Why is it vital for all teachers? Because so many teachers across the country have joined and are pinning all of the cool things they do in their classrooms, links to great teaching blogs they have found, and everyone is sharing ideas. There is even an Education category just for teaching stuff.
Pinterest is used for EVERYTHING. Recipes, clothes, books, places you want to travel to, crafting, home improvement, quotes, and on and on and on. I've blurred out my name and the names of people I know. I didn't blur out strangers' names since Pinterest is public.
Confused? Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start! When you read you begin with A-B-C. When you sing you begin with...
I'll stop.
Step 1:
Go to www.pinterest.com and you will see this:
Go ahead! Request an invite! Unfortunately, you won't be invited immediately UNLESS you know someone already on Pinterest. Have them invite you and you'll automatically be allowed to sign up! Pinterest is no longer in its first stages, but they're still continuing to expand and work out the kinks. They're also trying to keep it classy, thus the "invitation only" rule. The site might also be slow or down every once in a while, but it has been working really well for the past few months.
You'll receive an email that looks like this once you've gotten an invitation:
Click on the link in the yellow box at the bottom and it will prompt you to do a zillion things like follow your Facebook friends that are already on Pinterest, install a "Pin It" button, and create your boards. In case it does not prompt you or this is confusing, be sure to read steps 3-5.
Step 2:
Once you've signed up with an email and username, go to www.pinterest.com and log in! You might see that same screen as the first time you visited the website, or you'll see this:
Log in, and you're ready to go!
Step 3:
If you have not already been prompted, it's time to follow some people! You can follow anyone that is on Pinterest, but you should start off with people you actually know. Once you follow someone on Pinterest, everything they pin will show up on your page when you log in. If you follow 3 people, all of their stuff will appear in the order they pinned it. If you follow 50 people, it works exactly the same. You'll just have a LOT more pins to look through!
Here's how you follow someone:
Find the button with your name at the top right of your home page. Click "Find Friends".
My name is blurred out and for some reason replaced with another question mark... Anywho, it will take you to this:
Isn't that so handy? It just uses your Facebook friends list! The left side is to invite friends who aren't on Pinterest, and the right side is friends that are already on Pinterest. Click "Follow" next to the people you want to follow. They will be notified and will probably follow you back.
Once you have a bunch of people that you follow, your home page will look something like this each time you log in with different pins displayed each time:
You can now see everything your Pinterest friends are pinning on their boards in the form of a live feed. The left bar has a little history: who has "liked" one of your pins, who started following you, and who has repinned something you pinned! I follow around 100 people, and about that many follow me. You can follow just one kind of board someone has or you can follow all of their boards.
Step 4:
At some point in the registration process, you will be asked to install a "Pin it" button on your bookmark bar. Do it. You'll be able to pin things left and right anytime you're surfing the web. Do people say, "surfing the web" anymore?
If you weren't already prompted to do so, install it from the website. Go to the "About" drop-down menu on the top right side of the screen:
Click on "Pin It Button" and it will take you to this screen:
Follow the directions...
Name it, and click "OK". They suggest "Pin It". I think that's fitting.
And then it will be on your bookmarks toolbar!
Hooray!
Step 5:
Create your boards. Pinterest allows you to add as many boards as you'd like and you can name them anything you want. To get to your boards, go back to the top right corner and go to the drop-down menu that appears when you click on your name and select "Boards".
It will take you to a page that probably looks like this:
It might have some blank boards, too. You can easily edit those boards by clicking on the large edit button at the bottom of the boards so you can change the title, add a description, or anything else you want.
Once you start getting more into Pinterest, you'll realize you want to have a lot of boards in a lot of categories. I try to give my boards fun titles like, "I Want To Go To There" instead of "Travel" as a shout-out to 30 Rock :) Here is a picture of all of my boards:
Most importantly, I have "For my classroom". 103 people follow my board and I have pinned 174 things. Here's a screenshot of some of the things I've pinned:
Cool, huh?
Here's how to add and name boards:
Click the "Add" button at the top right of the page.
You will see a screen pop up:
Click on "Create a Board" and this window will pop up:
Name it and pick a category. Where it says "Who can pin?" you'll probably want to keep it as "Just Me". Then click "Create Board"!
Part 2 will show you how to pin, re-pin, and how to find awesome stuff on the Education category on Pinterest.
See you soon!
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