Posted by:
Katie Stansberry
Considering the money behind Google’s latest attempts at social networking, it’s a bit surprising that the social photo-sharing network Pinterest has emerged as the breakout online community of 2012.
Pinterest is a visual bulletin board that enables users to create inspiration boards of images from across the web. Although the network has been around for nearly two years, it has really taken off in the last couple months. The most popular topics for pins tend to revolve around food, fashion and home design, and there is a growing community of users creating boards on education related topics.
Here’s a guide to the basics of Pinterest for educators interested in checking out what’s so Pinteresting.
- A pin is an image added by a user to a Pinterest board. Users can add comments to their pins, include links to the original Pin site, or upload pins from their hard drive.
- User pins are collected on boards, usually organized by topic or subject.
- Pinners are frequent users of Pinterest.
- Pins can be repinned by community members to replicate pins on other boards.
Technically, Pinterest is open only to invited users, but you can sign up for an invite on the site’s homepage and one should arrive shortly.
To get you started, here are a few users that have collected some amazing resources for educators:
Wendy is a prolific Pinterest user (she has created more than 2222 Pins) with eclectic interests. Scroll to the bottom of her page to see a series of education-oriented boards organized by lesson type and subject area.
Favorite board: Children's Books Authors: Blogs & Websites
Pinner Tracy Cousino has created several boards with ideas for things like decorating classrooms, lesson plans and creating kid-friendly crafts. These resources are best suited for elementary students.
Favorite board: Clever Classroom Ideas
Anna Moon’s Pinterest presence is a bit like Madonna’s halftime show: bold, chaotic and full of unexpected elements. Most of the pins that relate to education are clustered in one board that is a cacophony of ideas, images and comments on ways to engage students.
Favorite board: Fun Teacher Ideas
I really enjoy Lisa Manes’ boards because she not only shares some great lesson ideas, she also points out adherence to Common Core standards in many of her pins.
Favorite board: Marvelous Math
Lisa M. is relatively new to Pinterest, but she has created some extremely helpful collections of resources. In addition to handy ed tech recommendations, Lisa has also created a board of recommended teacher bloggers. It’s a great way to share PD resources through a visual network.
Favorite board: Blogalicious! Teacher Blogs You'll Love!
Happy pinning!
Katie Stansberry authors the blog Teaching with Tech. She is the former community manager of ISTE Connects.