How Pinterest is changing your child's education

When Pinterest realized the number of teachers using its site, they did the next natural thing — they created an account for it. Teachers on Pinterest launched in August 2013 and now has almost 80,000 followers.

"Pinterest is a tool for collecting and organizing the things that inspire you," a Pinterest spokesperson explains. "We started with the teacher community because they've been such an engaged and collaborative group on Pinterest over the years, as they discover and share classroom and lesson plan ideas to make learning fun."

Beginning last year, teachers were selected based on outreach by Pinterest teams who identified some especially active pinners in the teaching community. Meet three avid pinners who happen to be educating the next generation — and for them, Pinterest doesn't necessarily mean scissors, glue or even anything remotely crafty. Who knew?

Matt Sutton is a special education teacher who has taught for nine years, to elementary school children from kindergarten through fifth grade. He credits social media — and Pinterest specifically — with helping teachers worldwide connect, create, share and collaborate in a way that gives a "visual glimpse into schools," he says.

"People have long said that teaching can be a very isolating profession. You go to school, shut the door and teach," Sutton says. "Well, those norms are beginning to change and not just from a collaboration standpoint, but with the ability to grab a teaching idea that was used in England or Australia and implement it in your class in Naperville, Illinois.

"As corny as it might sound — that is exciting. And this is happening more and more every single day." Sutton's three requisites for a winning pin? "Simple, clean and quick."

Cardboard carnival

"I just love this idea and everything that goes with it, which is to create a carnival using only cardboard resources," Sutton says. I've had this pin tucked away since I saw it in September and I am just amazed at what the students were able to come up with (even with help from parents)." Find the pin here.

"It really leans toward project-based learning and thinking — kids creating some kind of game, contraption, device and then having a carnival to shown them all off."

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Tracee Orman has been in a room with teenagers for 16 years. That's right — 16 years spent teaching English to grades nine through 12.

"Teaching isn't quite as 'hard' on days that we use social media in class," Orman says. "Using sites like Pinterest with students lets them know you are trying your best to relate and connect with them. They will do practically anything in class if it means they can use a social media site. Learning becomes 'fun' again."

Orman cites the ease with which she can point students to resources just by pinning to one of her boards. "It’s such an easy way to share ideas and suggestions with them," she says.

Grammar police

"One project I do with students is pinning real-world grammar errors, then having students correct the errors," Orman explains. "Many students started their own boards and shared them with the class."

Novel ideas

To help students prepare for a robust classroom discussion, Orman has them create Pinterest boards for characters and chapters from a novel. "[Students] can create a book board and pin images that would represent each chapter after reading it," Orman explains. "Or create a character pin board and use Pinterest as the character, pinning images that character might pin." Orman says students have more room on Pinterest to explain why they pinned each image, vs. sharing on Instagram or Twitter.

1:1 Technology board

"My students have laptops, so I pin lots of websites and apps they can use," Orman shares.

Classroom humor

"Everyone needs a good laugh!"

Young adult literature

"[This includes] book suggestions, reviews and anything related to YA lit."

Still on the fence? "Try it out and see what works with your students," Orman advises. "Start with sharing some pins and asking students to share with you. Then you can expand to assigning students to create boards for different subjects or units. Let their behavior/interest steer you, and be flexible."

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Jamie Michael teaches sixth grade language arts and social studies. "Pinterest has changed how I teach by giving me more creativity activities to use without having to search forever to find them," Michael says. "I can quickly type in what topic I am looking for and am bound to always find something I can use with my students."

"The best thing about using Pinterest with middle-schoolers is that I can search a topic and no matter the grade level it is meant for I can usually find a way to tweak it to my age of learners," she explains. "It is surprising how many ideas are out there that may be meant for younger students that can still be easily adapted to middle school."

Nonfiction strategy

"This was an interactive way to get students to think more closely about nonfiction texts," Michael explains. "My students really enjoyed this activity, and I could tell they were comprehending what they were reading." Find the pin here.

Reading material organization

"In this post, I show how I store reading materials in my classroom. Each student brought in their own cereal box to cut and use as a book holder. This helps keep my students organized and always prepared for class." Find the pin here.

Bulletin board ideas

"[I got] a bulletin board idea from Pinterest," Michael says. "It is an Instagram board that I used to have my students bring in pictures of themselves to share with the class. I loved this idea because my students love using Instagram and it was a great way to make them feel special in the classroom." Find the pin here.

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"Log on to Pinterest when you have plenty of extra free time," Michael recommends. "Once you start finding a few great ideas, you will want to keep pinning more and more, until you realize you should probably go to bed since you have to be up early in the morning!"

Michael also has learned to categorize boards for specific topics. "I have a board for grammar, literacy resources, literature circles and other individualized topics. It helps to have boards categorized like this so you can find it easily later."

Sutton's advice centers on interest. "Search out some things that you're interested in just to get accustomed to how [Pinterest] works," he says. "Then work your way down the rabbit hole and realize how quickly you can become immersed in the land of pinning."

"Just because teens aren’t doing as many 'crafty' things in class doesn't mean that there aren't valuable ideas and resources for school there," Orman advises. She says she's always on the lookout for these types of pins for her high school students — 

• Sites that help students cite sources and create flash cards
• Educational games
• Videos on YouTube that help explain terms or a chapter in a book
• Picture writing prompts
• Articles/advice for high school seniors preparing for college
• Suggested books to read

As appealing as it is to use social media in the classroom, Orman concedes, "Students don’t always utilize their time wisely in class and may look for (or come across) images that are inappropriate. These are also good (sometimes hard) lessons to learn on responsible internet usage. If teachers don’t want to monitor students’ use or have discussions about balancing internet usage, it may not be the best idea."

"I'm still shocked by the amount of teachers who haven't used it before," Sutton shares. "They know their friends find great recipes, but they don't realize they could be revitalizing themselves and their students with what they could find. I'm an advocate of continuing my own education and I consider the pins I find to be of great use for my own preservation."

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