An open love letter to Padlet

  Dear Padlet,

I hope this is not to forward of me, but: I love you.

I did not expect to love you. It was not love at first sight. Not even close. When I first met you, I was introduced by a few enthusiasts over the course of a year. You reminded me of the stickies feature on my computer, which I used at the time, but I didn’t feel a strong need for yet another tool just to facilitate public sticky notes. I was okay with just defaulting back to fairly linear/hierarchical discussion board posts for sharing. And I really love comments and threading, which wasn’t really your thing at all.

And then you grew, and I grew and here we are.

I dabbled here and there, but when the pandemic came around I spent more time playing with a variety of tools and there was a spark. I got some ideas. I kept putting you to the test in different contexts, and as long as I could beckon others to contribute, things were great.

Shall I share some of what I love? Some of what you have helped me accomplish?

I love the ability to organize content. To share content. And to have other people share and comment on content. 

Take a look at this! It’s the “base” Padlet I created for a class! I used a shelf format, with a week by week layout. Each week I was able to link in resources that we would use in class and interaction spaces for class activities and homework (including other Padlets). I controlled the base Padlet structure, but set it so students could add resources to a given week as well. Everyone could comment and like, too. The sub-Padlets, set up for activities, could be set up in a variety of formats and ways. I remember doing a timeline activity, for example. Oh, and if I planned something for one week and we didn’t get to it? I could just cascade it to the next week’s shelf with a simple click and drag.

I also love the ability to share so many different media types and sources in one spot, along with a title and annotated commentary. Text! Images! Videos! Web sites, including other interactive tools — anything with a URL works! Even VoiceThreads! I mean, you can even embed from Spotify or record quick videos on your webcam. 

Padlet, you have encouraged me and my students to create and share in a variety of ways. You may not be the best tool for carrying on in-depth discussion, but that’s okay! We have threaded discussion boards for that, and I can even link them directly to you! 

You are my center. You are my hub. You keep developing in new ways. Just this summer I found your new nested templates (sections and subsections!) and greater ability to control the order of posts. You let me copy and move items between Padlets. You have become so flexible and user friendly.

So, it’s me and you … and my students! You welcome them in and make it so simple for them to share, curate, create. After years of frustration with trying to get students to find and post resources on discussion boards (students will share, but as sharing interfaces go, d-boards get clunky and make it difficult to order and re-order and save and like), I finally have an option that feels more organic and visual than a series of threaded text-boxes. 

Sigh. I love you, Padlet.

Sincerely,

Vanessa

PS: I see you -- you've added AI this year! I'm not sure where we're headed with that just yet, but I'm coming along for the ride right now.

The More-than-a-sticky-note Padlet Challenge

  The More-than-a-sticky-note Padlet Challenge

Have you always wanted to try Padlet? Or have you used it for sticky notes but not much more? Here's your excuse to play with it!

What to do:

1. Make a Padlet. FSU has Padlet so you can use that account at http://fsu.padlet.org

Info on how to log in: https://support.canvas.fsu.edu/kb/article/1645-padlet-overview 

Choose whatever content you like. Ideas and inspiration can be found here: https://padlet.blog/

2. Make a second Padlet with the same content, but using a different format. You don't have to remake it from scratch, but instead you can use the remake function to copy the Padlet and then change the format.

I made my content as a timeline and a map (I spent maybe 20 minutes making them):

3. Post your Padlets on the sharing Padlet: https://fsu.padlet.org/vdennen2/the-eme6414-padlet-challenge-sharing-padlet-s24-1xmtlbzrrdcylqzz 

I've posted both of mine there as an example to get us started. Feel free to check out each other's padlets and leave feedback/comments.

And yes, a badge .... 

Social media and fiction

Social media isn't just in our lives ... it's in our books, too.

I read The Curious Secrets of Yesterday [on Goodreads] by Namrata Patel.

I didn't set out to read it as an example of a social media fiction book. I think it was recommended to me on some platform and I downloaded it to my Kindle. 

