Tool Spotlight: Padlet

Welcome to a Tool Spotlight with Northwestern Teaching and Learning Technologies. Today we’re looking at Padlet.

What Is It?

Padlet is a visual collaboration tool that allows students and instructors to create digital bulletin boards, post and respond to each other, and present content. Useful for individual, group, or class collaboration, Padlet is ideal for discussion boards, interactive schedules or timelines, resource sharing, group projects, peer reviews, student portfolios, or simply as a virtual class bulletin board. Check out the many templates and test out examples in the Padlet Gallery for more ideas. 

Padlet is currently being piloted by Northwestern IT through the end of 2026 and is available at no cost to instructors and students. 

What Do Northwestern Instructors Say About It?

Yiji Zhang, an Assistant Professor in Computer Science uses a “one bird, three stones” approach with Padlet, adding one Padlet per lecture. Zhang offers informal “Before Class” interaction with students, such as a wellness check. Next, there is an active learning activity for attendance. This will contribute towards the student’s grade. Lastly, there is a “Questions” section that students can respond to at any time. “It’s a delightful tool,” Zhang said. “It brightens up the mood and is very easy to use for students. The emoji features are nice too 😊. 

Ashty S. Karim, an Assistant Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering uses Padlet in two distinct ways: individual padlets for each student (i.e., ePortfolios) and group padlets for in-class real-time activities. Group padlets are integrated directly into Karim’s Canvas site. “At the start of class, I create a padlet that contains poll questions and free responses, or a question at the top, examples of the topic I am teaching, etc. Padlets have helped open topics for further discussion without having to use class time to explain every example or detail. The beauty is that students see the responses of other students in real-time.” 

How Does It Work?

Once instructors have created their Northwestern Padlet account, they can sign in at padlet.com/northwestern and click the “+ Make” option. From there, they can choose the format for their board (wall, grid, timeline, etc.) and use the share option when they are ready to invite collaborators or participants.  

There is no limit to the number of boards Northwestern instructors and students can create and share.

All accounts are initially provisioned as student accounts. Instructors who wish to use the grade pass back feature with Canvas can request to have their account upgraded to a teacher license by emailing canvas@northwestern.edu. 

Learn more about Padlet, including suggested use cases, settings, and tutorials, at the Padlet Learn website. 

Tool Time Updates

Keep up with the latest updates to tools supported by Northwestern IT: 

• Northwestern IT has officially adopted Poll Everywhere for use throughout the university. Learn more about Poll Everywhere in the October 2025 Tool Spotlight. 
• You can now dismiss alerts in Pope Tech when no action is needed. Errors should never be dismissed. Contact canvas@northwestern.edu for help with questions about accessibility. 
• Did you know Panopto has a number of graded assignment types? You can use a Panopto quiz as a Canvas assignment, have students submit a Panopto video as an assignment, or report a grade in Canvas based on the percentage of a Panopto video a student has viewed.