How I Use Pinterest As A Teacher

In a previous post I raved about how much I enjoy using Pinterest for traveling, cooking, and work. Since there was much interest around this tool I decided I would write more about how Pinterest is a great tool for educators.

I have two Pinterest Boards dedicated to work and teaching the first one "6th Grade World History" contains pins that pertains specifically to World History activities and other age appropriate activities for my current teaching position.  The other board titled "Teach it" contains pins that are geared towards classroom management, organizational ideas, inspirational quotes, poster ideas, and other information that I could use with any class or grade. Pinterest recently added a feature where you can divide your boards into sections and this summer I went through and put pins and ideas that I would like to print and hang up in my classroom in a "Print/Laminate" section so I could easily access those pictures when it came time to print.

Most of the time I will just be scrolling through Pinterest on my mobile app and come across ideas for lesson plans or classroom procedures and will come back to them at a later time. I more frequently scroll for inspiration during the summer months to help me get some fresh ideas for the upcoming school year. Some things that I come across I will pin because I know they will be helpful on a certain unit or project that I do with my students during the school year. In fact I stumbled across one pin last summer and it inspired my whole curriculum for the upcoming school year!

If I am having a hard time coming up with fun ideas while lesson planning during the school year I will log onto Pinterest and search for that specific topic. This will get my creative juices following even if I do not find anything that fits my learning goal exactly. Most links will take me to Teachers Pay Teachers or other popular teaching blogs.

This summer was my first time working our school's Intro to Middle School summer camp and since I could make my own curriculum, I turned immediately to Pinterest, for some ideas on what I wanted to do. I found crafts and team building games that I used to create the summer camp curriculum!

Pinterest is a great tool for teachers to find inspiration on everything from lesson plans to fun word searches! I would recommend creating a board and pinning ideas for when you need them!

Spreading Education through OCW

I was pleasantly surprised after reading an article this week on Open Course Ware from Universities such as MIT. I had no idea that Universities were actually sharing their courses for free with the public. I was even more shocked that there were faculty willing to share their materials.

MIT states that “their goal is to educate students… that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21^st century”(see http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/our-story.htm).  The idea is to end educational poverty and provide those that want with an education.  

I think this is a great idea since it provides education to those who may not be able to afford it, or those who enjoy learning and do not necessarily want to go back to school. While this is not a replacement for post-secondary degrees, it is still beneficial. It provides more interest in research and other topics, generates interest in the University for prospective students, and can reach people all over the globe.

After reading the goals of OCW, a quote by Nelson Mandela popped into my mind, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Even though there are some challenges when it comes to OCW, such as the struggle for Universities to get publishers to grant permission to share their materials online for free and funding these sites, I still believe that OCW is an amazing tool that can provide education to those would want it around the world.   

Diigo Idea for Middle School Students

After exploring through curation tools and reading an article about how Diigo was used with university students I am thinking this would be a great tool to use in the secondary classroom!

In my current position my students participate in the National History Day history fair. I enjoy facilitating this project with my students since they can choose their historical topic as long as it fits with the yearly theme, and they are introduced to historical research. This project teaches students research skills such as identifying primary sources, analyzing the validity of websites, and proper MLA formatting.

When brainstorming how to use Diigo in my classroom, I want to use it with the whole class, as described in the case study done by Professor Dennen, to introduce historical research and determining validity of websites. I think this would be a great way for the whole class to collaborate online before they start to work on their own projects. 

During this project, I allow my students to either work individually or in pairs. Once the project begins I would suggest using Diigo to bookmark and annotate their sources. This way partners can see what each has found and I can keep an eye on their research just in case I would need to intervene. In the past I haven’t been able to catch unreliable sources until it was too late when students submitted their works cited page, so I’m hoping this tool will prevent this.

I’m super excited to try out this tool with my students this coming year, wish me luck!

Pinterest - A Curation Tool!

This week in EME6414 we are discussing curation online as one of our topics. Little did I know that Pinterest was one of the tools that falls under this category. If you don’t know by now what Pinterest is and what it can do, you might be living under a rock. Pinterest lets you search for ideas and “pin” them to your “boards”. This feature allows user to organize ideas so they are easily retrieved in the future.

I love using Pinterest to sort my ideas. In fact, my recent trip to New York City was planned using Pinterest! A year ago, my boyfriend and I decided that we wanted to take a trip to NYC and that’s when I created the idea board of the same name. I began to search to just search “New York City” and found some tourist activities that we could do. When we finally planned our trip and realized we only had about three days in the city I searched for “short NYC trips” and found a bunch of blog links to ideal itineraries for short trips. We found restaurants, rooftop bars, and hidden places to visit all through Pinterest. Since Pinterest is easy to use throughout this planning process I was able to quickly manage my board and pull up ideas to plan with my boyfriend. It was a very successful trip, and we were able to see everything on our list and more, with some thanks to Pinterest.

I use Pinterest frequently especially this summer. This summer I have used Pinterest not only to plan my NYC trip but to also plan a Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party! Pinterest has shared boards where you can invite friends to “pin” ideas to a single board. This made it easy for the Bridal Party to plan these events even though we live in different cities.

Pinterest is also great for those that love to cook or bake! I can almost always find what I’m looking for when it comes to recipes. Low carb, gluten free, low fat, paleo, Whole30, and keto recipes are all over Pinterest. They also have cute bake sale or holiday treat ideas to give you some inspiration as well.

I also use this to find lesson plans, educational games, classroom management ideas, and organizational ideas for my classroom. Whenever I am creatively stuck it helps me to get onto Pinterest to get some fresh ideas!

Pinterest is mostly for my benefit when it comes to school. I do not foresee myself using this particular curation tool with students. I have a few in mind that might help which I will blog about once I get the hang of them.

Any ideas on how to use Pinterest with students?