A couple of weeks ago, I decided to use the site Padlet in my classroom as a means of discussion. I had learned about the program in one of my grad classes, and I love trying new technologies with my students. We were discussing the Dewey Decimal System. I had my students examining particular shelves in the Library, and then they were to log onto the computer, go to the assigned Padlet site, and answer the discussion questions. Every class, students were excited to get on the computers. A lot of my students thought the site was neat, too.
I watched as my students eagerly clicked around the board to begin typing their questions. They were actually discussing the questions before they began to type. As I walked around monitoring, I saw students typing ferociously on their keyboards. They were actually engaged...and with the Dewey Decimal System...this was great. This is where the assignment went south, though.
When they were finished typing, students just clicked off of their text boxes and were to go to the next question. This worked, with some of the students. All of a sudden, I began getting upset hands in the air..."Mrs. Long, everything I typed disappeared", "Mrs. Long, my work isn't there", "Mrs. Long, what did I do wrong?" I kept checking, and some of the students clicked off and their work was there and saved, exactly like Padlet is supposed to work, but there were several students whose work was gone.
I logged on to my Padlet account, hoping maybe everything would show up on my screen. No luck. Not wanting to give up, I still did the activity with all of my classes, but the same thing kept happening...some would save and some would not. My students were discouraged because the work they did was gone. I was frustrated because I was so excited at how the lesson had been going.
To this day, I have not used Padlet again, and I still have never been able to figure out why this happened.
I have actually used it often this year to do backchanneling during critical media analysis exercises. However, I did have the students first create their own individual padlet accounts. They would then respond to a padlet embedded in Schoology. We didn't lose any work, and having the padlets embedded in the LMS helped them find it quickly. We're at the point now where they can embed their own individual padlets for people to comment on what they are presenting while they are up at the front of the room showing a presentation.
ReplyDeleteI have actually used it often this year to do backchanneling during critical media analysis exercises. However, I did have the students first create their own individual padlet accounts. They would then respond to a padlet embedded in Schoology. We didn't lose any work, and having the padlets embedded in the LMS helped them find it quickly. We're at the point now where they can embed their own individual padlets for people to comment on what they are presenting while they are up at the front of the room showing a presentation.
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ReplyDeleteI understand your frustration with Padlet while trying to encourage your students to learn about the Dewey Decimal System! Technology problems are real issues we have to face. You seemed to be excited about the new "ethos stuff" that Lankshear and Knobel talk about on pg. 289, refering to the "intensely 'participatory,' 'collaborative,' and 'distributed' nature of many current and emerging practices" among our students, and you noticed how they fell right into those practices while using Padlet, which is a website that encourages those kinds of things.
"The tool user and the tool 'each have knowledge that must be integrated together' if a purpose is to be achieved." Lankshear, p. 329. The trouble the students had getting their ideas to stick to the padlet shows how difficult it can be to achieve a purpose when the tools and the tool user aren't able to sustain connection.
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