Pinning in the Classroom!

If you aren't currently addicted to Pinterest, you must be hiding under a rock with no internet connection! Pinterest is an incredible social media site where you are allowed to create Boards and then "Pin" images to the boards. Some of mine include ideas for my future dream kitchen, places I want to travel to, and, of course, many of those scrumptious recipes I might never have time to create, but gosh are they yummy to look at!

I also love playing with funky titles for my boards thanks to a previous college professor who always told me "titles are the most important part of the book. Even more important than what is between the covers!" I always thought that might be a little extreme (and this was one extreme little man), but the love for titles still stuck with me.

So Pinterest has been the glut of my time (I master the art of time suckage) for quite some time now. Need to procrastinate? PINTEREST!! But I kept wondering, how could this be used in my classroom? (Check out the toilet one where one student who will remain nameless for his own protection compares it to my mind! Rascals!) 

I had heard a few other teachers using it now that our school had bought iPads for every student, but I wasn't sure how it would turn out. So, while reading Slaughterhouse-Five with my seniors, I decided to implement a weekly Pinterest assignment for all students: 10 pins that relate to our book due every Friday. 

I have to say it has been really cool to see the images my students find that connect them to the book. For instance, one student chose this beautiful profile of a model with bright violet make-up and hair to represent the color violet Billy Pilgrim saw. Another used a beautiful photo of roofs in Santorini to illustrate the "ivory and blue" of Billy's feet throughout the book. 

These pins started to really expand and become creative expressions of the imagery that might be lost to them by the time they finished the book. They might forget that color violet or the car he drive or what they thought Montana Wildhack looked like, but now with their Pinterest Board, they could relive those images all over again with the tap of a screen!