For this week’s play, I went to the “Make Bank” to see what ideas they had. I was surprised to see how many unique options were out there for digital creation! I loved the idea of making a “wall” of inspirational quotes on Padlet. However, I didn’t think I could learn much just by opening Padlet and typing quotes. So instead, I chose to make it a collaborative endeavor.
I created the Padlet with the goal of having my coworkers share their favorite or most inspirational quote about teaching. A quote that gets them through the tough days. I learned how to create a Padlet and make it public. I also had to explore how to add a couple of sample posts to it so the collaborators would know what to do.
The hardest step was gathering participation. I used my elementary school’s Facebook group to send out the message. I shared my purpose and tried to encourage them to take the time to share. Unfortunately, during the first day after sharing I had no responses! I was surprised since my coworkers are usually very supportive and collaborative. I didn’t want to be obnoxious or badger anyone, so I waited it out. Within another day, I had multiple responses! Then my coworkers began telling others in the group that they had done it and it was very quick and easy to do. Once those coworkers shared about their experiences, more responses started coming in!
I learned from this experience that hosting a Padlet and making it public is incredibly easy. But pulling together buy-in is a little harder. I’m going to leave it for a couple days to gather more quotes, then I plan to print a copy and hang it in the staff room while I think about how lucky I am to have such supportive coworkers.
Words To Teach By 
I’m so inspired after reading your Padlet! This is a great experiment to try.
I found it really interesting to hear how the Padlet was shared. A lot of students have been mentioning that social media doesn’t in fact, make us not interact with one another, we just interact differently and virtually. I think it’s very interesting to see that the thing you created online was better shared through personal interactions with other teachers. Despite technology being where the thoughts and ideas are shared with this project, there is still a real-life interaction happening in regards to that project.
What do you think about how word of mouth was working to benefit your online media? Do you think it’s typical that we carry on conversations in person that we were having online, and visa versa?
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I feel like switching platforms for conversations is very natural and seems to happen without much thought to the switch itself. Thinking about the chapter about being “hyperconnected” from last week’s reading, we switch digital platforms all the time during conversations. You may start a conversation via text, find that once you enter a wifi zone you switch to an online messenger, then make a phone call when you run low on time. I think that then transitioning to continuing the conversation in person is a natural step to take as well.
As far as my project goes, the teachers seemed to respond better to in-person information about the Padlet as opposed to virtual just due to hectic schedules. If someone tags you in a post online and you see it at 10:00 at night, you often file it away and think you’ll get to it later. The word of mouth approach seemed to make it more of a priority to them.
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I liked reading about your experience with daily creates, for your experimenting with organized connected learning. It’s cool to see that you used the Padlet platform as a place to post inspirational quotes for teachers. Your work on your daily create has given me inspiration on what I should do for my experimenting with organized connected learning.
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Hi Veronica!
I absolutely loved reading this blog post. You have really inspired me to try some of these tools in my own classroom. At the end of the week, I plan on using Padlet in my classroom. I’ll follow up and let you know how it goes. I also, wanted to say that I love the quotes that your colleagues put up on this padlet. Its bookmarked because I like so many of the quotes so much. Its great to know that you have such a wonderful work environment!
In regards to your comment above, I think it is easy to switch from face to face conversation to padlet on our phone, laptop or phone. It does not take a huge amount of effort, especially if we are on our laptops working on something else, going to padlet and posting a quote is sort of a nice pause in the day!
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