Social Media in the Classroom: Using Pinterest

Using Pinterest in the Classroom

Pinterest is an online social media site where you can go on and research different things and pin them to a board.  Many people use it to create a board for recipes, home decorating ideas, vacation spots, etc.  Pinterest has about any topic or idea you could ever think of.  How can a site like Pinterest possibly be an effective tool for the classroom?

Teachers can set up a classroom account or they can have their students sign up for a free Pinterest account.  When students are doing research on different topics they can go in and create a board and then start pinning ideas and information to that board about their topic.  This creates a platform and one spot where students can put their research and go back and look in that one place to write their papers or do any assignment.

Pinterest has so many different ways to bring this type of media into the classroom.  There are pictures, facts, ideas, information, etc that you can find while exploring Pinterest and the students can help teachers with any idea for the classroom.  Let me give you an example of how Pinterest can be used in the classroom.  I am teaching a 3rd grade classroom and we are talking about the Rocky Mountains and I ask my students to find information about the Rockies from pictures, to places around them, animals that live there and weather.  They can go onto Pinterest and create a Rocky Mountain board.  They then will search the different things about the Rocky Mountains that I asked them about.  Everything they find that they find intriguing or important they pin that to their Rocky Mountain board.

After they have done their research I ask them to go back and write a paper on what they learned about the Rocky Mountains including pictures.  I want them to include many details that I will feel like I am standing in the Rocky Mountains while reading and viewing it.  This allows students to sign into Pinterest and going to their board and taking pictures and all the information they need in one place.  This will help students with time management and not have to go find a bunch of different sources in the library and throughout different websites.

Pinterest is a great tool that teachers can use in their classrooms in many different ways.  This brings a whole new meaning to research and sharing of information within the classroom.

References:

 Fulginiti, J. (2012). Pinterest in Education at Lockerman Middle School. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_YN1Ql92hM