Collaboration Via Post-it Notes: Even in the Primary Grades!

As the instructional coach for my building I have the opportunity to bring new and exciting technology finds to our teachers.  Our building has preschool through second grade students.   One of our second grade teachers was looking for a way for students to share what they learned during their dinosaur unit.  We started looking at Wallwisher as a way for the students to share their thoughts collaboratively online in a post-it note type format.  We realized that only our teacher computers allowed the site to come up, Wallwisher was blocked on the student computers.  So, we quickly had to change our plans.   

Earlier that week I had found a site called Primary Wall that is basically Wallwisher, but less fancy.   You can only post notes on Primary Wall, you cannot post pictures or videos, but it covered our needs for this lesson.  Primary Wall allows the teacher to change the background of the wall, the fonts of the notes, search for related walls, and share their wall with others.  The students enjoyed adding their own personal notes about their dinosaurs and seeing their note appear on the large screen with their fellow classmates.  Here is a link to our Primary Wall.  NOTE: Primary Wall can be a little finicky with Firefox, so use Safari or Google Chrome browsers with this tool!

STIXY is very similar to Wallwisher and allows students to download pictures of their projects along with educational videos that they find that cover a certain topic that they are learning about.  If you are an iPod or iPad user and have noticed that Wallwisher and STIXY do not work on your device because they are flash-based, Lino is your alternative!  Download their app and enjoy the same collaborative freedom in your classroom!

~Darcy Sly, Instructional Coach, Spring Hill USD 230