You may have heard of Pinterest. It is big in social media sites at the moment. It is an electronic bulletin board to “pin” websites and images of interest. Not only is it great for personal use, but there are creative ways to use it in your classroom.

If you are like me, you are constantly coming across things that stand out and you want to remember to use in your classroom at a later point. Pinterest is a great place to put these items. For example, you could create boards for your different units and “pin” items that you want to use later on. A quick search of a particular history subject or topic can bring up many items. If you find a teacher or board you like, you can follow them and gain more potential items to use in your classroom…a great way to develop you personal learning network.

Another idea is to use it with your students. You would need to create boards with multiple users. Pinterest tells you how to set up a multiple user board in their help page and there is a You Tube tutorial video. Here are some possible ways to use it in class:

Reference Materials: You may want to create a board with different sites for students to use for research projects categorized by topic or a variety for them to brainstorm. You may also want to set it up for students to post sites that they find useful.

Group Collaboration: You may want to organize end of the year review into chunks. Why not have small groups find helpful review material for collaboration with other students. It may be that they find informative sites and/or sites with review material such as Quizlet, Study Blue, Capzles, or others.

Student Presentations: If you assign group presentations, why not make them accessible to all students by pinning them. Student Glogsters, Weeblys, Prazis, or other electronic presentations can be “pinned.” Mine just asked me to do this today after our Gilded Age presentations for review.

Decades Project: Students can create a board for an assigned decade and curate information pertinent to the time for a visual collection. You expand it to websites or other relevant info to meet your instructional needs.

Music DBQ: Students love music. Why not have them find music of a given era and “pin” samples? Or if you play in music in class while students enter or work in class, they could “pin” possible selections to be played in class.

Image/Political Cartoon Gallery: Images are powerful. Why not create a board for students to “pin” powerful images of a given time frame or from history. Political cartons would be great to be included. Students could contribute and you could rank them in order at the end of a unit or semester and have a great discussion/Socratic seminar. They could also be used for a random warm-up discussion/analysis activity or end of the year review.

The possibilities of Pinterest go on. Hope you and your students can have a creative and engaging experience. Pinterest also has secret boards for teachers of lower grades where posting student work/name may be more difficult due to school policy. Also, as a teacher, you may want to create a class account and “pin” items as a class activity with different students at the computer.