Will you become a Pinterest addict?

by Emily Smith,
Teacher of Art, Design and Technology

If you have come across Pinterest you will know how addictive it can become. Pinning ideas for your home, wedding, retirement, holidays, dream car... the list goes on. Before you know it, it can be 1 o’clock in the morning and you don’t know where the time has gone.  

For those of you who have never come across Pinterest before, you can create boards in a similar style to having a notice board, only they are all in one place and you can have as many as you want without them all taking up lots of room. You can then ‘pin’ ideas to the board from either Pinterest itself or certain web pages also allow you to pin certain articles/images. You just have to look for the logo.

In Art, Design & Technology I use Pinterest in lots of different ways. It is great when you are starting a new project and you want to get some inspiration or alternatively if you are looking for images for artist research. I have even used it to create revision boards for my GCSE classes.

These images show a Pinterest board I created to pin ideas for the Preliminary Material for the 2017 AQA GCSE Graphics Exam.

I have also incorporated hyperlinks to Pinterest into my lesson PowerPoints, in the images below you will see a year 7 homework task with a link to my Pinterest page. When you click on the icon, it takes you directly to the board relating to that homework. It is especially useful for when students say, “I couldn’t find any pictures”. I direct them to my Pinterest page and they are able to use the board to copy and paste images to create their mood board.

You are also able to showcase your students' work by creating a board and uploading your own images.

There are thousands of teachers on Pinterest and you are able to follow their boards, like their pins and re-pin ideas to your own boards. From the images below you will see that Pinterest can be used across all subject areas and you may even come across some great free resources which you can use within your lessons.

Pinterest can also be used to pick up some great ideas for your classrooms and displays.

Find me on Pinterest…

www.pinterest.com/missegsmith/