Wallwisher to Padlet: Online Collaboration Tool

Collaboration has been a tool in education that has been at the forefront of importance and effectiveness when it comes to 21st Century skills.  From Google Docs to wikis, collaboration of ideas and content has been proven to be a powerful learning tool in the classrooms as well as in business.

An "old school" online collaboration forum, Wallwisher, has gotten (is getting) an overhaul recently, and is changing its brand to Padlet.  Jonathan Wylie explains Wallwisher's changeover.  I was introduced to Wallwisher about 3 years ago.  Unfortunately, in the tech world, that's "old school".

Originally Wallwisher has been a great platform for teacher/student classroom collaboration.  Teachers can create a "wall" and allow students to post comments on the wall as "stickies".  Classrooms have used this online tool for generating ideas, creating discussions, sharing documents; develop question/answer feedback; treat it like a noticeboard for updates and notifications; and much more.  Wallwisher has continued to improve through the years, and now they will be getting even better.  For now you can access Wallwisher by its

Generally it is the same as a standard forum, but has the visual appeal and user-friendly interface that will get students excited and comfortable using, and can do much more.  Participants to your Wallwisher wall can upload documents that other can view right on the wall.  What a great way to have your students read documents you have posted and comment on the same wall.  Right on their front page they share 12 great ideas on how you can collaborate with your students online.  Any kind of forum like this is a great way to get your quiet, insecure students to speak up or voice an opinion.

Wallwisher makes your walls very manageable and safe.  Students do NOT need to sign up for an account.  You create the wall and set up your security.  You can keep the wall private with a password, so that only those in your classroom who have the link and password can access your wall.  You can customize a URL (providing that no one else has taken it).  Get creative; use your students to generate a wacky name for their classroom wall.