Padlet is an online bulletin board. Users can add text, documents, images, videos, and links. Depending on the choices the Padlet creator makes, users can comment on posts and rate, like, grade or vote for posts. It is a mini interactive website where you can create online discussions and opportunities for synchronous or asynchronous collaborative or individual learning.

Here is a Padlet about how to post to Padlet: padlet.com/traceyehm/padletpost

Here is a Padlet Tracey uses as a workshop warm up: padlet.com/traceyehm/meal (The map in this Padlet is a wallpaper, not the Map option.)

And here is a writing prompt about time capsules: padlet.com/traceyehm/tceNet

If you’d like to learn more about Padlet or schedule a demonstration, contact Tracey or our Quick Tech Help service.

NEW from Padlet: Padlet has introduced a digital whiteboard they are calling Sandboxes.

The sandboxes are different from the Padlet Boards. Padlet Sandboxes have similar features to Jamboard* plus extras. The communication tools include voice recordings, drawing, typing, sticky notes, shapes and video uploads. 

You can create a slide show and play it like a slide presentation or use it as an activity board.

There is a set of education templates that can help you get started. You can have different groups working on different cards (frames or pages) and prevent them from seeing what others are doing.

Here is one we made for a workshop in June 2025: Ideas from teachers (It is “frozen” so you cannot add to it but you can remake it).

The Sandboxes can be integrated with Google Drive and Classroom.

Padlet does not require users to create accounts to participate on the Sandboxes.

Padlet allows you to have three active Sandboxes and Boards on a free account. You can store your old work but you can only have three working at one time. They have several tiers of pricing that allow for more Sandboxes and Boards to be active and for different numbers of editors per Sandbox or Board.

Read more about whiteboards here: Whiteboards for teaching and collaborative learning

AnswerGarden is place where you can ask one short question online. Users can add text answers. You can choose between 20 characters and 40 characters for the answers.

If you’d like to learn more about AnswerGarden or schedule a demonstration, contact Tracey or our Quick Tech Help service.

AlphaPlus creates microsites for programs.

• Are you a program administrator looking for resources to support professional learning for staff or volunteers?
• Are you a literacy instructor looking for resources to support a blended learning program?

We curate program-specific collections of resources. Here are some examples:

• Digital resources for personalized learning
• Digital technology readiness for post-secondary education
• Foundational digital tech skills lessons
• Learn to code
• Numeracy resources
• Smart Board training

If you’re interested in curating a collection for your program, please get in touch. 

• AlphaPlus coaches will work with you to create an individualized plan and develop solutions for your program.
• As an Educator Network (eNet) participant, you’ll join a cohort of Ontario literacy practitioners in a reflective practice process and have access to both AlphaPlus knowledge and peer experience.
• If you get stuck while trying something new, the AlphaPlus Quick Tech Help option can help. 

If you’d like a copy of any of these sites to use as a starting point to adapt and expand for use in your program, please get in touch. AlphaPlus can give you a copy and support you in learning how to use a website builder such as Google Sites or Weebly as online learning spaces for learners, staff and volunteers.

AlphaPlus has collected a set of interesting frameworks, approaches and theoretical foundations that are relevant to adult literacy practice and can inform planning, designing and decision-making.  

We’ve included a blended learning toolbox, an annotated bibliography of tools, apps and websites curated using the framework principles.

If you’re interested in exploring blended learning options for your program, please get in touch. 

• AlphaPlus coaches will work with you to create an individualized plan and develop blended learning solutions for the learners in your program. 
• As an Educator Network (eNet) participant, you’ll join a cohort of Ontario literacy practitioners in a reflective practice process and have access to both AlphaPlus knowledge and peer experience.
• If you get stuck while trying something new, the AlphaPlus Quick Tech Help option can help. 

The role of resource curation is an important one and can be overwhelming and time consuming.

AlphaPlus developed this site to help literacy practitioners 

• develop curation strategies
• work with learners to develop curation strategies
• adapt literacy learning starter kits

There are three sections.

