Using Pinterest in Education

How many of you are familiar with Pinterest?  How many of you are guilty of letting time slip away while you browsing pins and ideas?  I have to admit I am hooked.  It's a great place to find recipes, craft ideas, inspiration, wardrobe ideas, household gadgets and on and on and on and on.  I find it rather addictive at times. 

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Pinterest, it is basically an online bulletin board where you can save (or pin) things that interest you.  It makes it easier to re-find things that you discover on the web.  It also works as a type of social network, in that you can follow other pinners and see what they are pinning. 

Did you know that Pinterest is a great education tool as well?  There are many pinners out there pinning great resources for teachers of all kinds.  It can actually be a little overwhelming to start with.  I have found a few ways that make finding and pinning teaching ideas a little less time consuming. 

First, it has been helpful to me to follow a few teachers on Pinterest.  That happened accidentally, I must admit.  I have a couple of crafty friends I follow who also happen to be teachers.  Their educational pins started popping up and I started repinning some of them on a board I called, Education Ideas.  (pretty generic and boring name, I know)

Then, I found out through our district's technology guru, that Tina Wahlert, the education consultant for Green Hills AEA, has quite a following on Pinterest.  You can find a link to her boards here.  Tina has 127 boards as of today, with over 10,000 pins.  She has over 5,000 followers and most of her boards are very specific to education.  You might want to browse through some of them.  It is an amazing resource!

So, with a wee bit of inspiration from Tina, I started doing a little bit of an overhaul to my own Pinterest boards.  I now have 4 of them for education.  (and none of them are named Education Ideas any more)  I am not anywhere near as inspirational as Tina, but I am trying to collect some things that you may be able to use in your homeschooling.  A link to my Pinterest boards is here.  If you are already on Pinterest yourself, you can repin interesting ideas to your own boards, or follow me if you want to see what I am pinning.  If you prefer to stay away from the addiction, you can always bookmark pages or ideas that you find interesting.

I have been having fun finding lists of great books for children, websites that list great iPad Apps, art projects, math and science ideas and online storybooks to name a few.  When you have a few spare moments, take some time to browse around and get some new inspiration.  Who knows, you may find just the thing you need to spice up the lesson plans this week.  You may even stumble across a great new recipe for supper along the way ;-)

Happy Pinning,

Linda