TCEA Recap Part 2: Things Just Got Pinteresting

Yes, if you read my last blog post, I took great joy in making fun of all those crazy puns us Ed Tech geeks like to come up with.  Well, we may have finally hit the jackpot.  Move over SMART.  Take a step back anything with a little “i”.  Introducing Pinterest.  If iPads ruled the roost at TCEA, Pinterest was definitely the hen laying the most eggs.  I’ve never seen a teacher’s eyes light up when talking about something techy like I did with Pinterest that week.  It is like “digital crack for women“. I’d hear them say stuff like “I’m addicted” and “It’s an obsession”.  I’m not talking about shopping, eating chocolate, or riding goats here either.  I’m talking about a simple website that let’s you socially share links via pictures.

Seems simple enough right?  Didn’t we already have a sharing links platform called Delicioius?  Wasn’t there

"Pinsanity?"

already a bunch of easy ways to share photos like Flickr?  So someone took both those ideas and mashed them up and within a blink of an eye they had over 10 million users and are close to passing up LinkedIn as third biggest Social media platform on the block.  The only other phenomenon I can compare this too other than Linsanity in sports….oh wait, there’s another pun there…”Pinsanity”!  Ha ha!  Ohh, shiny object…

As I was saying before getting punned off topic was that this phenomenon can only be compared to the meteoric rise of Twitter and Foursquare during the 2007 & 2009 SXSW festivals, respectively.  I mean, it honestly took over the Twitter presentation Jon Samuelson (@iPadSammy) and I were leading at one point.  Teachers actually were volunteering to show us how to use it!  As Jon says, “you got to hit them where they are at.”  That got me thinking.  If  80% of the users on Pinterest are women, and 80% of elementary teachers are women, then why have I been trying to force feed Twitter on them all these years?  This could give them some of that social sharing/collaborating that Twitter does, but in much prettier picture format.

Since the goal in all of this is education, I’m left with pondering ways to use Pinterest in the classroom.  Could a teacher teaching geometry make a “Geometric Shapes” board and have students pin pictures of geometric shapes

The first recorded Pinterest Board?

in nature to it?  How about a History teacher creating an “Artifact” board and having students find pictures of documented pre-1700 artifacts from Texas?  The uses could be pretty limitless especially when it’s real easy to just “Pin” whatever you find that’s applicable.

This also got me thinking.  What other Mash-ups haven’t been invented yet?  I mean if Pinterest is the child of Delicious and Flickr, what else could we mash together that would work?  How about we take PollEverywhere and mash it up with Prezi to make “Prezi-Anywhere” – a cool tool that will not only make your head spin but also collect data along the way.  Or maybe we could take Facebook and mash it up with Tagxedo and then you could share how you feel everyday in pretty word-cloud format.  I mean, the possibilities are endless.  Why not take Animoto, Glogster, Oovoo and Zamzar to make up “Glanimozavoo” – A place where you can upload, convert, record, and 3-way facetime your favorite video/photostory presentation?

Ok.  So I got out of hand.  But you get the point. This slice of new territory out of old territory carries lots of possibilities even if we only have so much room in our brain for social media platforms.  But until then, be sure to follow me on Pinterest.  And Twitter.  And WordPress.  And Google+. And Facebook….And….Glanimozavoo.