Paying for Padlet - Oh no!

Sharing language and ideas for writing across the classroom is a valuable classroom activity.  It may be when thinking of specific sentence structures; ideas for narrative content or new vocabulary. 

I often use Post-it notes and add these to my working walls but these are temporary and can not always be easily accessed by all pupils especially if there are groups working in different areas. 

In schools that have mobile devices, iPads, other tablets or laptops, I have been using www.padlet.com to allow children to share their ideas online. This can be accessed in different areas around the school, at home and it can be recalled when common learning is taking place. 

Examples below show that padlets can include text, image and video.  They look fantastic and this collaborative learning can be sent directly to a class blog and social media streams. A great way of sharing ideas with parents. 

Unfortunately, Padlet have decided to start charging for the service.  $99 USD for a class teacher or $1499USD for a whole school account. 

In this climate of ever decreasing budgets, Padlet may have just become prohibitively expensive for many teachers and schools. 

One alternative that I have been experimenting with is Lino. (click to visit the website) 

Lino is free to sign up to and works under the same premise as Padlet.  Any one with the web address of a 'lino board' can post 'stickies' onto the page. 

You can see from the examples below that children can share their ideas in a similar way to padlet.  Students can add their names to their posts, they can choose the colour of their sticky and add images and films. 

OVERALL:  Lino does not look as good as padlet and it lacks some of the more advanced features such as profanity filter and QR code access etc but it does the basic job of sharing, storing, displaying and accessing collaborative work very well.  

Similes to describe the beach

Thinking about words that can be used instead of 'said'.

Reviewing books from the class library.