The Pinboard Slide

The Pinboard is a shared online wall for your cBook. Participants write short posts, attach files and react to each other's posts with emojis, much like sticking notes on a real pinboard. You can use it for brainstorming, collecting feedback, introduction rounds or sharing results.

You set up how the board looks and what participants may do. Then you follow the posts in the Evaluation tab.

Before You Start

The Pinboard is a community feature, so a few things need to be in place:

• The engagement server must be switched on for your cBook.
• Participants must be signed in. Anyone who isn't signed in sees "Sign in to see and share community posts."
• Posts appear in real time only when real-time updates are enabled for the cBook. Without them, the board still refreshes itself every minute and whenever a participant comes back to the browser tab.

The Editor at a Glance

When you open a Pinboard slide, you'll see three tabs: Preview, Edit and Evaluation.

In the Edit tab you work on a live preview of the board. From top to bottom it shows:

• The controls bar: the buttons participants will see, such as "Show my posts", "Sort by", "Print" and "Add post".
• The header: overline, title, caption and description.
• The board: with one Example post, so you can see what a real post will look like.
• The background: behind everything.

Click any part of the board to open its settings in the sidebar on the right. You have two other ways to get there:

• The Edit part dropdown in the toolbar
• The ‹ › arrows at the top of the sidebar, which step through the parts one by one

If nothing is selected, the sidebar shows the Board & posting settings.

Use the orientation toggle in the toolbar to check the board in landscape and portrait.

The Five Parts of the Board

Title & Header

Click the header on the canvas to edit it. Each of the four fields opens as its own row:

• Overline: a short line above the title
• Title: the main heading of the board
• Caption: a subtitle
• Description: longer text. It supports lists, links, alignment and formulas.

Empty fields show "Empty" and are not displayed to participants. If all four are empty, the board simply has no header.

Tip: Use the description for your task instructions, for example: "Post one idea you want to try in your next lesson."

Board & Posting

This is the most important panel. It controls what participants can do.

Posting

• Author names: Choose one of three options:
• • Show author names: Everyone sees who wrote each post ("posted by Anna").
  • Hide names from participants: Participants see "Name hidden". You still see the names in the Evaluation.
  • Anonymous: Nobody sees names, not even you. In the Evaluation, posts appear as "Participant 1", "Participant 2" and so on.
• Show post date: Shows when a post was written, for example "3 days ago".
• Show "edited" marker: Shows when a post was changed afterwards. This option only appears while the post date is switched on.
• Participants may delete their own posts: Off by default. When it's on, participants get a Delete button on their own posts.
• Default order: How posts are sorted when the board opens. You can pick Recently active, Newest first, Oldest first, Author (A–Z) or Author (Z–A). Participants can re-sort at any time.

Important about "Anonymous": Anything written while the board is anonymous stays anonymous forever, even if you switch back to showing names later. Choose this option on purpose.

When names are hidden or anonymous, the author sort options disappear. Sorting by names nobody can see doesn't make sense.

Length & quota

• Limit post length: Switch this on to cap how long a post can be. You then set the Max characters per post (it starts at 280). Participants see a live counter while they type.
• Max posts per participant: How many posts each person may write. 0 means unlimited. Participants see how many posts they have left, for example "2 posts left".

Files & reactions

• Allow emoji reactions: On by default. Participants can react to posts with 👍 ❤ 🎉 😮 😢 🤔.
• Allow file attachments: Off by default. When you switch it on, you choose the Allowed file types:
• • Images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP): up to 10 MB
  • PDF documents: up to 20 MB
  • Videos (MP4, WebM): up to 40 MB
  • Audio files (MP3, M4A, OGG): up to 25 MB

At least one file type must stay selected. The size limits are fixed and cannot be changed. Participants can attach up to 10 files per post.

Button Texts

Click the controls bar on the canvas to open this panel.

• Show print button: Off by default. Lets participants print the whole board.
• Button texts: Rename these to fit your course:
• • Add-post button (default: "Add post")
  • Show-my-posts toggle (default: "Show my posts")
  • Delete-post button (default: "Delete")
  • Author prefix (default: "posted by")

Leave a field empty to use the default text.

Styling and Appearance

Post appearance

Click the Example post to open this panel.

• Card layout:
• • Masonry (varied heights): Cards flow in columns and each card is as tall as its content. This is the default.
  • Post-it (compact): An even grid of post-it notes.
• Card colours: Pick a Card background and a Card text colour. Leave them empty to follow your cBook's theme.
• Card background filter: Blur, grayscale, sepia, brightness and contrast, applied to every card.
• • With a card image: the filter changes the image itself.
  • Without a card image: the filter changes whatever shows through behind the card, such as the slide background. Blur gives the cards a frosted-glass look. This works best with a semi-transparent card colour or a background image behind the board.
• Card background image: An image behind each card's content. If none is set, the card background colour is used.

Tip: Make sure the text stays readable on your card colour or image. Check this with the Example post.

Background

Click the Background chip on the canvas, or choose it under Edit part.

• Background filter: Works the same way as the card filter and applies to both orientations. It also works without an image.
• Slide background: Choose an image for landscape and one for portrait.

