MET:Pinterest as a PLE

Pinterest is an online social media-sharing platform that allows users to search, save, and organize links of interest, visually. In addition to that, it allows users to organize their visual bookmarks, or ‘pins’ into collections or boards. Pinterest also allows users to connect and follow other users from around the world. Pinterest has a network of millions of users worldwide utilizing it for anything from home improvement ideas to beauty ideas and product advertising. An educator can engage the Pinterest community as a PLE to acquire just-in-time, personalized, authentic, and enriching professional development.

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Screenshot of Pinterest login screen taken March 9,2014

1. History of Pinterest

Pinterest launched with a closed beta in March of 2010, and then proceeded to an invitation-only beta soon after. Pinterest gained its first 10,000 users 9 months after launch and then launched its iPhone app in March 2011. From here Pinterest began to grow exponentially and by January 2012, it was reported to have over 11 million users. Pinterest became the fastest social network site to hit 10 million unique users, growing at an enormous rate of 4000% in 2011. In August of 2012, Pinterest stopped requiring an invitation to join, making it even easier to access. To this day, Pinterest is continually growing (70 million users and climbing) and updating the app to allow for a more user friendly interface and features such as reporting others for SPAM, telling you if you have pinned something before, secret boards that only you can see, and the ability to send pins to people. As it continues to grow at a staggering rate, outpacing Facebook, Twitter, and more with the amount of monthly unique visitors, it also has the ability to make pins stay relevant and passed around for months, verses the short-lived life of tweets. As of September 2017, Pinterest surpassed 200 million monthly active users. As of November 2017, Pinterest tied Instagram for 5th place social media network overall. There is speculation Pinterest is gearing up for an Initial Public Offering in 2018.

2. Usage

With Pinterest users can upload their own pictures or videos; browse through categories; search for specific keywords or people, save and sort their pins into different personal collections known as pinboards. Users can also find websites outside of Pinterest and pin them to the site themselves. When users log into Pinterest, it shows up with their home feed, which shows what their Pinterest friends are pinning. Users can browse through these images, looking for things that catch their eye and then pin them to their own boards. People use Pinterest for beauty and hair ideas, recipes, DIY projects, and more.

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General Pinterest Browse. Screenshot taken March 9, 2014

3. Benefits of Using Pinterest as a PLE

When looking for professional development opportunities, adult learners are motivated to solve problems in their own lives, and function when they have a voice and a direction in their learning. In her research, Hunzicker found that effective professional development is “...anything that engages teachers in learning activities that are supportive, job-embedded, instructionally focused, collaborative, and ongoing. With these characteristics in place, teachers are more likely to consider professional development relevant and authentic, which makes teacher learning and improved teacher practice more likely.”

A short summary VIA stop-motion video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0X7U2MX4IU&feature=youtu.be

• Just-in-Time learning

This is an area in which Pinterest helps teachers. They are able to use the search function to look up any topic, grade, curriculum area, or classroom organizational tip that they are interested in. Then the visual options are shown so that the teacher receives a preview of the sites and ideas without having to click on them, thus saving time. Also, a teacher can find these ideas and pin them to their board to come back and revisit another time. Thus teachers are able to search for resources and ideas right when they need them. Teachers are also able to just browse through the Education section, to see if any resource catches their eye.

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Education Page Screenshot March 4, 2014

• Collaboration

Pinterest opens up teacher collaboration in many ways:

• Teachers are able to see what their co-workers are pinning and use that to get ideas and repin.
• They can pin and comment and collaborate with teachers all over the world.
• A lot of educational pins are linked directly to teacher blogs, which opens the door to even more collaboration and resources.
• Another great feature of Pinterest that allows for collaboration is the ability to have a shared pin board. This allows team-teaching partners or schools to use them as a hub to share and sort ideas that they would like to specifically implement right away in the classroom. It also allows teachers to comment on the pins, allowing for professional discussions and brainstorming.
• The newer ‘Send’ feature allows you to send a pin to a specific user. This is another way that teachers can share ideas and resources.
• The service now includes private boards and private group collaboration.
• It is now possible to create sub-boards, to classify and organize information.

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Screenshot of Pinterest Send Feature taken March 9, 2014

4. Limitations to Using Pinterest as a PLE

Advertising: Teachers can find great looking resources and ideas, only to click on the original link and find out that they are paid advertisements. This is a potential drawback for all teachers to keep in mind.