The book didn't start out about social media. It's about a young woman living and working with her mother and grandmother in Salem, MA. They own an Ayurveda spice shop, and the young woman is training (recalcitrantly) to be a spice healer and ultimately take over. Without giving away the plot ... at one point a mysterious social media account pops up for the spice shop. It promotes the shop, although somewhat inaccurately. They can't figure out who runs it. And then it leads to trouble. It's not the main plot line, but is an important plot device. Beyond that, the book has family drama and romance. It's hopeful. Not too heavy. Thoroughly enjoyable. 

Challenge you? Challenge me!

 I think it's only fair that if I challenge you, I challenge myself as well. Or you can challenge me!

Monday was a bit hectic for me and I didn't plan for the Instagram Days of the Week challenge, but I'm going to dive in and start it late, on Tuesday. It'll be fine. Who else will join me?

And then there are the 7 challenges for the 7 days of Week 6.

I think I'll do most of them!

I've already started #2 (and Jian is in there with me)

I'm in on #4 and I'm planning #5.

I think #7 would be good for me (it's been a while).

And #1 would be difficult for me, but maybe? Anyone want to encourage me? I probably could do it on Saturday (a travel day, although I had anticipated using in-flight wifi and trying to work).

Oh, and if there are any other challenges you would like to issue to me, please do so in the comments.

The Ultimate Challenge: Week 2

  Alas, we are in Week 2 of THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE!

This week, we have the Instagram Days of the Week challenge going on, but there's also an additional set of challenges going on. Do as many or as few as you like.

Here's a list of challenges for the week. Full details below the fold.

1. Digital detox
2. Exquisite corpse story [Easter egg]
3. Create your own story
4. Goodreads 
5. Social media fiction [Easter egg]
6. Collaborative concept map [Team challenge]
7. Blog makeover

Instagram Days of the Week Challenge

Ultimate Challenge - Coming in Week 2

Plan ahead if you want to participate. This challenge is a timely one.

Here's a challenge that we will begin on Monday, June 17

This challenge is designed to stretch your Instagram knowledge and skills a little bit. If you want to participate and don't want it to appear in your regular account, create a new account! Easy enough.

Remember, tag things with #eme6414 so we see it. Even though Instagram no longer aggregates effectively, I am able to see it in my RSS feed. Also, save evidence of your contributions to share at the end. Oh, and Instagram offers help if you need it: https://help.instagram.com/  

TechMotivation Monday

#motivationmonday is a thing, but let's motivate people with technology. Share a post that motivates people to use a specific technology or to use it better.

Hashtags: #eme6414 #TechMotivationMonday

TechTransformation Tuesday

Choose your format (post / story / reel) and share how technology has transformed a part of life (your own or life in general).

Hashtags: #eme6414 #TechTransformationTuesday

TechWisdom Wednesday

Post a reel in which you share some form of technology wisdom (interpret that as you will).

Hashtags: #eme6414 #TechWisdomWednesday

TechResearch Thursday 

Create and share an infographic (as simple or complex as you like) with interesting internet research summarized. Be sure to include attribution to the study! 

Hashtags: #eme6414 #TechResearchThursday

FindOut Friday

Post a poll (you do this via stories, in the stickers) that asks some sort of technology or social media related question.

Hashtags: #eme6414 #FindOutFriday

Saturday Stories

Post a story or multi-image post that sums up your challenge contributions

Hashtags: #eme6414 #SaturdayStories

SumItUp Sunday

No need to post to Instagram this day. Write a blog post that reviews your daily Instagram activities for the challenge and your new insights on the medium.

Always, endlessly, exhaustedly all of the tools …

 

So, here we are. Week 5. Past the 1/3 mark of the class.

We’ve had a lot of tools offered to us on our social media buffet.

Blogs. Instagram. LinkedIn. Reddit. YouTube. Pinterest. Diigo. Cluster. Flickr. I could go on. And more to come.

