Download your peer's essay.
6. Use the track changes option and correct your peer's essay to the best of your knowledge.
7. Evaluate your peer's essay according to the assessment sheet and type the score for each of the defined criteria below the essay..
8. Post the document with your peer's essay (fully checked and corrected with the score for both criteria mentioned) below the respective essay on the wall.
Due to privacy reasons, I have left only one sample essay on the wall. Yet, I think the concept is obvious. Another fact worth mentioning is that in order for the students to see the corrected essay with all the tracked changes, they will have to download it as the viewer does not identify text other than the one originally put into the document.
As it turned out, the assessment based on the scores was more or less objective in most essays. However, due to poor language competence of some of the students, the correction part was not properly completed. Yet, the aim of having them evaluate written assignments based on clearly defined criteria was achieved.
