Tag Archives: Professional Development

Pinterest for Professional Development?

Maybe you’ve used Pinterest for party ideas, save recipes, or ideas for home organization, but did you know Pinterest is a great place for PD?  Educators are using Pinterest not just to share cute outfits (80% of Pinterest users are women) but lesson plans aligned to common core, technology integration ideas, and more!  Whether you’re a current Pinterest user or not, check it out to connect with and get great ideas for your classroom!

An Introduction to Using Pinterest for PD to Teachers

 

Awesome Educators on Pinterest to Follow

  1. Matt B Gomez
  2. Erin Klein
  3. Lisa Johnson
  4. Eric Sheninger
  5. Vicky Davis
  6. Sue Gorman
  7. Drew Minock
  8. Jessica Jackson Meacham

Pinterest Tutorials for Getting Started

Pinterest Tips – A Tutorial Guide for Beginners
An excellent tutorial that describes what pinterest is along with the “anatomy” of Pinterest

How to Use Pinterest’s New Look
Scroll down to see great visuals of how to use Pinterest.

Pinterest BasicsGetting started with Pinterest

Additional Pinterest Resources

Pinterest for Educators
Blog post by Eric Sheninger about using Pinterest as part of his PLN.  Also includes additional resources.

Pinterest IS for Educators
An awesome wiki of ideas for using Pinterest in education, tutorials, and much more!

Say Hello to Teachers on Pinterest
A Pinterest blog that includes Elementary Teachers on Pinterest along with suggestions on using Pinterest.

Are you an educator on Pinterest?  Who/What Boards do you follow?  How do you use Pinterest?

The Power of the Hashtag

Two weeks ago I was fortunate enough to do a presentation at the Maui Technology Day at Kamehameha Maui Middle School.  My presentation was on using Twitter for Professional Development.  I wanted to demonstrate the power of the Hashtag and in order to do so, I needed a little help from my Personal Learning Network (PLN).  The day before my presentation, I tweeted,

The response was overwhelming.  Not only was my tweet retweeted by @web20classroom himself , but it was retweeted over 100 times!  And that doesn’t include how many people also responded “yes”.  By using the Hashtags #edtech, #edchat, #PLE, and #Learn, my tweet went out to thousands of educators with similar interests.  Without using Hashtags, maybe one of my 80 something followers at the time might have seen my tweet and maybe may have responded.

Twitter has become invaluable to my learning.  I’m no longer limited to learning from educators in my own school, but educators from around the globe without having to leave my office.  I follow people like Steven Anderson, George Couros, and Shelly Terrell to prescreen information for me so I don’t have to.  I use hashtags to stay current on trends in educational technology and to even ask questions to my PLN, who willingly respond and have in turn made my job much more efficient.

Two weeks later, my power of the hashtag tweet is still being retweeted which I am pretty amazed by.  If you’re an educator reading this, believe it or not, other educators do want to know what works for you in education.  Share the tools you are using in the classroom to motivate students.  Use the power of the hashtag  and ask questions to other educators.  Use the 21st century skills your students use every day.  Everything you need to get started, including lists of educational hashtags, can be found right here.

And remember…tweet others as you want to be tweeted 😉