Overview
Padlet is a media rich application that enables users to create and share digital boards where collaborators, such as your peers or tutors, can post videos, text, images, files and well as leave comments. All Falmouth university students and staff can create a padlet and they can be useful for activities such as personal reflection or group work.
Important: Please read through all this guidance before you begin to create your own padlet and pay particular attention to the recommended Privacy settings.
Contents
- Accessing Padlet
- Creating a padlet
- Post settings
- Padlet formats
- Privacy settings
- Posting to a padlet
- Sharing a padlet
- Further support
Accessing Padlet
To access Padlet, go to falmouthuniversity.padlet.org.
Click on the 'Continue with Microsoft' button.
Use your university email address and password to log into Padlet.
Important: Please do not google Padlet or create a free account at padlet.com. For easy access to Falmouth’s University Padlet account Digital Learning suggest that you add a bookmark in your web browser (e.g. Chrome) to falmouthuniversity.padlet.org.
Creating a padlet
When logged into Padlet you will see your dashboard. To create a padlet, follow the steps below.
Click on the pink ‘Make a padlet’ button in the top right of the screen.
Select the desired format for your Padlet. You can choose from a range of possible formats such as Canvas, Grid etc. (All the options are explained in the ‘Padlet formats’ section further below in this guide.)
Under ‘Heading’ give your Padlet a title. There will be a default title entered such as ‘My stunning padlet’, which you can replace.
If desired, give your padlet a description. There will be a default description entered which can be deleted.
Under ‘Appearance’ choose the wallpaper for your Padlet or keep the default option.
Post settings
Post settings can be viewed in the padlet settings panel under the heading ‘Posting’.
Author and timestamp: Enable this if you would like author’s names to be visible on posts. Remember that your tutor and peers need to be logged into Padlet for them to appear as an author on your padlet, otherwise posts will be anonymous.
Comments: You can decide whether you want to enable or disable this option but having comments can be a good tool for encouraging communication, collaboration and sharing of ideas between your peers or your tutor.
Reactions: These can be a good way of engaging your audience on your posts if you share your padlet with your peers for their input. You have an option of the following reactions: none, like, vote, star and grade.
Padlet formats
Padlet offers a number of formats that you can choose from. The intention of your padelt will inform your choice of format. For example, if you are using padlet for personal reflection, the Stream format is a recommended format. The most commonly used formats are explained below.
Wall: Posts will be ordered in a brick-like layout, choosing the most compact arrangement for the posts.
Stream: Posts are ordered in a top-to-bottom format and is an ideal format for daily entries and reflection.
Grid: Posts are arranged in rows of boxes and is a suitable format for creating moodboards.
Map: Allows users to add content to pinned locations on a map.
Canvas: Allows users to drag posts anywhere on the padlet so they can scatter, group, and connect their posts with this format.
Timeline: Posts will be ordered in a horizontal line, perfect for presenting content in chronological order.
Tip: You can change the format of a padlet at any time. To do this select the relevant padlet and go to the ‘More padlet actions’ button indicated by 3 dots ‘…’ in the right-hand corner of the screen. Select the ‘Change format’ option and a new menu will appear, from there you will be able to change your padlet into a different format e.g. Wall, Stream etc.
Privacy settings
Privacy settings can be viewed under the ‘Open share settings’ link, indicated by the arrow icon, on the top right side of the screen.
The default setting is ‘Secret’ with ‘Visitor permissions’ set to ‘Can write’. The Secret setting will ‘Keep the padlet hidden from the public. If you choose to share it with someone, they should be able to access it’.
Digital Learning recommend that you do not amend the privacy setting of your padlet to any of the other options – Private, Password or Org Wide. Please keep the default ‘Secret’ setting enabled. Do not ever select 'Org Wide' as this will make your padlet visible on the dashboard of every Falmouth University user. This may be considered a nuisance to those users and you may get many unwanted contributors coming in to your padlet as a result.
Posting to a padlet
To post to a padlet, click on the plus button to the bottom right of the screen. Add a title to your post in the ‘Subject’ text field. You have the option to add content to your post. There are five content type icons for you to choose from, Upload a file, Take a photo, Attach a link, Search for an image or click on More attachment types to add content such as gifs, YouTube videos or music from Spotify.
Add your content and if you do not want to include a comment, click on the ‘Publish’ button.
If you would like to add a comment, type into the text field which says ‘Write something incredible’ and click on the ‘Publish’ button. This text field is situated under the content icons.
For detailed information on posting, view Padlet’s Add a post guidance. For guidance on deleting a post view Padlet’s Delete a post guidance.
Sharing a padlet
If you decide to share your padlet with your tutor or peers for feedback or for collaboration, you will need to share a link to the padlet with them.
To do this, click the ‘Open share settings’ link indicated by the arrow icon located on the menu on the right side of the screen.
In the ‘Share’ panel that appears, click on ‘Copy link to clipboard’, then paste the link into an email for example to the person or group you would like to share it with.
When sending the link, remind your collaborators to sign into the Padlet application to ensure any posts or comments that they create are attributed to them.
Further Support
For general queries about the Learning Space, students should first contact their module leader or personal tutor. For any other comments or issues within this guide, please contact the Digital Learning Team via dlsupport@falmouth.ac.uk. Alternatively, please refer to the numerous help guides found on our Knowledge Base.
View the Accessibility Statement for all of our support guides.