Lessons learned from lino

I have been experimenting with lino in the classroom.  Lino provides an online collaborative noticeboard in which you and your students can post 'stickies' (think post-it notes).  I have used it as a collaborative space for year 7 students to share ideas for a project and by year 11 students as a revision board.  It could be used as a noticeboard for class announcements, share links, videos etc, or anywhere you have the need for a community noticeboard.

GCSE Computing student revision noticeboard

Features of Lino.

  • No login required.
  • Visitors can post stickies.
  • Your canvas can be private; available to anyone this the link; or public (list on Lino).
  • Post stickies by email.
  • A fairly wide range of canvas backgrounds including adding your own background image.
  • Several different coloured stickies, including transparent. 
  • Supports RSS feeds.
  • Multiple canvasses.
  • Android and Apple apps available as well as the web app.


Lessons learned from using Lino.

  • As with all collaborative technology, students may feel the need to troll each other, or go off task.  You need to be prepared for this and allow them to get this excitment out of their system before they begin to respect it as a useful collaborative tool.
  • Students may feel the need to create their own accounts and set up their own boards.  This should be encouraged however there are safety issues you should discuss with the students and the privacy settings shown below should be explained.
  • Once you have finished with a canvas, you can lock it to 'show stickies to everyone' (but other people cannot post.  This will prevent trolling.
  • You need not list your canvas as a public canvas.  Make sure you deselect this as it is selected by default (naughty Lino).
Carefully choose your canvas settings.



#edtech
#education
#noticeboards
#collaboration