Pinterest is all the rage right now among my friends and many of the crafty/décor-related blogs I follow. If you don’t know Pinterest, it’s an online bulletin board for organizing and storing internet sites by photo. Of course, there’s the social network component as well….you follow people, people follow you, you can link it to Twitter and Facebook as well. My husband calls it fantasy football for women.
But recently I have seen a growing use of Pinterest among the education world. When I set up my Pinterest boards I was sure to include a generic board for Education thinking I’d probably pin “a few things”. However, it has become increasingly evident that I need to redo and reorganize how I was pinning my educational thoughts – because I had LOTS going on in that Education board. After doing some research and finding that several schools and technology departments have Pinterest boards as part of their online resources, I knew I had to restructure my own. I spent some time one evening organizing my boards into the following: Tech Tools, ELAR Instruction, Math Instruction, Word Walls, Education Blogs/Sites and Education. Then I searched around and found some great educationally related Pinterest users to follow and pass along to my staff.
All this organization and pinning is great, but here’s where the power of Pinterest really shines.
As I sat in a district-level RtI committee meeting last week, we were discussing the need for a PreK-2nd grade visual that adequately shows the developmental continuum of reading skills. Crazily enough I had one on my Pinterest. So, right there I pulled it up on my iPad and showed it to the committee.
As if that wasn’t enough, the following day I was in an RtI meeting on my campus with a teacher and we were discussing the need for fluency practice ideas. Yet again, I had a great fluency practice activity pinned on my ELAR board. I showed the teacher and she was eager to give it a try.
Twice I have been able to utilize Pinterest as an online, mobile resource that positively impacted the instruction on my campus. I’m hopeful and looking forward to more opportunities to use Pinterest as a staff development tool, online resource and source for parent education.
But recently I have seen a growing use of Pinterest among the education world. When I set up my Pinterest boards I was sure to include a generic board for Education thinking I’d probably pin “a few things”. However, it has become increasingly evident that I need to redo and reorganize how I was pinning my educational thoughts – because I had LOTS going on in that Education board. After doing some research and finding that several schools and technology departments have Pinterest boards as part of their online resources, I knew I had to restructure my own. I spent some time one evening organizing my boards into the following: Tech Tools, ELAR Instruction, Math Instruction, Word Walls, Education Blogs/Sites and Education. Then I searched around and found some great educationally related Pinterest users to follow and pass along to my staff.
All this organization and pinning is great, but here’s where the power of Pinterest really shines.
As I sat in a district-level RtI committee meeting last week, we were discussing the need for a PreK-2nd grade visual that adequately shows the developmental continuum of reading skills. Crazily enough I had one on my Pinterest. So, right there I pulled it up on my iPad and showed it to the committee.
As if that wasn’t enough, the following day I was in an RtI meeting on my campus with a teacher and we were discussing the need for fluency practice ideas. Yet again, I had a great fluency practice activity pinned on my ELAR board. I showed the teacher and she was eager to give it a try.
Twice I have been able to utilize Pinterest as an online, mobile resource that positively impacted the instruction on my campus. I’m hopeful and looking forward to more opportunities to use Pinterest as a staff development tool, online resource and source for parent education.
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