SPAM: Some pins are used by scammers to collect your information. This especially appears on Pinterest in form of free offers and can lead to users getting phished.

Lack of Diversity: 81% of Pinterest users are female. 60% of Pinners are from the US and half of users earn more than $50,000 a year. How diverse is this community?

Lack of Pedagogy: Pinterest is not pedagogy. The aesthetic can set unreasonable expectations for educators to create visually appealing classrooms, diverting resources from developing meaningful teaching practices. Learners and educators alike may become enticed by style over substance.

Distraction: Due to Pinterest's visual nature, users can often end up viewing content that is not part of professional development, such as home decorating tips. Some say Pinterest’s promise has been undermined by capitalist entanglements, with pins creating marketing data through millions of self-surveilling, aspirational users. Eye-catching pins make this a distraction and liability when using Pinterest for professional development purposes, as users can end up spending a long time looking and pinning things that have nothing to due with their original query.

Organization: When a teacher is starting out on Pinterest, it is imperative that they set-up a logical organization to their boards (e.g. subject areas). Without this, a pinner can soon find that they have over 2000 pins in their education board. This can be extremely problematic if the teacher is then looking for a specific pin, especially if it was pinned some time ago.

5. Implications for Education

Collaboration: In addition to the collaboration list above, Pinterest also has educational community created boards that serve as a hub of collaboration and resources sharing, like the PLP network. As this continues to grow, teachers will have more and more access to other professionals and resources from around the world, as well as the ability to collaborate with them in new and exciting ways.

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Pinterest PLP Network Screenshot March 9, 2014

Reflection: Not every lesson shared on Pinterest is going to follow curriculum or teaching standards. It is therefore the job of the teacher, as a professional to actively evaluate the lessons and resources they are finding on Pinterest before using them in the classroom. In addition to that, it is also important to reflect on how the new tips and resources have affected the students and classroom in order to deem if they are quality integrations.

Usage in the Classroom: Every day teachers are finding unique ways to use Pinterest not just as professional development, but in the classroom also as seen in the Edudemic's Teachers' Guide to Pinterest. Teachers need to make sure that they are aware of the policies and terms of use of Pinterest before using it with students. As of March 2014, the terms of service states that the age of all users needs to be 13 and over. How this influences changes in the way we teach and have our students learn is yet to be seen.

Copyright and Terms of Service: In the ever-changing complicated nature of the Internet and Social media, utilizing platforms like Pinterest can be a challenge. Pinterest recently resolved two such issues, allowing websites the option of disallowing people to pin their images, and changing their terms of service agreement to match those of other social networking site. When thinking of using Pinterest as a professional in the classroom, Hansen et. al., came up with a set of guiding principals when they were setting up their official university library Pinterest account: Copyright considerations: Is the work protected by copyright? Do we own the copyright of the work? Is the work in the public domain? Is the image available under a Creative Commons License? Is the use covered by one of the Library's licenses? If the work is protected by copyright, does the use fall under the fair dealing exception in the Copyright Act? Is the content creator using Pinterest? These questions and considerations would be a great place to start when thinking of incorporating Pinterest into the classroom.

Future of Professional Development: As teachers turn to social media in order to find more personalized and just-in-time resources for professional development, institutions may need to start talking and rethinking about how their current systems of professional development can be changed to keep up with the online movement. The idea of just-in-time learning is a highly personalized system that allows for the rapidly changing needs of society to have learning environments that are: learner-controlled, afford functional use of information, and provide time and place-independent access. As professionals who are busy everyday meeting the demands of the profession, the idea of just-in-time learning may be an intriguing and exciting one.

Educational Potential: Pinterest has educational potential. Yet users need to take a critically aware perspective as they engage. What world does Pinterest portray, and with whom are interactions taking place? Education could be one of the brightest spots of Pinterest, with users creating original materials and sharing diverse perspectives. It can also serve as a public awareness and education tool. If it can be understood as a space in which to create and inform, and not merely to consume, Pinterest holds promise as a potentially informative and original corner of the Internet.

JANUARY 2017 STOP MOTION VIDEO

JANUARY 2018 STOP MOTION VIDEO / click here: Pinterest as a PLE in 2018

References

Sources for 2018 video

Aslam, S. (2018, January 1). Pinterest by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts. Omnicore Group. Retrieved from https://www.omnicoreagency.com/pinterest-statistics/.

