Thursday, November 19, 2015

Loving Padlet for Student Engagement

Hi All!  Since my passion is integrating technology into my instruction, I decided to take the plunge and join Tech with Jen's VIP Membership.
Tech with Jen
This has been the best thing I have done so far this school year! This is a community of learners who are eager to learn more about implementing technology within their daily instruction.  Each month Jen provides weekly challenges.  For the month of November its all about student engagement and how to use technology to help!  

To complete week one's challenge I decided to use Padlet to engage my students. We are just beginning to study food chains and I wanted to see how much my students actually knew. Padlet was a great tool to use to assess their understanding. Creating my Padlet board was quick and easy.  I literally created this board in just a few seconds!  I just typed in my question and shared the Padlet board with my students.  All they had to do was double click on the board and begin typing!



After we discussed food chains (on day two), I then created another Padlet that allowed students to watch a video and then create a food chain from one of the 5 ecosystems we have studied in class.  This allowed for some great classroom discussion on food chains as some of the food chains students created were incorrect.  My students were able to successfully apply the meaning of omnivores, carnivores, and herbivores during their discussion!! After they created their food chain, students then researched the web for more information on food chains.  Their challenge was to find an image that was close to their food chain and add it to their post on Padlet. I was very impressed with what they produced!  The most important thing was that I had 100% of my students engaged throughout this entire lesson with the help of technology!


What might be some ways you can use Padlet to engage your students? Or how have you used Padlet in your classroom?  I would love to hear your thoughts!  Thanks Jen for the challenge!  I am ready for week two!