Padlet for Informal Assessment and Class Discussions

Note: This is an update on the post "Pinterest in the Classroom."

Informal assessment is such a wonderful tool because it's quick and gives me an immediate fix on what my students are thinking, learning, and understanding. A show of hands is nice, but it's hard to remember who knows what and exit slips create a mountain of paper. In my opinion, the best informal assessment is open ended; requires the student to analyze, apply, evaluate or create; and leaves a lasting record that can be easily accessed for diagnostic purposes.

Enter Padlet (formerly known as WallWisher), this web-based bulletin board fills all my standards for a great informal assessment platform, it works well on computers and tablets, and it has some great options.

Setting up a Padlet is easy. You go to Padlet, sign-up, or log in using your Google account (and at this point, every teacher should have a Google account). There are some tutorial videos available, but they're not really necessary. The symbol-based buttons are pretty intuitive. Press "+" button to create a new Padlet wall. Give it a name and in the "description" box explain what you want your students to do.

The "settings" are accessed through a little gear shaped button, and it's the settings where Padlet really sets itself apart. Not only does it have the usual collection of options, like custom backgrounds and "share" options. There are thre settings that I really like: 1) An option to moderate the Padlet and approve all posts; 2) An option to put posts into a nice neat column or put it it wherever you want; 3) The ability to set the password for your Padlet. My Padlets always have passwords and they're usually vocabulary words, characters or other single word answers relevant to the topic. This provides its own source of assessment, and more importantly, helps to ensure students have at least some requisite knowledge on the topic and aren't just trying to rush through it.

Best of luck and please share your successes and challenges here!

Pinterest in the Classroom?

My first experience with Pinterest was several months ago, but I was immediately impressed with the site's ability to share ideas quickly and across large groups of people. Regardless of the educational setting, that is valuable. Whether you're trying to organize a multi-disciplinary unit with your colleagues, or trying to pique students' interest by presenting them visually intriguing topics, I think there is a place for Pinterest, or something like it in the classroom.

As with many of my other posts, I am instantly drawn to anything that is free and doesn't require my students to sign-up using their e-mail. While Pinterest is wonderful, the need to put my students through a sign-up process and the questionable educational value of a triple-chocolate-cheesecake makes Pinterest unsuitable for school use. However, there is still hope...

Meet Wallwisher, which is another digital bulletin board, but with several features that make it better suited to a school or classroom. Like Pinterest, it allows you to create sticky notes with images and videos, or simply text. What is particularly nice about Wallwisher is that multiple people can create and edit a single board and teachers have the option to moderate, veto and approve additions and changes.

There’s nothing wrong with taking two weeks to research and write an essay about a Civil War topic, but imagine turning kids lose on the Internet with a topic and instructions to create a short, educational sticky-note about their topic. Then, in small groups or as a class, students would organize their ideas next to everyone else’s. So, students could extend their learning and understanding by debating whether a post on Confederate general Robert E. Lee belongs next to Abraham Lincoln or Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Further discussion could focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the various sources and mediums of the sticky notes. Any class could benefit from having an interactive, class-wide method for organizing ideas.

Yesterday I asked my students to summarize a paragraph they had read and one hand went up. When I passed out small slips of paper it turned out that 95% of the students understood the paragraph, but didn’t want to raise their hands. Wellwisher could be used as an audience participation board! Instead of simply answering, “The human body has 206 bones,” students could be encouraged to find a source to support their answer. As far as moving away from text books go, I see this as a great form of informal assessment.

If my team ever reads this they could tell you that I’m not particularly good with e-mail. I know what all the buttons do and understand the functionality of it, but I much prefer to meet face-to-face. When meeting face-to-face doesn’t work, I would like to plan things using Wallwisher. Provide a link to the nature center/speaker/event that would perfectly align with your curriculum. Stay connected with other teachers in your curriculum area. Again, there are an unlimited number of ways that teachers could use this website.


The options and uses are limitless, but the value of a visual, interactive and connected e-bulletin board is tremendous. Best of luck!

If you know of another program, app or website that is better or just different, please share it! Likewise, if you think of some other great way to use Wallwisher, please post below. 

I don't even care if you misuse "your" and "you're," well, I do, but I won't give you a hard time about it.


Image: J_O_I_D. stickynote. Accessed on February 18, 2012. http://www.flickr.com/photos/winning-information/2325865367/