Padlet and TodaysMeet (share a replacement if you know of one!)

I used to love using TodaysMeet, a back channel, to engage all students during an informational read aloud or shared reading. Because we are one to one, students could log on to the discussion and post connections or questions throughout. This was always a good opportunity to talk about appropriate comments and how to contribute constructively to a chat or stream. I would also post, stopping periodically and modeling / thinking aloud as I posted. At the end, you could download and print the transcripts to see how often and with what quality students posted. This was a great way to engage quiet learners, or ELLs. Unfortunately, it no longer exists. BUMMER! If you know of a good replacement, please let me know.

I use Padlet frequently for collaborative tasks, such as Global Read Aloud, or crowd sourcing information from Twitter followers for essential questions in a social studies unit, for example.

I just found this website through this class and it looks like a great tool to use as a group project.  With middle school students it would be a fun way to work together in creating a presentation and it would allow all participants to be engaged.