Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

How teachers use Pinterest in the classroom

Pinterest contains a plethora of educational resources.

Long a favorite among craft enthusiasts, the popular DIY site Pinterest, in which users “pin” online images to virtual pin boards for later reference, is gaining ground in education. Educators using Pinterest in the classroom have access to professional development resources, lesson plans, curriculum ideas, and more.

Locating online educational resources can put even more demands on teachers’ time, which is often already stretched to the limit. Pinterest lets users organize resources and ideas in one central location, as opposed to bookmarking sites and then visiting those sites multiple times in order to remember what each site contains.

Each “pin” is taken from an image on a website, so that teachers can immediately see what idea or resource each site contains. Users create different boards and pin items into various categories—for instance, a teacher may have one board for English, another for professional development, and a third for math tips.…Read More

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Tips for using Pinterest in the classroom

A growing number of educators are using Pinterest in the classroom.

Many aspiring crafters and cooking fanatics are familiar with Pinterest, a social media site set up like a virtual bulletin board in which users “pin” favorite home décor, cooking, and craft ideas. But now education is hopping on the Pinterest bandwagon, as teachers and administrators are quickly discovering that the site is replete with resources for students of all ages and abilities.

Users may sign up for a Pinterest account using an eMail address, and create boards for different topics. They can search for specific ideas, or “pins,” or browse through popular pins and filter by subject. Pinterest is public, and users can follow other pinners much like they would on Twitter.

Pinterest automatically links a pin back to the site it comes from, so that users do not have to remember URLs. Installing a “Pin It” button on a browser task bar enables users to pin any image or idea they see on any website they visit.…Read More

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