Video Responses with Padlet
Flipgrid started in 2014. I happily paid $60 a year to use the video discussion platform with an unlimited number of students.
Microsoft acquired Flipgrid in 2018 and made it free to use. They graciously refunded my previous subscription. Microsoft shortened the name to Flip in 2022. Sadly, Microsoft is discontinuing the Flip app and website.
Luckily we have alternatives. One of them is Padlet. A teacher can create a padlet with a discussion question. Students can respond with a video with Padlet’s built-in video recorder. Auto-captioning creates subtitles for all recorded videos. Each padlet can be manually or automatically moderated. Students can reply to each other’s posts by recording video or by typing comments.
Here are the steps I take to create a padlet that functions like a Flip topic:
Make a new padlet.
Choose Blank board.
Enter a title and click Done.
Click Settings.
Enter discussion prompt for Description.
Toggle Comments on.
Click Post fields.
Enter “Name” for subject placeholder and make required.
Change Attachment field to Custom, checkmark Video recorder, and make required.
Change Color to Hide. (Doing this is just my personal preference.)
Change Moderation to Auto or Manual.
Modify any other settings to customize the look of the padlet.
You might consider marking this padlet as a template so that you can easily make new padlets with these same settings.
When a student adds a post with these settings, they see fields for their name and to optionally write something. The only button present is for the Video recorder.
Padlet’s video recorder is not nearly as cool as Flip’s. You can pause and resume recording an unlimited number of times, and you can review a recording before saving. However, you can’t trim or reorder clips. There are no whiteboards, backgrounds, stickers, filters, or customizable thumbnails.
Padlet limits free users to 3 padlets. Each padlet can have an unlimited number of posts, but if you intend to use Padlet as you did Flip, you’re going to need more. You can upgrade to an unlimited number of padlets for $100 per year. Or, you can get free additional padlets through the referral program.
Screenshot displays AI generated thumbnails
