What I learned from using PINTEREST as an educator…
I have used Pinterest
as an educator for many years. I have
multiple boards and over 800 pins of varying content including education. I
enjoy the time-saving features other educators share such as lessons,
organizational tips and skills-building activities. Teaching and planning takes so much time and
effort to do effectively. It is nice to
be able to open an app and cherry pick from a list of things other teachers
have already found success with. I also
learned how to add a Pinterest gadget to a blog, something I’ve never done
before. This is very useful since I have always wanted to delve into the
educational blog or mommy blog world.
How I will utilize PINTEREST as a teacher…
I will continue to use
Pinterest as a valuable resource for organizing my teaching ideas, inspiration
for fun projects as well as sharing my own effective teaching ideas. There are many educators who I follow on
original Pinterest account such as “The Moffatt Girls” and “Kathy Schrock” who
have loads of printable, crafts and activity ideas on their boards. There are
many book suggestions for accompanying lessons of specific content such as
poetry, sight words and alliteration.
Strengths of PINTEREST…
Simplicity is Pinterest’s
greatest strength. It is easy to use for
even the older crowd who are less technically inclined. My mother in law uses
it and that’s saying something! Also, it
provides a space for people to explore their passions. Pinterest keeps those
passions alive by feeding them with more pins daily. Volume is another of
Pinterest’s great strengths. Pinterest
has over million active users and the number of pins grows by 75% annually. According
to Quora.com, there are 50 billion pins and 1 billion boards as of recent 2015
data. That’s a lot of pinning! It is no
wonder that when I go to Pinterest to find a teaching tool of any type, I
rarely come away emptyhanded. Not to
mention how visually appealing Pinterest has been designed. Nearly any search for content whatsoever will
yield numerous graphic images with information of your interest…you barely have
to read!
The challenges of PINTEREST…
Of course with any app there
are challenges, Pinterest is no exception. Pinterest has a narrow
demographic. Most women in the 25-34 age
range and over a third in the $100,000 income bracket. If you are using it for
classroom purposes, you must keep in mind that it is not appealing to the
younger crowd. Its largest audience base
is in the 25-45 age range. I think
teachers and moms are an easy draw but using it as an app in the younger
demographic would work if the activity or assignment requires its usage. Just don’t expect them to make it an app they
use in their own leisure after the assignment is completed. Also, Pinterest
pinning does not lead to engagement on a conversational level. People do not interact with one another as
much as they do on Facebook and Instagram.
If student interaction is your driving point, look elsewhere.
Reflections on PINTEREST…
Pinterest is addicting! It constantly feeds you pins similar to the
interest of your previous searches and leads you on a rabbit trail. Nevermind
that you may have opened the app for a reason completely different from your
previous pins or searches. This is why
my boards grew exponentially as soon as I joined the site. From a teacher perspective, I do not suggest
openly searching while students watch. There are quite a few inappropriate pins
that have shown up that are often irrelevant to my search. Some users tag their
pins with common terms just to get hits on their inappropriate boards/pins.
Instead of openly searching in front of students, pre-pin unto boards and go
directly to the boards in your teacher account.
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