I have been using Pinterest a fair bit this year to collect links and images of interest to me an my students. It’s a nifty platform for curating – it’s highly visual and has an app for both apple and android that I find myself using often when surfing my mobile devices in front of the telly.
When introducing Pinterest to newcomers, I am often asked the question: “how does this website full of pictures of cupcakes have anything to do with learning?”. It’s a good question! Pinterest at first glance presents as a space filled with links to homewares, fashion, craft and cooking. I know some people claim that Pinterest is therefore “for girls”, but plenty of people refute this.
One way that I have seen Pinterest used very powerfully in education is for the creation of ‘inspiration boards’.
Tania Sheko has provided an excellent account of examples from her school in a recent blog post. I’ve included her screenshot here to give you an idea of what is covered:
Pinterest screenshot by Tania Sheko
Working as a librarian in her school Tania was able to really boost the teaching/learning resources available in a visual arts unit by creating a range of boards with images to INSPIRE students in their project making.
What a great idea!
If I was teaching English right now, I could definitely apply this strategy. I would probably start by making inspirations boards for:
- Shakespeare
- journalism
- poetry
- different genres (a gothic board! a crime fiction board!)
- characters for story writing
- locations for story writing
So there you have it – INSPIRATION BOARDS. An excellent way to utilise the (wonderfully visual and digital) Pinterest in your teaching.
Thanks to Tania for sharing her ideas!
Kelli McGraw 