Learning Beyond The Classroom: Evaluating The Use Of Pinterest In Learning

Learning beyond the classroom: evaluating the use of Pinterest in learning ...: EBSCOhost

     This article was written in September of 2013 and discussed a case study where a professor used Pinterest in their introductory anthropology class in an attempt to increase student understanding of the content.  The professor taught a 10 week class and so set up 10 different pin-boards, each with 10 pins that supplemented the students' weekly readings.  

Pros and Cons (from Students' perspective) 

Pros

- Useful for studying

- Interesting and intriguing

- Liked the Visual Aspect

- Could be linked across various forms of social media

Cons

- Could not pin all things found on the internet*

- Too much material to read everything

*Because Pinterest is a visual web bookmarking tool, it has to have an image, video, or gif to be pinned.  To get around unpinnable material, I took these articles (which have no image), shared them through blogger, and posted them with an image that was labeled on Google images as free for reuse.  I then pinned my articles to by pinboard.  While this is a round about way to do this, it has allowed me to create a blog, which might get more activity as others repin these articles, so that I might continue posting and reblogging about different educational topics.  

     The 3 biggest points that the author concluded was that Pinterest helped develop students' critical thinking skills because of its non linear and investigative nature, was shared across networks through Facebook and Whatsapp, and was shared with family and friends, which promoted an ongoing learning process.  

Pearce, N., & Learmonth, S. (2013). Learning beyond the classroom: evaluating the use of Pinterest in learning and teaching in an introductory anthropology class. Journal Of Interactive Media In Education, 1-10.