Breakout rooms

Updated 1 week ago by Rana Wilds

Using breakout rooms
- Boards
- Sandbox
Disabling breakout rooms
FAQs

Breakout rooms provide a unique way to share, interact and create content within a group. Using these specialized links, you can send out specific sections on a padlet without revealing the entire padlet to everyone! Group projects have never been easier!

All group members can work together without the ideas from other students impeding their thoughts. Of course, there are many different use cases for Breakout rooms, but you get the idea. 💡

Using breakout rooms

Boards

Follow these steps to use breakout rooms within a board:

Open your board.
Click the Share arrow in the top-right corner of the board.
Go to the Links section and click Breakout rooms.
If the board's layout does not have sections enabled already, you will need to perform this additional step to turn them on. Click the pink Enable button.

Copy the link to the desired section and share it with the users in that group.

Do not share the link to the full padlet (using Copy link to board or from the address bar using copy/paste) to keep the breakout links separate from the entire board.

A format with sections is needed to enable Breakout rooms.

Sandbox

Follow these steps to use breakout links in your Sandbox:

Open your Sandbox.
Click the Share arrow in the top-right corner.
Go to the Links section and click Breakout rooms.
Copy the link to the desired card and share it with the users in that group.

You can also copy your card's Breakout room link from the card deck on the left. Click the three-dot ellipsis button (...) next to the card and select Sharing & permissions. Under 'Links,' next to 'Card breakout room,' Copy the link and share it.

Do not share the link to the full Sandbox (using Copy link to sandbox or from the address bar using copy/paste) to keep the breakout links separate from the entire sandbox.

Disabling breakout rooms

You've enabled breakout rooms but no longer want to use them. How do you turn them off?

Change the 'Visitor Permissions' settings from your Share menu to Reader or Commenter. This will restrict the ability to add posts through your Breakout room links, even though they are still accessible.

To prevent anyone from accessing the breakout links and/or the entire padlet, change your 'Visitor Permissions' to No access. This will block everything from the users.

If you'd still like some users to post on the padlet with your links, you can add those people as collaborators by following the steps in this article: Add collaborators to your padlet.

FAQs

I can still see all of my sections. I thought they were supposed to be secluded?

The creator of the padlet can see the entire padlet within their view as posts are made. Each section/card will be visible for the creator. Other collaborators should only see the section/card they received a link for.

What is the difference between breakout rooms and a submission form?

Breakout rooms allow collaborators to see only a certain section (not the entire padlet) and can post multiple times on the same padlet.

Submission forms are for boards. Using a submission form allows you to invite a person to post on the padlet without seeing the underlying board at all. After they've posted to the padlet with a submission form, there are options to allow the user to see the full board, have users sent to a confirmation page or invite them to add another post.

After disabling breakout rooms, one of my students can still see the plus button. Why is it still enabled?

If your student kept their browser window open during the time that the permissions were changed, it will still show the post button. However, if they try to post to the breakout room, they will receive an error message. They will still be prohibited to post to the padlet.