I mean, yay, right? But also it’s a lot. 

How are you doing? How are you feeling?

Me, I’m exhausted, but that’s OK. I knew that my experience would be exhausted and resigned to the fact that I can’t be there to see it all and do it all. In any other class that might not be great, but in this class, it’s really okay to not see and do it all. It’s also okay to just sample a tool briefly and move on. We need to explore the tools so we can think about which ones will support us as we teach, network, and build community. This is connectivist learning that we’re experiencing.

I could make a list right now of things I’ve seen and done in this class so far, and things that I’ve not. 

I choose where and how to participate based on a number of things:

• Timing (I’m here — anyone to interact with right now?)
• Where I see you all engaging (BTW I’m loving the posts on Cluster! More! Go do that fun challenge!)
• My tool comfort and preferences (I just can’t get into Reddit, having tried many times. I pushed out of my comfort zone on LinkedIn this summer. I hope to engage with y’all more on GoodReads — where are my readers at? — and Instagram)

Some nights I go to bed thinking “but I forgot to check in on [tool] today” but then I remember that really it’s okay. Our objective in this class is not to interact constantly across a zillion platforms. We need to learn about the platforms (at least some of them, and it’s okay if we all focus on different ones). We need to experience what it is like to interact and have interaction partners AND what it is like to be in a space and not have them. 

On a personal level, we need to learn to manage the deluge of contact and information. We’ll each have different ways that work for us. It’s important to learn what works for us as individuals and to acknowledge that other people will have different strategies and needs.

So why this post? I want to normalize the diverse feelings and experiences that accompany this journey that we’re on. 

Why not leave me a comment and let me know what you’re feeling and how you’re managing it.

Find the hidden challenge

 

Ultimate Challenge Day 5

There was a hidden challenge during Week 3. Wile E. Coyote found it and did it. Can you?

Hoping to see more folks do that one and then I'll post a round-up with links to them all.

Maybe I'll do my own version this weekend. Why not?

Pinterest Vision Board Challenge

 

Ultimate Challenge Day 4

Pinterest Vision Board Challenge

Make your own vision board on Pinterest. Here are some theme ideas to get you going:

• Your ideal home office space
• Your ideal classroom (physical or virtual) space
• Your career vision
• A dream class you might design and teach
• A vision for pedagogy
• A vision for technology integration in education / the workplace

Have fun with it, and when you're done blog about it (with a link) so we can find it and give you a badge.

Flickr Gallery Challenge

Ultimate Challenge Day 3

Tools like Flickr are surprisingly versatile.

One of the Flickr features is the gallery. You can create a gallery (collection) of photos that others have shared on the site, and then you can share that gallery.

This feature could be quite useful to teachers, who can capitalize on the photos of others.

Your challenge, should you wish to engage:

Identify a topic you might teach (or some other reason for creating a gallery).

Search for relevant images on Flickr and create a gallery.

Write a blog post about the teaching idea (or other purpose) and share the gallery by embedding it and linking to it on your post.

Help files from Flickr:

Gallery Overview

Creating and Sharing Galleries

The Recreate Art Challenge

Ultimate Challenge Day 2

We're going to have some fun repeating what's known as the Getty Art Challenge and posting our results to Cluster (an image/video sharing tool -- the link to our class space is in Canvas, Week 5 Tools and on the home page).

I can't wait to see what you come up with! Learn more and gather inspiration here.

Create-a-pin challenge

Ultimate Challenge Day 1

Create a Pin Challenge

What to do:

Create an original pin on Pinterest and share it to the legacy class pin board!

Look for the big "+" at the bottom of the screen and click on it to create a pin.

Your pin content? A post on your blog -- so think about what you might want to share via a pin. Maybe it's a post you've already written. Maybe it's a new post that you write just for this challenge. A lot of people do "how to" blog posts and then create pins, but think more broadly. Imagine having a pinboard for a class to explore that is linked to various compelling web pages/stories? 

