I am a huge fan of Pinterest! I tack up ideas and concepts for current and future projects that range anywhere from gardening, to plumbing, to art and fashion. I am a visual learner (with a hint of ADD?) and find the pinterest app helps me organize and refine the endless evolvution of ideas flowing from my brain. Pinterest's popularity does not surprise me whatsoever, but that Pinterest ranked as the fourth most popular social media site favored by teens did leave me pondering its' versatility as a learning tool. Then I stumbled upon this article by Lauren Barack, College Prep via Pinterest. The article discusses the multiple advantages of using social media to engage high school students and how Pinterest in particular, is the perfect platform for today's visual learners. There is not a lot of text and it is a very user-friendly, streamlined application.
As any educator of teens knows, engagement is most of the battle with the teen brain, and if you can elicit a spark of curiousity, it becomes easier to slip in some critical content. Social media is proving to be a pivotal part of engagement and librarians have come to utilize the big guns of social media like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. But Pinterest, you might ask? Librarians across the country are realizing the potential for it as an educational tool and it seems to be a trend that is catching on.
K.C. Boyd, a library media specialist at Wendell Phillips Academy High School in Chicago launched a Pinterest board for college readiness for her students. She included things like, common financial aid mistakes , preparing for dormitory life and even a list of the 25 healthiest colleges and universities in the U.S. She has found that her students are very comfortable with the Pinterest medium and therefore it's a no brainer to try to lure them into content with whatever means possible
Here are some other Pinterest boards aimed at seniors that Barack refers to:
“Getting Ready for College” from the Otis Library in Norwich, CT
“College Readiness” from the Staley High School Library Media Center in Kansas City, MO.
And some popular pins for college prep:
Happy Pinning!
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