Design Problems: What You Get Is a Mess

I am participating in an online course through FutureLearn about using movies as literacy moments in the classroom. It’s been interesting, but in the first week, one of the activities was about creating context for a character and then sharing a photo on a Padlet wall.

I went there, just to see what was going on. I thought my computer was melting down. The Padlet Wall is so overstuffed with posts that it is impossible to even look at. Well, unless you are intrigued by bad design, as I am. Then, you realize, this activity in a massive, online course is not the right scale for an interactive wall such as padlet.

What you get is a mess.

Bad Padlet

Now, there is a certain chaotic beauty to the wall. But discerning any one thing is now nearly impossible. I suspect that this wall was used for previous iterations of the course, too, and folks just keep on layering.

Peace (the wall’s crowded),
Kevin

4 Comments
  1. Signal then noise, right. But the missing element (as I have said ad nauseum) is a curator, someone to tune the dial back to a strong signal. And that is hard work and potentially all wrong. That is why people don’t often make the effort: the like is so much simpler than even a simple response algorithm like Praise-Question-Polish. Perhaps part of what we will do this summer in CLMOOC is to show folks very overtly what reciprocation and curation might mean as viewed through various eyes.

    anti-spamhillbillyistic: maw wadis “Hey, maw, wadis this thang?”
    “Why, junior, that be a whimmydiddle. Hand ‘at to me if you don’t care to.”

  2. Marginalia. Here is the porch where the old men can stand and shout at the young ‘uns.

    antispamipurlity: knit fume The knit fume rising from her brow was nothing short of toxic. Grandma was about to blow a gasket.

  3. Years back I used Padlet for local community projects — now I remember why I stopped using it so much, But it is still good for limited term activities or projects with clear end date — still curated though

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