Wallwisher

http://padlet.com/

What is this?

Wallwisher is a free online web tool, everyone can create an electronic wall. The messages are shown in post-it notes on the wall, in the form of texts, images, videos, maps, slideshows, documents, etc.
It was originally used for designing gift cards for birthday or some special events. It surely can serve as an educational purpose also. It is easy to make a wall by yourself. You can set privacy once you have created it.

How to use it?

1. Register and create an account, you can log in with your gmail account. You can then start creating your wall. 

2. Click "Build a wall' in order to start, you can modify your wall from adding title, description to changing background and privacy. 

3. When you have set up everything, you can start decorating your wall. When you double click the wall, this allows you to post a message and write whatever you want. Below is a collaborative example done by  my coursemates and me about what to eat and do in Madrid, Spain.

The tutorial on how to use Wallshier by Russell in his teachers' training website is definitely worth taking a look:

http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/wall/index.html

Why is the content good for language learning?

1. Wallwisher is genuinely attractive and multimodal in catching readers' attention 
2. it provides students the chance of discussing and compromising ideas on a specific task within limited amount of words
3. it provides students to practise speaking in disucussion
4. it demonstrates clearly the work done by students with Wallwisher
5. it is good for students to make feedback on each other's wall

How might you use it in a language teaching context?

1. it is a great tool for group activities, teachers can divide the class into several groups; each group, each student is responsible for different tasks.
2. students need to report what they have found and report to the whole class their wall
3. it will be a good idea for brainstorming acitivies for warm-up section before the class
4. the wall is a collaborative work done by students, they are more familiar with it
5. if it applies to vocabulary activity, it will leave deep impression to students

Limitations

1. a computer is a must in completing this task, for a class of more than 40 students, it is better for to share computers among pairs or groups
2. the word limitation (maximum 160 characters) limits students to practise writing
3. it takes longer time for students to come to a conclusion and the wall content is crowded when everyone has the right to edit or delete information on the wall
4. there is a potential problem for cyber bullying