You'll need a post (so you have a link), a visual to associate with it, and a Pinterest account.

Show us the receipts by posting it to your blog as an embed on a post (my example is below):

I made a pin about this challenge: https://pin.it/7FfIntlbP  

It links back to this post.

And here it is as an embed:

Meme, old style?

Do you know what a meme (pronunciation: meem) is?

Most of us associate the term with funny images posted online with varying captions. However, the term has a broader definition and basically refers to a cultural replication of an item around the Internet, often on social media.

There have been some fun ones. And some strange ones like Planking and Owling.

20 years ago when I first started blogging, memes were passing around the blog network. 

The blogging communities that I studied often engaged in memes, which would start on one blog and then move around to the others. We did the iPod shuffle, Friday cat blogging, BBC book meme, memory lane meme, and the one where you open a book to a random page and post a sentence or word. I thought about looking for and linking examples, but I'm lazy. Anyway, here's a pretty good blog post about blog memes. And another. And here are some examples from a book blog.

I'm not sure exactly when or how memes transitioned into the primarily-visual format we associate with them now (and video format, on TikTok, but we typically call them trends over there and not memes). 

I'm thinking about memes today because I was reading the NYTimes and came across this quiz (very un-NYTimes, but kind of fun). It immediately reminded me of the good ol' days. Someone would have done this quiz, posted their results, editorialized on it, and challenged the rest of us to do the same. We'd probably have ended up in some funny discussion linked across blogs and comments about who among us is a butterfly vs a firefly, evergreen or wallflower (I'm a firefly, BTW). 

Have any of you participated in a meme before? Have you started one?

Challenge to someone feeling goofy: try to start one and see if you can get the class to pass it around this week

The Ultimate Challenge: Weeks 5-7

  

Weeks 5-7 of this course are particularly good ones for challenges. We're not exhausted yet. We're not fixated on final projects yet. We're still exploring spaces, tools, and concepts. But we have a sense of each other by now, and that helps unite us. Yep. Perfect time for challenges.

With that in mind, I offer you (drum roll, please) THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE.

What is it? Just a collection of smaller challenges.

What makes it ultimate? Umm, that it's multiple challenges?

Why should I care? Well, you can ignore it if you like. Or you can be a bystander. Or you can be a competitor.

Competitor? What's that about? Do the most challenges, get a reward. 

What's the reward? It's a secret (which probably makes it sound better than it is, but still there is something). I'll mail the reward to the top 3-4 finishers (supposing your are comfortable with me doing so). I'll also send a digital reward.

How will I know about the challenges? They'll be posted here (but there may be some easter eggs hidden along the way, too). They'll be posted on Instagram. We'll keep a running list on the home page of the class in Canvas, too.

Do it for the glory. Do it for the learning. Do it for the badges.

Who's in?

Instagram Scavenger Hunt Challenge

Photo by mostafa meraji from Unsplash

Found it! Have you found or listed all the items for the Scavenger Hunt challenges?

On social media platforms, it’s fun to see how people all over the world spend their time in different places. In our class, some of you seemed busy enjoying the hot summer in various ways. If you’d like to take a peek, go ahead and see what your peers shared (and let us know if we missed anything).

• Micah had a blast under the Texas heat! Make sure to eat something before seeing her posts since the food photos will make you feel hungry. Yum!
• Kelly G found a cute little heart at the beach and captured so many great moments of life. Check out John Mayer’s superb guitar riffs on her post!
• Idam had quality time with her family on the other side of the world.
• Kudos to Candace D, who had great taste in music, travel spots, and fine-dining restaurants.   

S. Jian caught social media hidden all over the world! They are literally everywhere, right? Go ahead and see what she’s found. 

Dig in to the Diigo Challenge

There's no better way to learn how to use Diigo -- a social bookmarking tool -- than by jumping in and adding, tagging, and annotating resources. So don't be shy! Hop on over there and give it a try! Info in this week's Canvas module. I may need to moderate/approve what you post the first time you post there, so just be patient while I make my way over there to approve posts.

