Teachers + Pinterest = Genius!

Pinterest as Collaboration Tool for Teachers

It's one of the first lessons learned in Kindergarten: Share with others. Teachers are naturally good at sharing, unless, of course, it's the week before school starts and the local teacher supply store is running low on the hottest sale items. Then of course, it's fend for yourself! But most days, if a teacher has a good idea for her classroom, she's likely going to share it with her coworkers at her school. But give a teacher a Pinterest account and she will share those great teaching ideas with teacher friends, friends of teacher friends and other teachers around the world... all with the click of a button.

If you haven't yet joined Pinterest, here's how it works: Pinterest is a free virtual bulletin board that allows the user to "pin" a webpage or blog post while capturing the link that takes you back to the source from which it was "pinned."

Old School: when teachers found an idea or resource to use in their classroom they photocopied it and put it in a notebook or pinned the page with a thumbtack to a bulletin board for later reference. With Pinterest, teachers can save those great ideas they find on professional websites and blogs onto their Pinterest account by creating and organizing virtual bulletin boards and "pinning" the picture links to their boards. They can then go back and click on the pin (or picture) and it will take them to the website or blog where they found that great idea in the first place. They can also "Repin" pins that other have found and "follow" other pinners or other boards. Here is where the sharing comes in. Everything that you pin can be viewed by other pinners that follow you as well as other pinners that just happen to explore the topic you organized it under. (If you aren't in the sharing mood, you can also limit who sees your pins.)

I have pinned numerous recipes, home renovation tutorials and nifty craft ideas in the short time since I joined Pinterest. While browsing pins of those I "follow" I could not help but notice my teacher friends are pinning like crazy! Popular pins include everything from bulletin boards and favorite read alouds to research projects, math center ideas, Web 2.0 resources and Common Core Curriculum. As the first day of school inched closer, the number of teaching pins increased so much that I found myself secretly blaming the teachers who had become Pinaholics avid pinners over the summer break as the reason the Pinterest app on my phone was moving so slow. No kidding! It is working fine now that school has started.

Pinterest makes it easy for teachers to collaborate on themes by allowing multiple pinners to pin on the same board. True story: Erin, a second grade teacher was frustrated with the low writing scores in her class. She browsed pins on Pinterest about teaching writing. After finding many great ideas for Writer's Workshop online and from other Pinners, she created a board, "2nd grade Writer's Workshop" and shared the board with the other teachers on her grade level. After giving her coworkers access to pin to the board, her teammate Jan, then browsed the board adding in the comment box on one of the pins, "This will work great for teaching author's purpose too. What do you think?"  The other 2nd grade teachers also added to the board and commented on the pins already there. They can each access the board individually from school, home or on their cell phone via the Pinterest app. At their next collaborative planning meeting they were able to go back to several of the ideas they pinned to their shared board for a quick reference to the new resources.
 
If only we could get PD credit for all our "Professional Development" time spent on Pinterest! Oh, wait, I think I saw a quote about that on Pinterest the other day...

Fakebook

Looking for a new idea for those school projects? Try Fakebook. Fakebook is sort of like an online template for educators and students. Fakebook can be used for creating a facebook-ish page to highlight a famous person or event in history. Fakebook could also be used for an innovative spin on book reports or science projects. Check it out!

Top Ten Tips for Creating Classroom Websites

Recently I spent quite a bit of time researching classroom and media center web pages from various surrounding county schools in hopes of improving my own media center web page. I wanted to find out how I could make the most use of our online presence to promote the media center and all it has to offer. As an outsider who is unfamiliar with these particular schools, I was able to test the sites' user friendliness and see if the over all layout made sense to the average user. It didn't take long before I began to notice trends among the most outstanding websites. I used this experience to make my Top Ten Tips for Creating Classroom Websites:

