PLN: Pinterest

Hi everyone!

 I would be considered a Stage 1: Lurker when it comes to Pinterest. I have had an account for a while (two accounts actually as I just discovered...I forgot I made one years ago in college). When planning my wedding, I definitely used this social media site to get centerpiece and dress ideas. I enjoyed looking at all the pictures. I also came upon this site when doing Google searches for my classroom, and I found some neat ideas over the years. Nevertheless, I never spent much time really using the site---I never really organized pins, pinned things in general, or followed anyone.  I spent more time on it today and came across some neat classroom management ideas.

Personal Image

 I made a whole new board and called it classroom management ideas. I was inspired to create this board by coming across this pin above about blurt beans. The title Chatty class? definitely caught my attention! I have such a chatty class this year and after coming home today on a Friday, I am willing to try anything to help limit the talking in my classroom. Upon clicking on this pin, I went to a website called Miss Giraffe's class. This page contains a slew of strategies to curb or stop talking among the students. Some of these ideas such as "blurt cubes" and "the marshmallow trick" are clever ones to manage talking in the classroom. After spending time on this site, I started pinning other classroom management and organization ideas on this board. I have a nice collection so far!

I love making lists. I have Post-It notes all over my desk. Pinterest is essentially just that but on the computer. The site is actually really up my alley so I am not really sure why I have shied away from using it. Something about it overwhelmed me and that caused me to not fully pay attention to it. By spending more time pinning and gaining followers, I can venture into the higher stages of connectedness when using a PLN (Professional Learning Network) like Pinterest. 

I most identify with the cognitive benefits of using a PLN. I like gaining creative ideas from other educators to help meet needs or solve problems in my classroom. While I use TpT a lot to gather resources for the classroom, I have recently found Twitter to be very helpful in order to learn new ideas from teachers. I shared my classroom management board on Twitter to see if anyone may be inspired and/or share more tips with me. After exploring Pinterest more, I need to use this social media site to help myself stay connected with other teachers so that I am not sitting in isolation with my classroom problems.

Let's hope these blurt beans work so I can stop all the chatterboxes in my room....

Social Media in the Classroom

Oftentimes when I think of social media, I usually think it's only referring to things like Facebook and Twitter. When I was reading a presentation about social media, I came across the following image. This image stood out to me and made me realize that other tools like Google Docs and Pinterest are also social media. I like how this image grouped these technology tools into different categories. So, the next time I am asked if I am interested in using social media in my classroom, I do not have to limit my thinking into just those two tools.

Social Media Map: Image Source

In order to gain ideas on how to use social media in the classroom, I read the following article entitled 22 Simple Examples of Social Media in the Classroom. On here, I learned the idea of having students create fake Facebook pages about a famous historical figure, and using Pinterest to pin student work to share with parents, etc. In addition to those, a classroom blog can be used in a writing class to have students interact with others, especially their classmates. I like finding resources like this that provide example ideas on ways I can use tools with my students and their families. If I use these tools in my personal life to communicate and collaborate with others, then it makes sense to use them professionally with my colleagues, students, and parents. Since the world is used to these tools, it will probably help them stay organized if all aspects of their life start using them, so all teachers need to start realizing that using these tools more will benefit their school.

I also read another article entitled What Would Abe Lincoln's Social Media Campaign Look Like? A New Classroom Use for Twitter and Facebook. I find it very interesting to look at how social media played a big role in political elections, and how things may have been different if social media was used in the past during Abraham Lincoln's time. This article explained how this topic could be turned into a lesson for students. I found the lesson to be a great idea and it definitely would  allow students to use many different higher-order thinking skills to collaborate and communicate. Within the lesson, students could use other technology tools like Recite to write quotes from historical figures and how those could have been used in a campaign. Awesome way to integrate social media into a lesson! It's something I don't think I would have come up with on my own. One just needs to be social in order to gain great ideas!