Review of Popplet

Today, I will be looking at another online collaborative tool, Popplet (link embedded in name).

Popplet is an extremely easy tool to use and its bright colours would probably appeal to students. Popplet is a free tool, though it only allows 10 popplets to be created. There is a special subscription plan for educators and schools that allows for the creation of unlimited popplets and access to more features. However, in my opinion, the free version is sufficient as a basic tool for students to use to collaborate.

Creating and navigating popplet

After signing up for an account, one just needs to click on 'make new popplet' near the top of the home screen to get started.

The name and the background colour of the popplet are customisable. In the free version, it also tells you how many more popplets you can create. It says 'you have 8 popplets left' in the screenshot, so this means once I reach my limit of 10, I have to start deleting some before I can create new ones.

After you have given a name and chosen a colour for your popplet, you will be taken to the blank wall of the popplet. You just need to click anywhere and a box (called a popple), like the one you see below, will appear and you can enter any text, picture or video (from vimeo) into the box. You can also resize it.

By clicking on the grey circles on the four sides of the popple, a new link is created. This allows for the building on of ideas by anyone having access to the popplet.

The other interesting feature is the 'comment' part of the popple, which enables anyone who has access to the popplet to comment on any of the popples.

Uses of Popplet

As mentioned, Popplet is a great collaborative tool. The most obvious use for popplet would be for brainstorming ideas for a particular topic as the popplet can be shared by making other people collaborators through the 'share' button at the top right hand corner of the popplet. Teachers can either create popplets and invite students who have been grouped to a popplet to discuss and share ideas about an essay topic, or have students create their own popplets and invite the teacher to join in (for monitoring purposes).

Another use of Popplet could also be for when students have to share or present whatever research they had to do on a particular topic. Since Popplet allows for multimodality, it would allow for an added dimension to students' research since they can add pictures and videos. Since students can also download the popplet as a jpg or pdf file, the research being done by various students can be compiled and will be a useful resource for them.

Advantages of Popplet

• Since popplet is easy to use and create, teachers and students should not find it too much of a hassle to begin using this tool. 
• Popplet is also real-time, so everyone invited to the popplet can see the changes made on the spot. 
• The fact that Popplet allows for pictures and videos will allow for a wider range of resources to be added, making it richer. 
• Popplet can also be found as an app for iPads and so teachers can use those in place of laptops.
• Names are included in each popple, so teachers can monitor who has written how much.  

Disadvantages of Popplet

• Popplet is rather simple, and so is limited in terms of font size or ability to organise the popples.
• It can look quite disorganised and/or overwhelming if there are too many popples. 
• The relationship between popples might also not be clear as the lines disappear behind popples if they are too far away (as seen below).
• Limited number of popples in the free version, so teachers are not able to create that many, should the paid version not be a viable option. A workaround is to have the students create one and the invite the teacher. This does not add to the teacher's popplet count.

Conclusion

Popplet is simple to set up and easy to use. I feel that because there are limited choices, this helps students to focus as they are not distracted when creating their popplet as they will not be tempted to spend the bulk of their time customising their popplet and making it look "pretty" (which I have found that many students are liable to do).

It will definitely be useful to have students use this online tool to collaborate and brainstorm inside and/or outside the classroom.