Blog Assignment #12

For this blog post, we were to create an assignment in our area of specialty that Dr. Strange himself should have assigned. After reading Carly's assignment earlier in the semester about how she created a YouTube playlist, I have been trying to brainstorm ideas for my own blog post. I am studying Secondary Education with a focus on English, so I kept going back and forth and around and around on what I wanted to for this assignment. I wanted to come up with something really cool and super fun so that future EDM310 students would look at the instructions and say "Wow Blog Post (insert whatever number) looks really fun, and I think it will help me out a lot as a future teacher!" Okay, maybe everyone won't be quite as excited as I am, but by golly, I'm going to give it my best shot to make it that way.

I finally decided to do my assignment on something I have become quite obsessed with over the past couple of years, and that's Pinterest! Pinterest is not only an awesome website for things such as fashion/clothing, cooking tips/recipes, home ideas, event planning ideas, etc. etc., but it is also a fabulous tool for teachers! Never heard of Pinterest or not quite sure what it's all about? Stay tuned because you are about to find out. So, here goes nothing! With no further adieu, here are my ideas for Blog Assignment #12:

1. To begin with, watch this video: Pinterest for Teachers (5:09)

2. Visit both of these sites: 37 Ways Teachers Can Use Pinterest In The Classroom and The 20 Best Pinterest Boards About Education Technology. Pay close attention to these articles and explore them as best you can. They will be very resourceful in utilizing Pinterest to its fullest.

3. If you do not already have one, create your own Pinterest account.

4. Once you have your own account up and running, I want you to locate a minimum of 15 pins that you find useful for your future career as a teacher. They can be anything from classroom organization, to present teachers' blogs, to tips on helping students succeed. Be creative and actually spend some time exploring the thousands of pins out there. I want you to create an "Education" board and pin your findings there.

5. In your blog post, provide a link to your newly created Pinterest account. In two or more paragraphs, describe your experience with Pinterest so far. What are your thoughts? Are you enjoying it? Why is it beneficial for you as a future educator? Answer these questions along with any other thoughts or ideas you may have.

6. Finally, choose one pin from your Education board that you find the most useful and fun. Provide the link to your pin and write one or more paragraphs on why you chose this certain pin and how it can be utilized in the classroom.

Claire's Take on the Assignment...

Since the best teachers teach by example, here is my personal take on the assignment as if I were a new EDM310 student reading it for the first time:

My Experience with Pinterest

First off, I really enjoyed doing this assignment. I thought the video "Pinterest for Teachers" was very pinteresting (hehe), and I thought both "37 Ways Teachers Can Use Pinterest In The Classroom" and "The 20 Best Pinterest Boards About Education Technology" were really helpful. Fortunately, I created a Pinterest account a couple of years ago, so I did not have to go through the process of making a new account. I think Pinterest is wonderful! I use it for so many things from finding new recipes, ideas for a future home, ideas for my future wedding, and probably most important of all, I use it for ideas for teaching and education. Here is a link to my Education board; I call it "Teacher in Training." Pinterest took a little while to get use to just like any other social site would, but after I got the hang of it, I quickly became enthralled with it. I have caught myself looking up pins for hours and hours, and before I know it, it will be 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning.

So far, I have pinned a lot of pins that look very useful for my future classroom. I think Pinterest is a great tool for teachers because it is a social bookmarking site that does a fantastic job of combing the "social" and the "bookmarking" parts. I enjoy Pinterest because it is a single place that I can keep all of my many ideas for the classroom. Instead of finding YouTube videos, classroom ideas, and blogs on Google or another tool and saving them all to my computer, Pinterest provides me with a place that I can quickly find and organize each idea that I come across. I have found ideas for my future classroom that I would've never known existed it if weren't for the wonderful world of Pinterest.

A Useful and Fun Pin

One pin I found in particular that is very useful for the classroom was entitled "15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly." Since I am studying to become an English teacher, I thought this pin was very interesting and helpful. It explains different errors students make when writing such as misusing "they're, their, and there," "your and you're," "its and it's," and showing the misuse of apostrophes. I would be able to incorporate these ideas in a grammar lesson in my future classroom because these errors are ones that students make ALL the time. I can't wait to be able to teach my students how to write effectively, and Pinterest is a site that's going to help me do that.