In building online courses, we try to create three forms of interaction on a regular basis throughout each class:

• Student-Content, where the interaction is as active as possible for the student;
• Student-Instructor, where the students have a chance to ask instructors questions, engage in facilitated discussions, and receive feedback from their instructors on assignments;
• Student-Student, where students have an opportunity to communicate with peers and learn in the framework of a learning community.

Sometimes these interactions are formal and graded, such as graded class discussions, group projects, or multimedia presentations. Other times, though, we want a more informal means of generating these three forms of interaction.

Wallwisher is a free online tool that can be used for this purpose. Wallwisher is a simple website that allows participants to visit and post quick, virtual sticky-notes that include text or links to audio or video content. Wallwisher is easy for instructors to set up and easy for students to use.

Here’s a Sample Wallwisher page we set up for you to try. This page asks students to quickly note which concepts they’ve found most difficult so far during the course of a term. An instructor might use this tool to gather opinions, gauge assumptions, check comprehension, or to help students prepare for an exam.