Social media has revolutionized our idea of information, our perception and the way we interact with the environment around us. Social media has increased our awareness and adaptability. It has become a trusted source for useful information. Many educationists and educational organizations are still struggling to acknowledge the importance and usefulness of social media in the education sector. The advent of social media has changed the way students worked on school assignments, research papers, tests and examinations. One of the most popular social media tools available to students and teachers across the board is Pinterest. Pinterest is a visual social network which lets users create boards; add pins to images from websites and blog posts. It works more like an online bulletin board where you can pin images and share your content, articles and collections. The images you pin get segregated into various categories. These categories or boards are displayed on the user’s Pinterest profile. Since these pins can be shared and are easily searchable, they have the potential to become a very useful educational tool.
There are a number of ways in which you can use Pinterest for educational purposes. Some of the most important ways are:
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Create easily understandable content:
One of the main elements of effective teaching is making the content as understandable and as interesting as possible. Most teachers make use of the visual medium to make their subjects interesting. Pinterest offers one of the best visual medium platforms for teachers. Using Pinterest, teachers and students can create resource boards. They can even save the links in an organized manner so that they can be scanned easily when required.
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Update content easily:
Pinterest allows users to pin all important and interesting current events and news to the bulletin boards so that students can keep themselves updated on all current affairs. In this way students have the opportunity to acquaint themselves with different technologies, events and happening from around the world.
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Access information from various resources:
Using Pinterest, students can access the search bar to get on-topic content from the Internet. They have the chance to look at information from various resources such as blogs, articles, news, resource papers, books, videos etc.
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Categorize content in an easy-to-understand manner:
Teachers can create boards for each subject and carefully categorize them in an easy-to-understand manner.
Create online resource library:
Teachers can create resource lists so that students know the books that are available to them. Pinterest helps in creating a resource library that neatly categorizes all the books, articles, stories, videos and other resources available to them.
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Encourage students to work in groups:
Pinterest encourages students to work together in groups. This makes students interact with one another. Pinterest allows teachers to aggregate student’s ideas and concepts for classroom projects and assignments.
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Interact with students from other schools, universities and groups:
Pinterest is a useful tool in helping students interact with other universities, schools and groups. This makes one student community communicate with other communities, parents and educationists. Pinterest encourages students find other students with similar interests, ideas and concepts. Pinterest also allows teachers gather feedback from various users in order to improve projects, curriculum and teaching methods.
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Make learning more fun!
Learning should be fun. When students learn in an open environment, they tend to grasp information better. Teachers, through the years, have been using various tools for teaching. While some teachers still rely on the black board and chalk method, there are a growing number of educationists who are looking towards other forms of teaching. They are using visual mediums such as charts, presentations, story boards, projects etc. Pinterest helps teachers pin projects, images, informative videos and stories on to the content. This ensures that students find learning informative as well as interesting.
Pinterest helps create online open boards in which student communities, teachers and parents can interact, share and post on a single forum. Pinterest encourages students work online, voice their opinions, build interest in learning new ideas and concepts and ask questions and seek answers. Pinterest helps teachers draw up lesson plans, share ideas, organize information in a useful and interesting manner. Pinterest helps students interact with others, use and organize resources for their assignments, projects and tests.