A new collaboration tool for you

I happened upon a neat tech tool at a recent librarian conference—one I think you’ll really like. It’s called Padlet.com, and the company’s tagline couldn’t be more accurate: “possibly the easiest way to create and collaborate in the world.” 
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Padlet is an electronic bulletin board, or wall, where you and your students can post comments, questions, photos, videos, documents, websites, and more. It’s free, and your students don’t need to register an account. It’s a perfect tool for an opening or closing to a lesson.
We recently used it at a Lakes faculty meeting to share examples of how our School Improvement Plan “Live. Learn. Lead.” takes shape in our building. More than 70 posts filled the board. It looked like this:

You can embed your padlet, export it, or share it on social media. You can change the wallpaper and layout. You can make a unique url, and you can change the privacy settings.
A word of caution: Padlet’s newness is part of what makes it so neat, so like any tech tool, I’d suggest using it sparingly to avoid burnout among you and your students.
If you have a tech tip to share, please contact Barb Mason (barbara.mason@chsd117.org) or me (kellie.doyle@chsd117.org), and we’re happy to include it as a blog post in the future.