Cummings, M. (2015, April 2). There’s a Big Hole in How Teachers Build Skills, and Pinterest Is Helping Fill It. Schooled. With Columbia Journalism School’s Teacher Project. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/schooled/2015/04/02/pinterest_and_teachers_how_the_site_is_filling_a_gap_in_teacher_training.html.

Johnson, M. (2017, December 8). Is Pinterest Gearing Up for an IPO in 2018? Zacks. Retrieved from https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/285434/is-pinterest-gearing-up-for-an-ipo-in-2018.

Jones, H. (2016) New media producing new labor: Pinterest, yearning, and self-surveillance, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33:4, 352-365, DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2016.1220017

Kallas, P. (2017, December 4). Top 10 Social Networking Sites by Market Share Statistics [November 2017]. Dreamgrow. Retrieved from https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-10-social-networking-sites-market-share-of-visits/.

Lynley, M. (2017, September 14). Pinterest crosses 200 million monthly active users. Tech Crunch. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/14/pinterest-crosses-200-million-monthly-active-users/.

Miller, D. (2015). Pinterest Isn’t Pedagogy. Texas Library Journal; Fall2015, Vol. 91 Issue 3, p101-101, 2/3p

Reynolds, A. (2013, June). Pinterest for professionals. American Medical Writers Association Journal. 28.2: p82+.

Further Reading

Beck, S. (2016). Pinterest for the Apocalypse. The Missouri Review, Volume 39, Number 4, 2016, pp. 32-47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/mis.2016.0060

Eckert, K. (2016). A Virtual Vertical File How Librarians Utilize Pinterest. Children & Libraries: The Journal of the Association for Library Service to Children. Summer 2016, Vol. 14 Issue 2, p34-35. 2p.

Franks, H. & Krause, J. (2017). Winning with Pinning: Enhancing Health and Physical Education with Pinterest, Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 88:5, 15-19, DOI: 10.1080/07303084.2017.1280440

Fritz, A. & Gehl, R. (2016). Pinning the feminine user: gender scripts in Pinterest’s sign-up interface. Media, Culture & Society Vol. 38(5) 686–703, DOI: 10.1177/0163443715620925

Hooks, M. (2015). Pinterest: A Tool for Lesson Planning. The Mathematics Teacher, Vol. 108, No. 6, pp. 466-468. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5951/mathteacher.108.6.0466

Joyce, A. (2017). I Remember That From My Pins!: Using Pinterest to Encourage Active Learning. Psychology Learning & Teaching. Vol. 16(3) 393–403. DOI: 10.1177/1475725717710210

Linvill, D., Rowlett, J. & Kolind, M. (2015). Academic Pinstitution: Higher Education's Use of Pinterest for Relationship Marketing, Journal of Relationship Marketing, 14:4, 287-300, DOI: 10.1080/15332667.2015.1093581

Orsini, L. (2013, July 25). Mindboggling facts that will make you care about Pinterest. ReadWrite. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://readwrite.com/2013/07/25/mindboggling-facts-that-will-make-you-care-about-pinterest#awesm=~oy236tAuxCaPLQ

Phillips, B., Miller J. & McQuarrie, E. (2014). Dreaming out loud on Pinterest, International Journal of Advertising, 33:4, 633-655, DOI: 10.2501/IJA-33-4-633-655

Pittard, E. (2017) Gettin’ a little crafty: Teachers Pay Teachers©, Pinterest© and neo-liberalism in new materialist feminist research, Gender and Education, 29:1, 28-47, DOI: 10.1080/09540253.2016.1197380

Riel, M. (1998). Just-in-time learning and the course of intellectual development. Pepperdine University. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/mriel/office/papers/jit-learning/

Sashittal, H. & Jassawalla, A. (2015). Why Do College Students Use Pinterest? A Model and Implications for Scholars and Marketers, Journal of Interactive Advertising, 15:1, 54-66, DOI: 10.1080/15252019.2014.956196

The teacher’s guide to Pinterest. (n.d.). Edudemic. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://www.edudemic.com/guides/the-teachers-guide-to-pinterest/

Wang, R., Yang, F., Zheng, S. & Sundar S. (2016). Why Do We Pin? New Gratifications Explain Unique Activities in Pinterest. Social Media + Society. July-September 2016: 1–9, DOI: 10.1177/2056305116662173

Wilkinson, Z. (2013). Oh, how Pinteresting! An introduction to Pinterest. Library Hi Tech News, 30(1), 1-4. doi: 10.1108/07419051311320904