Pinterest was a hot topic last year in the tech integration group I attend each month. Of course the group consists mostly of females, so the men in the group gave us a hard time about "girlie" Pinterest. Last spring, I wrote a post on Pinterest giving a brief descriptor and links to ways it is being used in education. When I attended the iPad training at Essdack this past Friday, I learned that Pinterest is also popular in Europe, but an average 85% of the users are men and they are mostly business men! I was shocked and a little skeptical of this statistic, so I decided to do a little digging on this matter. I discovered an interesting infographic comparing Pinterest use in the US vs. the UK. I found some amazing facts:
- The male and female usage ratio in the UK is fairly even (56% to 44%), while the US is top heavy on female users (83% to 17%).
- The top audience interest in the UK is Venture Capital; in the US crafts is the top interest.
- UK users of Pinterest are wealthier than US Pinterest users. (Makes sense seeing as their main interest is capital and ours is crafts.)
Here is another resource I found in my perusing today - Pinterest Cheat Sheet
“{12 Days: 12 Tools} Tool 8 Pinterest Cheat Sheet” by Dr. Kimberly Tyson was originally published on Learning Unlimited.
Personally, I like the visual aspect of Pinterest. The boards and images appeal to my visual learning style. It is a good tool for sharing information and ideas. If I were still teaching English or in the library setting, I would definitely use this tool to share new books, websites for projects or research, student projects and more. I do, however, have two frustrations with Pinterest. The first is the number of clicks to takes for me to actually get to a pinned website. I click on the image, but then a little window pops up with the image and comments. I have to click the image again if I want to go to the actual website, providing the pin is linked to the website. The second is I can't embed a board onto my blog or website. Will I stop using Pinterest? No. It serves the purpose of sharing information in a visual format and for some of my teachers this works best for their learning style.
To view my Pinterest boards, go to http://pinterest.com/socdownload/
How are you using Pinterest to help you in the classroom? Post a response in the comment box below.
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