• Curating Resources
  • Tips on finding and choosing resources to use with learners and co-learning resources for working with learners on curation strategies.
• Curated Lists
  • Lists created by literacy programs and other educators. This set of learning resources can be a starter kit for literacy practitioners curating a set of literacy learning resources.
• Places to Learn
  • e-Learning lessons, activities and learning pathways that literacy learners can work on independently. The resources are organized by topic. This set of learning resources can be a starter kit for learners curating their own set of literacy learning resources.

If you’d like to learn more about curating resources, contact Tracey, sign up for an Educator Network program or sign up for one-to-one support through Coaching.

• As an Educator Network participant, you’ll join a cohort of Ontario literacy practitioners in a reflective practice process and have access to both AlphaPlus knowledge and peer experience.
• AlphaPlus coaches will work with you to create an individualized plan and develop digital learning solutions for the learners in your program.
• If you get stuck while trying something new, the AlphaPlus Quick Tech Help option can help. 

If you’d like a copy of this site to use as a starting point to adapt and expand for use in your program, please get in touch. AlphaPlus can give you a copy and support you in learning how to use a website builder such as Google Sites or Weebly as online learning spaces for learners, staff and volunteers.

What is reflective practice?

“Reflective teaching is the practice of colleagues joining together to observe and analyze the consequences for student learning of different teaching behaviors and materials in order to gain insights that will result in the continuous evaluation and modification of pedagogy.”
– Chapter 11: Professional Development and Reflective Practice By William Powell 

• Are you thinking about how you can respond to the ways that digital technologies are changing how we learn, work and engage in daily life?
• Are you wondering about how a new resource, methodology or approach is working for learners?

Reflective practice can help us think through these questions and arrive at solutions.

Would you like to learn more about reflective practice?

AlphaPlus has created a website with a collection of reflective practice resources to support literacy educators develop a reflective process that works for them and the people they work with.

Would you like to engage in reflective practice with an AlphaPlus coach or a cohort of literacy practitioners?

• AlphaPlus coaches will work with you to create an individualized professional learning plan.
• As an Educator Network Blended Learning Program participant, you’ll join a cohort of Ontario literacy practitioners in a reflective-practice process and have access to both AlphaPlus knowledge and peer experience.

In the Educator Network Blended Learning program and Planning Your Digital Toolbox, participants have the option of working through the Reflections on teaching with digital technology workbook. Join us or try it our with your colleagues (sign in to a Google account and make a copy).

If you’re interested in using a reflective practice process to plan and explore digital technology for learning, please contact Tracey or the AlphaPlus coaches.

If you’d like a copy of the Reflective Practice for Literacy Practitioners site to use as a starting point to adapt and expand for use in your program, please get in touch. AlphaPlus can give you a copy and support you in learning how to use a website builder such as Google Sites or Weebly as online learning spaces for learners, staff and volunteers.

Blended learning is an approach where educators leverage technology and digital access for learners to create, communicate, collaborate and apply critical thinking skills to construct knowledge in a connected world.

Blended learning is a foundation of AlphaPlus services for instructors and program planners.

Through eNet, technology coaching, workshops and tech support services, AlphaPlus helps literacy educators employ blended learning methodologies.

What does AlphaPlus mean by blended learning?

Our position is that blended learning in adult education is not only about the use of tools and resources. Instead, it’s a way to think about program and curriculum development, including learning design and delivery.

Why do we take this position?

Using digital technology isn’t just learning how to operate digital devices and navigate the internet. These are important skills that enable participation in a digitally connected world, but a curriculum that focuses only on these operational tasks doesn’t meet learners where they’re at and doesn’t meet the changing needs of people learning, working and engaging in 21st-century life.

Join the discussion

We believe that the discussion about blended learning in adult education needs to extend to the realities of adult basic-education programs that operate in an individualized educational context as well as those that are course-based and use a fixed curriculum.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas

Read the full paper to learn more about the principles and benefits of blended learning in adult literacy programs as well as our recommendations for program development and why AlphaPlus supports people-first strategies.

Read an online version and more about AlphaPlus and blended learning here: The Blended Learning Collection.

The full paper is available in American Sign Language.