Padlet, Exploration and Blogging

I had a good class today. I got out of the way and good stuff happened. The unit of study in class right now is Buddhism. We have rich, though difficult (maybe too difficult) texts for the students to read about the origins and beliefs of Buddhism. I wanted to give the kids a chance for some exploration and discovery. On my Class Blog, I posted websites containing many links about traditional and contemporary Buddhist practices and principles. Students shared their findings via this Padlet wall. (Padlet is a virtual wall/ whiteboard that lets students share thoughts, videos, documents easily. People can put this content anywhere, work with anyone, from any device.)

Created with Padlet

Students then had to comment via the blog on the padlet post of another student. I don't have to lead a class to lead a class. The whole time, kids were engaged and on task. They learned. Their commentary was rich. This was no great shakes of a class. But, it was a good one and I should teach like this more often. It's hard though to do in a class which emphasizes the coverage of curriculum, "But we have to get to _______". Coverage is the bane of history teachers if and when we let it.