TECH4ARTED
Pin It Where It Belongs
Managing digital clutter can be overwhelming. Don’t lose track of your great finds, just put
them in a convenient place to easily
find later. Organize your digital life
using the amazing visual bookmarking tool, Pinterest ( pinterest.com).
With Pintrest, you can quickly find
Web resources by scanning through
images rather than reading a list of
bookmarked pages.
Theresa McGee
Pinterest Basics
On Pinterest, your saved images or
videos are known as “pins,” while
categories you create to organize your
pins are known as “boards.” To link
to the Web page of a pinned photo, just
click on the image.
Use the Pinterest search feature to
find images others find pin-worthy.
For example, if you’re teaching about
color complements, type in “orange
and blue” in the search bar and images
labeled with these colors will appear.
Alternatively, type in an artist you
want to learn about and find images
of the artist and even student work
inspired by the artist.
Collaborative Uses
Pinterest is a great way to put together
online collections for your students.
Use it to create a board with interesting videos or inspirational artists
relating to content taught in class.
Connect with what other art teachers
and creatives are pinning. One of the
best features of Pinterest is that you
can re-pin to your own boards what
others have found useful. Starting
with a board or pin that you stumble
across, look to see who this person
follows. In just a few minutes, you
will have collected amazing visual
content. Another collaborative use is
to create an art department account
and work together to pin inspirational
visuals into the same collection
boards.
com/ArtEdPrintouts), Classroom
Management(
tinyurl.com/Classroom-Mgt), and Fine Motor Resources
( tinyurl.com/FineMotor).
For technology-related Pinboards,
try Interactive Whiteboard Resources
( tinyurl.com/InteractiveArtBoard),
iPad Apps (
tinyurl.com/iPadArt-Resources), and Art Videos (tinyurl.
com/5MinuteVids).
For Pinboards that relate to specific
types of art or artists, try Patterns
in Nature (
tinyurl.com/NaturePat-terns), Art Parodies ( tinyurl.com/
ArtParodies), O’Keeffe (tinyurl.
com/GeorgiaO), or 3-D Art (tinyurl.
com/3Dimensional).
Some Pinboards that contain useful
lesson Ideas include High School Lesson Ideas ( tinyurl.com/HighSchoolart),
Elementary Lesson Ideas ( tinyurl.com/
ElemArt), Art Ideas Using Recycled
Materials ( tinyurl.com/RecycleGreen),
and Clay and Ceramic Ideas (tinyurl.
com/ClayIdeas).
Pinboards
The best way to understand how Pinterest works is by exploring some of
the great boards created by others.
For Pinboards that contain great
teaching resources, try Art and
Literacy ( tinyurl.com/ArtLiteracy),
Quotes and Sayings ( tinyurl.com/
QuotesSayings), Printouts (tinyurl.
Start Pinning
Create your own Pinterest boards with
an invite request from pinterest.com.
(Tip: If you don’t get your invite via
e-mail immediately, try a different
e-mail account.) Once you receive the
Pinterest invite, you can begin collecting your own inspiring websites.
Make it even easier by installing the
Pin It bookmark button in the tool-bar of your Internet browser and pin
things as you come across them (
pin-terest.com/about/goodies). Pinterest
also has a free iPhone app that lets you
browse through pins while on the go:
tinyurl.com/iPhonePinterest.
Unlike traditional Internet bookmarks only identifiable as a word or
a phrase, Pinterest bookmarking lets
visual images describe the content.
Take a look—the ideas are endless!
Theresa McGee is an art teacher at Mon-
roe Elementary in Hinsdale, Illinois. She
also co-authors an art education blog
( teachingpalette.com). tmcgee@d181.org
