Padlet Wallpapers for Graphic Organizers

Many teachers have used Padlet either with their students or at a conference. For those of you have have not used it before, Padlet is a free and easy to use application that enables users to create online bulletin boards where anyone can add notes, docs, files, and more. 

When setting up a Padlet you have a few choices regarding customization like changing the layout. But the one customization I want to talk about is changing the wallpaper. When you click on the wallpaper choices they have preset ones like chalkboard, linen, blueprint, etc. 
Here is an idea though, try making your own wallpaper in a graphic program (anything from Google Drawing to Photoshop) and then using it as a the background for a graphic organizer
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Looking at the example below, you can see how I made a simple Venn Diagram comparing the two music genres Country and Hip Hop. (btw, these two are a great way to introduce your students to the comparison strategy. This can help students see that what seems like two items which appear totally different can be viewed with different perspectives to find similarities. Drop me a line if you would like to hear more about this great intro to comparison)

In this graphic organizer you can see that users know where to put their \notes and ideas on the Padlet. Plus since the diagram and terms Country & Hip Hop are part of the background, they can not be changed. 

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Here's one more example of a customized graphic organizer wallpaper. 
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This one is called the Frayer model. This graphic organizer helps students to reach a deeper understanding of a word and its relationship to their own lives.

I used a chalkboard background image and then drew the shapes and text boxes. 

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For more ideas about implementing different writing strategies you can check out these great resources from Teacher Created Materials. I learned about the Frayer model from the Writing Social Studies resource. You can download the sample file below to see all the other strategies included. This link is to all the subject area writing strategies but you can find the subject specific ones as well

writing_strats.pdf
File Size:	1054 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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