(Gordner, 2014)
Pinterest: What is it?
Source: www.pinterest.com
I have been told many times that when it comes to teaching, do not try to invent the wheel. It is quite appropriate to use the ideas of others in your classroom. Further, it is even more appropriate to use the ideas of others and tweak them into your own style. In today’s Internet crazy world, the teaching ideas you can get are not limited to the ideas of other teachers in your building or district. With the Internet you do not need to have subscriptions to dozens of expensive magazines to learn new teaching ideas. The Internet is a wonderful tool, and Pinterest is a website that offers a large variety of ideas from everyday teachers, and from professionals specializing in following teaching trends. Best of all – it’s free!
Pinterest is not exclusive to teaching, it has a wide-variety of topics in which one can explore. Pinterest is a form of social media, and you must have a profile in order to use it – you can easily connect it to your Facebook and Twitter profiles, among a variety of other websites. Your Pinterest profile is different from other types of social media. You are asked to create different boards, or files, where you will share various forms of media. You can search Pinterest for whatever topics you are interested in, such as teaching, and if you see something that you like and want to remember, you can hover your cursor over the picture, and select “Pin It,” then you will be given the option of pinning your content into whatever board you would like.
Pinterest: How to Use It
Pinterest is free, so all you need to do is create a profile. When you create a profile, Pinterest will do a lot to walk you through how to use the site. Since Pinterest is a social media website, one of the ideas behind Pinterest is that you follow people, and have people follow you. Once you begin following other people (which Pinterest will help walk you through how to do this), your homepage will display all of the pins your friends/the people you follow post.
If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, you may be wondering what a pin actually is. In short, a pin is a picture of an item, and often times there will be a link attached to the pin. There will also be text attached to each pin. When you pin something, you are sharing it with other people. Unlike Facebook, your profile cannot be set to private, so anyone can see your profile and what you have pinned. You do have some privacy options, however, as you can create secret boards to post pins in. For more information on the basics of using Pinterest, click here to read a well created article by PC Magazine.
(Rhiannon, 2012)
Pinterest: Impacts in Teaching
Pinterest is not something that you would likely use with students. This is an excellent resource for teachers to learn more about the art of teaching from other educators. You can get ideas of how to decorate your classroom, lesson plan ideas, teaching strategies, ideas on literature in the classroom, learn about various educational games and strategies, and learn tips about interview processes, organization techniques, classroom management ideas and strategies, other teaching websites and many more.
Pinterest does have a downside, or weakness. You do not know the qualifications of those who originally posted the pin, or idea. You must be careful to consider the quality of the ideas you get from Pinterest. This weakness, however, is one that goes with anything you find on the Internet, other forms of media, and even you colleagues.
Pinterest is a great way to learn about what other people in the world of education are doing, and unlike many other websites and media that offer this sort of information, Pinterest is free. Be careful about anything that you bring into your classroom, but also make sure that if you bring it into your classroom that you make it your own. It is also always wise to give credit for the ideas you use to where you got the ideas from. If you bring something into your classroom from Pinterest and it is a hit and your colleagues ask you how you thought of it – give credit to where it is due. Also, in time, it is always nice to give back. Once you have learned how to use Pinterest, and you have an idea you want to share – share it!
An image of a Pinterest profile is shown below. As you can see, you can have an image of yourself, and a brief description. It also shows the various boards (or files) that you have pins in. You can view your pins by clicking on your various boards, or you can view all of your pins by clicking on the “pins” tab. You can also see who you are following, and who is following you by clicking on those tabs as well.
Now the question is, when will you begin pinning? To begin using Pinterest, click here.
(Piemonte, 2014)
Value:
Upside: Pinterest has a lot of value for educators. It is a free source that helps to share ideas among fellow educators. It is a place that one can go to find lesson plans/unit plan ideas, classroom management techniques, classroom decoration ideas, and much more. Pinterest is not a tool for students.
Downside: Pinterest is a community in which anyone can join. This means the teaching ideas you get can come from anyone. You will want to be careful what you choose to bring into your classroom – although this should happen regardless.
Assessment:
This is a resource for educators only – therefore you cannot do assessment through Pinterest.
Standards:
You can use Pinterest to get teaching ideas on most, if not all, standards.
Conclusion
Pinterest is a great, free, resource that can help educators up their game in the classroom. The Internet and sites like Pinterest are the future of education. It is the suggestion of this blogger and educator that all educators should at least try out Pinterest – so Pin on!
References
Gordner, C. (2014, January 2). How To Name Your Brand Pinterest Boards. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from http://socialfresh.com/how-to-name-your-brand-pinterest-boards/
Piemonte, M. (n.d.). Mike Piemonte is pieman458 on Pinterest. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from http://www.pinterest.com/pieman458/boards/
Rhiannon (2012, January 11). How to Add the Pinterest “Pin It” Button to your Blog Posts. Retrieved February 19, 2014, from http://bakedinthesouth.com/2012/07/how-to-add-the-pinterest-pin-it-button-to-your-blog-posts/
Links:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418048,00.asp
http://www.pinterest.com
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