Update on my personal LinkedIn challenge

 When I issued a challenge to myself last week, I didn't expect that I would earn a badge, but ... I earned a badge!

Yup, I'm now a "Top Digital Learning Voice" on LinkedIn.

How did this happen, exactly? Well, I said I would try to do more on there. I decided to share my recent conference proceedings paper in a post. It got some attention. I liked and commented on a few posts in my network. When exploring my feed, I actually came across a blog post where someone I know quoted me, and that was pretty cool. But none of that relates to the badge.

I was starting to get some notifications and in one of them I saw that I was invited to answer questions on a topic. To be honest, I was skeptical (why? what is the purpose? who will read this? am I just feeding some giant AI machine?) ... but then I told myself, " Girl, you have the expertise, your name will be attached to whatever you write, and you promised to push yourself."

After answering one question, I saw that if I answered at least three across the topic I would be considered for a badge. I kept going. And then people in my network (including some of you) reacted to what I posted. Two days later, I had the badge. 

What does it all mean? Probably not much, but I am feeling a little bit bolder about sharing on LinkedIn (as long as I consider it a game).

Tour de Blog 2

 Time to recommend some more posts that I've seen out there in the wilds ...

• Pink is thinking about how we communicate differently across different platforms. Go share your thoughts about this important topic.
• S. Jian is working on the community project and has some good initial insights. I know you want to read about it!
• On the job misses her PLC. Learn about it!
• Micah serendipitously identified an existing PLN. The example is a great read.
• Candace D sees the value of folksonomies and tags. Do you?
• Lauren points out that maybe we should just put the phone down sometimes.
• Kelly G has experienced context collapse and it can be awkward. How 'bout you?
• Making Meaning can relate. 
• Saul shares about a journey he's taken into some of the corners of the Internet.

And let's hear it for some of the folks who are doing challenges! (Oh, but first see how Lotta Thoughts is connecting the dots between EME5608 / Microlearning and our challenges/badges)

• Wile E. Coyote found a hidden challenge. So did S. M. Trupiano. Love it!
• Blessed was a trendsetter with the Flickr challenge.
• Learning Lab did the Social Butterfly Challenge and shows what it's like to connect with folks across platforms.

Feeds!!!

 I set up some RSS feeds you can add to your RSS reader if you want to follow along with anything hashtagged EME6414.

Instagram: https://rss.app/feeds/CxbjQlAxBfhDwbrb.xml

X: https://rss.app/feeds/Bz0P8no98HMk1Xgx.xml

With this feed, I was able to create this Instagram embed. It's also on a page in our Canvas sidebar now as well.

Flickr Fun (and a challenge)

One of our Week 4 tools is Flickr, a photosharing site.

I've been on Flickr for years. I used to take a ton of photos when traveling and would post them there. Some I would link into my blog (the era: 2004-2008). I was even asked for permission to share my photos in online travel guides, which was super cool.

What can you do with photosharing? You can share photos of things that you've encountered in your local environment. You can also share other kinds of image files. 

Yes, you can also share on Instagram, but you'll see that Flickr aggregates photos a bit differently and even has groups.

I've set up this one group to be a space where we can all share photos on the theme "this is what online learning looks like." I've already shared one such photo (I'm traveling right now -- love the flexibility of online learning) and will continue to do so this summer. Please join the group and share your own photos.

https://flic.kr/g/3gPDdj 

And OF COURSE WE NEED A FLICKR CHALLENGE

The challenge? Create a photoessay that is 3-5 photos long. Post it in a few places.

To earn the badge:

1. Set up a Flickr account and upload the photos. Include captions.
2. Join the Flickr group for this challenge and share the photos to the group: https://www.flickr.com/groups/eme6414s24/ 
3. Post the photoessay to your blog (leaving the photos hosted on Flickr) and blog about your photoessay and Flickr experience.