This one is a bit of a hard one for me. I have resisted joining Facebook for years (and continue to do so), and really don't have any interest in Twitter either. I found out when looking at the list of social media sites, however, that I do use some, such as Yelp. I am signed up for Linked In but don't really use it; it doesn't seem useful to me. I just joined because people I knew kept inviting me. But then I don't see why once I go to the site. I was intrigued by Fakebook, and may use that for a class in the future.
So it was easy to choose Pinterest here, especially because I had heard a speaker at a recent Digital Humanities conference suggest using it for a student project. I am teaching Material Culture this semester, and had decided that my students could use it to create a display (board, in correct terminology) related to the artifact that they are choosing to research. So I read up on it and joined Pinterest. At first I found it confusing. They ask you to "follow" 5 boards at the outset, and then they all show up somewhat randomly on your home screen. I was confused by that. But then I created my own board about places I'd like to travel to; it is a work in progress, as there are many many places I'd love to go to! I found that it is very easy to pin things, and you just write a brief caption and it's done. I pinned several photos of places I want to or plan to go to, and I also re-pinned one from another travel board, and added a comment to a pin about Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica. I haven't yet explored whether there are ways to organize your boards, which I think there are.
In sum, I think this tool is fun, but a bit limited. If all you want to do is show pictures with short captions, it's great, and I think it will work well for the assignment I have planned for my students. But it doesn't allow for much textual analysis, and I don't know how much one can organize an "exhibit" on a board. I haven't found a way to do so, anyway. Here is a link to my pinterest board.
I have to say that I am intriqued by Pinterest, I have an account, i think it has great potentail for teaching, but I am not that active and have only pinned a few images so I could have the experience of knowing what Pinterest can be used for. I have visited and admired a number of Pinterest boards though.
ReplyDeleteI looked around for an example of how Pinterest is being used for teaching and found "20 Innovative Educational Technology Pinterest Boards" at < http://edudemic.com/2012/12/education-technology-pinterest-boards/ >.
When I added the above link to TOEP I discovered that the previous example of Pinterest use in education was no longer available. This is when I am very thankful for the Internet Archive < http://web.archive.org/ >. I was able to find the page < http://web.archive.org/web/20121108133518/http://edudemic.com/2012/10/10-popular-pinterest-pages-higher-education/ >. The newer example of Pinterest I just added is a much better example. Broken links are one of the biggest challenges with TOEP because it links out to so many other sites it's common that a link can become no longer available.
ReplyDeleteI also didn't understand why I had to choose 5 boards to follow. Now I"m trying to unfollow them, and just use the feed topics to navigate. Like all the other places we've been exploring, another to re-organize information. I'm wondering how I could find your board and see your pins? robin
ReplyDeleteRobin, if you just click on the highlighted text 'my pinterest board' it should take you there. Did that not work? You can probably also search on Pinterest.
ReplyDeleteRed
ReplyDeleteI clicked and it went there. I've been to Ravenna and many other cities in Italy. loved them all. Padua is also an amazing place. We are dreamin' for a trip (and saving also) to New Zealand. thanks for pinning those pics. robin