Wallwisher or Padlet: An incredible online board to create your 'wall' as you wish!

What is Wallwisher/Padlet?

Wallwisher or Padlet is a free online electronic board (wall) that you can create, share it with people and they can add sticky notes, comments, videos, links, any content you wish them to incorporate into the wall. It is a great interactive tool and promotes collaborative work.

You can find Wallwisher/Padlet in the following link:

wallwisher.com

How to use Wallwisher/Padlet?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Wallwisher/Padlet:

Why is Wallwisher/Padlet relevant to language learning?

• It promotes collaborative work in the classroom. Teachers can ask students to group themselves, discuss about a topic and add their comments to the wall. 

• It also enhances interaction among students in groups by favoring the practice of speaking to get to some agreements on what they would write or include on the wall.

• Students can develop their critical thinking by expressing their opinions.

• It can be used as a warm up to engage students' attention and they can start thinking in English.

• In the same vein, teachers can also use it to brainstorm and activate some previous ideas. Therefore, it favors constructivism view of learning a language, because teachers consider some previous students' knowledge.

• It contributes to interactive teaching and learning.

• Teachers have the possibility to use it in many different ways to promote the socio-cultural view of learning. This theory states that learners can acquire a language through the interaction with other 'more capable peers'.

• Teachers can also create a real need to communicate in the target language by contextualizing the topics to discuss.

• It is also safe for teachers and students. Teachers, can control what it is seen on the wall after they give their approval to students, so they can participate.

How might you use Jing in class/outside the class?

1. Within the classroom

• As I mentioned before, teachers can propose a topic, for instance, 'environmental issues in my country' and ask students to add some causes and consequences about this problem.

• Teachers might also ask students to describe some traditional food in their countries, add some pictures of it, recipes, or videos on how to prepare it.

• Teachers and students can summarise together the main topics for a particular test.

• Teachers may stick some pictures on the wall and ask students to create a storyboard with these pictures.

• Students can also give some advantages or disadvantages about any topic such as, having a pet, watching TV, playing video games, helping with the house chores, etc., any topic that may be relevant for them.

2.  Outside the classroom

• Students can add some reflections about their learning of a particular content.

• Students might also make a list of the different things they have to do during the week.

• Teachers can ask students to add some pieces of homework to the wall and then they can give them some feedback.

• Students can always use this tool to complete a variety of activities as homework. Some other examples are in the paragraph above or you can adapt them as you wish.

What limitations can you see with the use of Wallwisher/Padlet? 

• It is not appropriate for large classes, because the wall may look busy with too many comments on it and not all of them could be readable.

• The wall you created is not downloadable. 

• Students have to manage well their time because the internet connection may be slow at that moment and they may not be able to edit every post they made.

Here you can find an example of a wall that my colleagues and I created when our tutor Russell Stannard presented us this tool:

Dvolver: The greatest moviemaker

What is Dvolver?

Dvolver is a great tool to make free movies online. You can create your own movie by choosing the background and sky images, selecting the plot, character(s), adding speech bubbles to create your own dialogues for every character in every scene, and selecting the background music. It is an easy online tool  to use for language learning and teaching. 

You can find Dvolver in the following link:

dvolver.com

How to use Dvolver?

You can watch this video to learn how to use Dvolver:

Why is Dvolver relevant to language learning?

• It is a motivating and interesting website for students because they can create their own animated movies and feel more engage with the lesson.

• It gives teachers a new way to present contents. Therefore, students would also feel more motivated.

• Teachers can create suitable dialogues according to students' proficiency in the language, the content they are learning, grammar and vocabulary aspects as well.

• Students are free to create any scene using the different elements available for them. In this way they are developing their creativity.

• It is suitable for all ages because it has a range of different characters.

• It encourages both individual and collaborative work.

• This tool also enhances the development of critical thinking through evaluating information, reasoning, thinking and assessing information in a more comprehensible way. For instance, when students have to create dialogues they have to decide the content, vocabulary, grammar, etc. in order to link the conversation, and connect the series of scenes together in a well organised way, in other words, follow the flow of it. 

  

How might you use Dvolver in class/outside the class?

1. Within the classroom

Teachers can present any new teaching point more interestingly to the students by using Dvolver. For example, teachers would like to present through the communicative approach the function of 'introducing themselves', therefore, teachers can create a  dialogue including the specific function, vocabulary and grammar required to present it. This example would be embedded as a real dialogue to show you how you can use it and the content that you can add in the animated movie. Then, teachers can ask them to work in pairs and create a dialogue in which they would introduce themselves.

     2.  Outside the classroom

• By following the example from above, teachers can ask the students to send the movie they made during the class and they can assess them formatively to check the progress of their work and also to give them some feedback in the next class.

What limitations can you see with the use of Dvolver? 

• There are limited number of words for the sentences you intend to incorporate, limited scenes, characters which are pre-determined and limited in number, too. 

• Students and teachers are not able to listen to the conversation. Therefore, they can only read it. However, if a student is proficiently better in the listening and not in the reading skill, they would face some difficulties because the tool would favor one skill over the other.

The next movie would show you a simple example on how you can use Dvolver in the classroom: