Netboard.me - A simple and complete virtual wall

Padlet is a popular collaborative virtual wall creation tool in the education world. Unfortunately it is also a commercial tool that offers a free version that does not allow you to create more than three boards at a time (unless you delete one to create another). Alternatives, to be able to develop a denser activity, exist though. 

Focus on one of them, Netboard. A free online tool that is ideal for offering unlimited resources and initiating collaborative work.

Netboard

Netboard.me is an online tool that allows you to collect, organize and share any web content, alone or in collaborative mode. The principle is very simple. Each creation is a virtual wall (board) on which you can place texts, links, documents, videos, photos, presentations, RSS feeds and other content. Netboard offers the possibility of organizing the different contents in several pages in the form of tabs, which allows a better fluidity in navigation.

If you are already familiar with Padlet, you won't be out of place because Netboard uses the same functionality. Except that you won't be able to drop sound or video files from your computer. To do this, you will have to get around the restriction by hosting them elsewhere (YouTube, Drive,...) or by using third-party applications (Vocaroo) and referencing them from their web address or by the possibility of directly inserting an Iframe code. This last alternative is interesting because doubled with the tab function, one can envisage activities inside the Netboard itself as one would do with a site. We can thus imagine, for example, incorporating Genially or LearningApps activities.

Netboard is free and ad-free. The little extra? As of September 2021, Netboard is GPR compliant. For more information, you can access the site's terms of service.

In order to create a virtual wall, you first need to register for an account on the platform. When you register, two types of free accounts are available to you:

Personal 

• It takes a few minutes to create a beautiful page with all the content you need
• Make your page totally private, give access to selected users or make it public for the whole web
• Allow other users to add content to your pages
• Share your pages and follow other users' pages
• Share PDF versions of your pages. 
• Share access links with those who do not yet have a Netboard account. Allow them to view your private pages, comment and edit as a registered user.
• Integrate your pages into a personal site or blog  

Organization

• Register and manage your own users. No email required
• Create user groups and decide what to publish for each group
• Your users are not accessible outside the organization unless you authorize them to do so
• Use internal pages accessible only within your organization
• Decide who can publish content to the web
• Use the supervisor role to delegate content management, users and groups
• Use user-friendly organization accounts to enable user collaboration and content sharing

The interface offers multiple languages including French. You also have the option of using a Chrome extension or Firefox which will allow you to add new content from any web page with one click.

Tutorials to accompany you in your first creations

The platform offers, on its homepage, several video tutorials (the presentation interface is in English): Organize different contents (Combine images, links, documents, videos and other web services on a single webpage), Create a page (Use your own content or extract content from the web), Edit a page (Organize it the way you want) and Customize a page (Create the theme using your own pictures and images).

The YouTube channel "Charlie's Tutorials" offers a video tutorial that provides a comprehensive overview of the platform's capabilities.

You can also find by clicking on "Help" on the home page, answers to the most frequently asked questions about Netboard (general questions, access control, editing Netboard, co-authoring, organization account, and publishing a video).

You can also contact Netboard directly via the contact icon (✉) on the home page for more information about the site.

Examples of possible applications

Netboard offers a "tutoring and education case" on its homepage: 

It is also possible, at the bottom of the Netboard homepage, to browse achievements (public netboards) from different accounts.

You can also discover the different public netboards of ArtsPlas Nailloux, aka Isabelle Kaminski, who is a Visual Arts teacher.

Sources