What Participants Experience

Writing a post

1. The participant clicks Add post.
2. They enter a Title (required) and write their post. The text editor offers bold, italic, lists and links.
3. If you allowed files, they click Choose files. For each image they can add a short description for people who can't see it.
4. They click Post.

If something is missing or too long, a clear message tells them what to fix. If a file upload fails, the post is still saved and they can retry just the failed files.

Editing and deleting

• Participants can always edit their own posts: change the text, remove files, or update image descriptions.
• They can only delete their own posts if you allowed it. Before a post is removed, they are asked to confirm.

Reading and reacting

• Sort by re-orders the board.
• Unticking Show my posts hides the participant's own posts, so they can focus on everyone else's.
• Clicking an emoji adds a reaction and clicking it again removes it. Each person can give each emoji once per post.
• Images and videos open in a full-screen viewer. Audio plays right on the card. PDFs open with a Download link.
• Long boards load in pages. A Load more button appears at the bottom.

Printing

If you switched on the print button, participants can print the whole board, not just the part they've scrolled to. The printout includes the header and all posts in the current sort order.

Completing the slide

The slide counts as completed as soon as a participant opens it. Nobody has to post to move on. A frozen board or a used-up quota never blocks anyone.

Accessibility

The board works with the keyboard and with screen readers. Buttons name the post they belong to, new posts and changes are announced, and images can have descriptions. The playful tilt of the cards switches off for people who have turned off animations.

Evaluation

Open the Evaluation tab to read what participants posted.

1. Choose a Learning Group. Each group has its own board.
2. Browse the posts. Sorting starts at Author A–Z, so you can quickly see who contributed what.
3. At the top, a summary shows the number of posts, contributors, reactions and files.
4. Click Refresh to load the latest posts, and Load more for older ones.

What you see depends on the Author names setting:

• Show author names or Hide names from participants: You see the real names.
• Anonymous: You see "Participant 1", "Participant 2" and so on. Posts by the same person share the same number.

Looking up names in the Evaluation is logged.

• Accept new posts: Turn this off to freeze the board. Existing posts stay visible, but nobody can add new ones. Participants see "This board is not accepting new posts."

Flagging inappropriate content

As an evaluator, you can flag Pinnwand posts that are inappropriate. Flagged content disappears for all learners, and only its author still sees it. Nothing is deleted, so you keep a full record of who wrote what, and who flagged it and when.

Who can flag: Anyone who can open the Evaluation tab of the slide.

Flagging a post

1. Open the Pinnwand slide's Evaluation tab and pick the learning group.
2. On the post, click Flag as inappropriate.
3. To undo it, click Remove flag. The post is visible to all learners again.

What you see in the evaluation

• Flagged posts stay in the list, greyed out, with the notice "Flagged as inappropriate by {name} on {date}".
• If the author deletes a flagged post, it stays in the evaluation and is marked Deleted by the author. You don't lose the evidence.
• Flagged posts don't count in the evaluation's totals. They're still included in print and exports, marked as flagged.
• On anonymous boards, authors stay anonymous ("Participant 4"), even when flagged.

What learners see

• Other learners no longer see the post.
• The author still sees it, greyed out, with the notice "An evaluator removed this post. Only you can still see it." They can delete the post, but they can't edit it.
• Nobody can react to a flagged post.

How quickly does a flag take effect?

Learners who open the slide afterwards never see the flagged content. Learners who are already on the slide see the change within about a minute, or when they come back to the browser tab.

Older cBook exports: Flagged content is hidden in every cBook, including SCORM packages exported earlier (before October 15th 2026). The greyed-out notice for authors only appears after you export the cBook again.

Step-by-Step Guides

An anonymous feedback wall

1. In Title & header, write a title like "What should we improve?"
2. In Board & posting, set Author names to Anonymous.
3. Set Max posts per participant to 3, so a few people can't flood the board.
4. Leave Allow emoji reactions on, so participants can agree with each other's ideas using 👍.
5. When the feedback round is over, switch off Accept new posts to freeze the board.

Remember: Posts written in anonymous mode stay anonymous forever, including in your Evaluation.

Names hidden from peers, visible to you

Use this when participants should speak freely but you still need to know who wrote what, for example for grading.

1. Set Author names to Hide names from participants.
2. Participants see "Name hidden" on other people's posts and "posted by you" on their own.
3. In the Evaluation tab you see the real names.

A photo gallery

1. Switch on Allow file attachments and leave only Images ticked.
2. Choose Masonry (varied heights) as the card layout, so photos can take their natural height.
3. Switch on Show print button, so participants can print the finished gallery.

A frosted-glass look

1. Under Background, choose a colourful Slide background image.
2. Under Post appearance, pick a semi-transparent Card background colour and leave the Card background image empty.
3. In Card background filter, turn up the blur. The background now shows through each card, softly blurred, like frosted glass.

An introduction round

1. Set the title to "Introduce yourself!" and add a prompt in the description.
2. Set Max posts per participant to 1.
3. Keep Show author names.
4. Switch on Limit post length with around 280 characters, to keep posts short and easy to read.
5. Switch on Participants may delete their own posts, so people can start over.