Pinterest in Education

Jemima Saunders
Mar 8, 2014
2 min read

I was lucky to be asked to participate in a four module training program to develop my skills in leading Professional Development session recently for staff called 'Exemplary Educators'. It was lovely to be able to broaden my teaching experience into the realm of adult education and in particular, to once again engage other teachers in all things EdTech and ICT.

One of our tasks was to prepare a short presentation that followed the principles of the experiential learning model explained here by David Kolb; http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm

I decided to create a Keynote presentation designed to either introduce or expand the use of Pinterest for educators. The 3 and a half minute video above is the result of my presentation. It was incredibly interesting to learn about (yet again) the different ways people prefer to learn. I highly recommend teachers look at their own and other potential preferred learning styles as described by Kolb. I discovered that I'm definitely a Converging learner, preferring to 'Think' and 'Do'. This essentially means I need to be aware that other learning methods such as 'Feel' and 'Watch' must be deliberately considered when I'm developing learning opportunities so that I can engage as many varied types of learners as I can.

I was a bit nervous at first as I'm normally accustomed to an under 13s style of audience but I really enjoyed myself! I would especially like to thank Sam Oriti and Donna Deed at CEOWA for their careful modelling and fantastic encouragement throughout this program.

For teachers who are either new to Pinterest or who haven't yet considered its potential for use in schools some of the ways I would encourage use would be to;

Create boards that target specific subject areas or skills to be taught.
Follow excellent Teachers (of which there are thousands!)
Pin your own ideas as well as other people's.
Start with an area you have a particular interest or strength in.
Curate your collections, add your own descriptions, make comments, share.
Pin and forget! Then revisit your own boards later when you need some inspiration.
If you have old enough students, encourage them to create accounts, pin ideas/photos/videos and follow each other to generate collaborative projects.
Send Pins to staff who may not yet have used Pinterest to develop PD opportunities.
Search for keywords; classroom/Yr 5/Mapping activities/St Patrick etc.
Be wary of descriptions that aren't your own - others will see these and may assume you are their author - ensure you are in control of this aspect.
Share Pins outside of Pitnerest, use Twitter or LinkedIn too.