1. Consider your reason for having a classroom website. What information do you want to share and why? Write this down. It is your overall goal for the website and will help shape how you proceed from here.
2. Consider who will be your target audience / users for the classroom website. Parents? Students? The community? All of the above? Keep this in mind as you create and maintain your website.
3. Keep it simple! You don't need to be a web designer to make your site look good. I recommend using a website creator such as Weebly.com that is user friendly and guides you through the process. The great thing about Weebly is that it is free, easy to use and set up to help you succeed in creating a sharp looking website. 
4. Consider how you want to break up the information on your website. Use tabs and pages within the website to organize your information in a way that will make sense to your audience / users. Take a look at other class webpages for ideas that work well.
5. Images speak louder than words. Take pictures of your classroom, school events and students at work and add them to your website where appropriate. Weebly allows you to add slide shows, videos and photo galleries in a matter of minutes.
6. Leave the 1990's clip art and flashing, animated backgrounds in the 1990's. You wouldn't want your viewer's to get a headache just looking at the website. 
7. Cut the clutter. Ask coworkers, family and friends to take a look at your site before you publish it. Ask for honest feedback on what you should keep and what should be cut. Remember clean and simple is much more eye-appealing and user friendly than busy and cluttered. 
8. Set aside a regular time to update and maintain your website with current information.
9. Use it! This is your space to showcase what students are learning in the classroom. Also, think about the information that you are frequently having to copy for students or parents. Can that info be incorporated into your website for easy access?  
10. Get your student's involved! Once you feel comfortable with the overall management of your website, involve your students in certain features of your website by having them write book reviews, class blog entries, news stories, or serve as class photographers for the week.

Culminating Experiences: Tips on creating videos with your students

Considering a culminating experience in which your students can demonstrate what they have learned? How about involving your students in creating, directing and producing their own educational video or slide show? Sound overwhelming? It doesn't have to be. You can make your video using iMovie, Windows Movie Maker or other movie software such as Pinnacle Studio, as I used for the Habitat video above.

     If the task is still daunting, or you, like most teachers, are short on time, opt for my favorite: the quick, user friendly Animoto movie and slideshow creator. Just upload your video and still images, add in some text and let Animoto do the rest. Animoto will email you the completed movie in a matter of minutes.The best part is, educator accounts are free and teachers are given a special code for students to use. 

     You can see an example of how I used Animoto to create a book trailer on a previous post. This entire book trailer video took me less than 20 minutes to complete. And speaking of book trailers, consider having students create their own book trailers as a visual for a book report. The beauty of the video project is that it requires students to collaborate with each other as they apply what they have learned.  It can be used across all content areas with students of all ages. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Write down your curriculum goals for this project (to keep everyone on task) and collaborate!  
• Use a combination of still images and short video segments. You can use your own images or select from available images on the web. Just be sure to check for copyrights on any images that aren't your own. Look for a creative commons license for free-use images.
• Involve the students in planning the video. Ask questions like: What do we want our viewers to learn from our video? What are the most important parts and how can we capture that on film?
• Assign students roles including videographers, photographers, keyboard operators, actors and narrators.
• Keep the final product short -- less than one minute to five minutes max.
• Have fun! Invite parents to an afternoon matinée viewing of the student created movies showcasing what they have learned. Don't forget the popcorn!

Cool Tools for the Classroom: Voki

Voki is a free web tool that allows the user to create avatars. You can customize how your avatar looks, the background, what they say and how they say it. You can see my example on the sidebar to the right. With easy to use elements created especially for educators, Voki can be used in the classroom to grab students' attention for a new unit or to spark student creativity for sharing what they've learned. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Have students create vokis to highlight some of their research findings about animals, famous Americans, places around the world, or events in history. 
• Voki can be used to present the math word problem of the week in a way that is sure to grab students' attention. 
• Use voki in foreign language class to showcase new conversational skills. Check out Voki for Education to get started. 
• Voki can be used for book promotions or to share a joke or fun announcement in your homeroom class or next staff meeting.