Friday, January 11, 2013

Tech Tool of the Week: Wallwisher

Happy New Year and welcome back to school! This week's feature is an incredibly fun, versatile, FREE tool called Wallwisher. Wallwisher is an online multimedia bulletin board. It allows students to post their thoughts on a common topic using electronic sticky notes on a shared digital wall.

Think of Wallwisher like an electronic corkboard. You create a board, then share that address with your students, who can then go on to the board and simply click on it to add their comments. Students can not only add comments but also links to images, videos, or websites. And they can do all this without ever having to sign in! Best of all, it works on both laptops and iPads!

What can you do with Wallwisher? There are many potential applications of this tool in the classroom. For instance, you could use Wallwisher to pose a question, get students' answers, and give them feedback - all on the same page. Check out Wallwisher.com for great examples of different kinds of walls. Here is an example of a wall where a teacher posted a Word of the Day and asked each student to write a sentence using that word.  Other possible uses include: collecting feedback from students; making lists; sharing videos; and brainstorming ideas. You could use Wallwisher for collaboration to share ideas, resources, and thoughts on a topic. You could use it to create a KWL chart and ask students to share what they know and what they want to know about a topic. Lots of different possibilities!


To learn more about using Wallwisher, check out the video tutorial below.