Pinning it Up at BHS

Last year, I wrote a blog post regarding how a group of teachers were using Pinterest to help create a 'Virtual Museum' with student work.  This was all managed by the teachers creating the board and pinning students projects to the board.  The big advantage to this was the fact that students did not need a Pinterest account to make this happen. (Click HERE to read that blog post)

However, this month, I have had the opportunity of helping students in two classes, Photography and Interior Design, use Pinterest to complete a project.  I am always excited when staff want to utilize tools such as social media with their students.


For those of you who do not know what Pinterest is you can watch this quick 90 second tutorial that I shared with the students prior to using the platform.

What I am most excited about is not that the fact that the teachers were using this social media platform, instead, I was excited that they were using the tool to enhance/improve their current projects.

Interior Design Class
Mrs. Shultz's main goal was for each student to have a board to share images that connected to a specific design style.  For instance, a student was responsible to find design items that pertained to Caribbean style.  Not only did students pin pictures of these items, they also provided a reason as to why they picked that project or why it connected to the specific design style.

This process proved to be a great way of collecting student ideas and thoughts.  Not only that but Mrs. Shultz was able to show all these examples to the class from one location as she did not have to worry about receiving different links to projects.

Click HERE to view the Pinterest Boards from class.

Photography Class
Originally, Mrs. Hogan wanted to do the same thing that Ms. Shultz did.  Ms. Hogan shared a board, called 'Environmental Portraits', with all of her students.  The purpose of this was for students to share images that they found online that they thought matched the theme of Environment.  Again, once a student found an image, they attached a description as to why they pinned that picture.

Since then, she has taken this social media platform to the next level.  She has had all of her students create a board, that is shared with her, so that students can create their own portfolio of work for the class.  In past years, students would complete their assignments and take pictures.  However, these pictures would be stored on a school hard drive that only Mrs. Hogan owns and/or on the students' school network account.  Now, anyone that has the link to their photography board, can see the great work that they are completing for the class.

Lastly, I believe Mrs. Hogan has also started created other boards as a means of providing resources for her students on particular content.

Click HERE to view the Pinterest Boards from class.

How this as Accomplished:

• Students got parental permission to create a school Pinterest account prior to using the social media platform
• Students created their account
• Students followed their teacher (teacher using a school Pinterest account)
• Teacher created a board and shared that board with their students via email
• Students were shown how to pin to a board (inside Pinterest as well as on a regular website)

So there you have it, a couple different ways in which Pinterest can be used in the class.  As always, if you think you want to use Pinterest in your classroom, or you want to learn more about it, just stop on by room 222 and I can assist!  

Happy Pinning...

Creating Your Own 'DropBox' with Google Forms

Ever feel like you are in this situation?

• Want to give students the ability to decide what web tool to use for a project but don't want to receive an email from all of your students with the link to the product?
• Want to ask students to share a Google Document, Spreadsheet, or Presentation to your 'schoogle account' and they don't name it the way you asked.  This then causes an issue as you have to spend time searching for the right document in your own Google Drive account?

Google Form: This is a GREAT solution to the two situations stated above.  Google Forms is one of the options included in your Google Drive account. Several teachers at Bedford High have created what we are calling an Assignment Submission Form (the original idea came from a presentation I sat in given by Allison Mollica.  Basically, teachers are using the form option as a means of a dropbox.  Oh and did I mention that they are doing this with very little work.

Advantages to using this type of system:

• No more emails are sent to your account
• You can grade all student work from one spreadsheet as long as you have internet access
• You never need to change the link to your assignment submission form on your teacher website (even if you add assignment names to question 4 of the Google form)

Here are the suggested written steps regarding creating your own Assignment Submission Form:

A.  Create a new Google Form

B.  Name the Form

C.  Fill in your questions.  Suggested questions to ask in the form:

     1.  Last Name

     2.  First Name

     3.  Block

     4.  Assignment Name

     5.  Link to Assignment

D.  Choose a location for your Responses. (I usually say create a new spreadsheet with the name)

E.  Click on the View Live Form. Copy the link to this form and provide the link on your teacher website.

For those of you who are visual learners, I have also created a short video tutorial:

Creating Your Own Assignment Submission Form

For those of you who have a large number of students or you want to have some sort of system, watch this short video explaining how you can organize all of the student work in different tabs inside of the same Google Form.

Organizing Responses from Assignment Submission Form

So the next time you assign a task for students to complete, and it is web based (either through Google Drive or another web 2.0 tool) ask yourself, should I have them submit it through a form?

As always, if you ever have any questions, stop by room 222 and I will help you troubleshoot how this tool can be used in your situation.

Schoogle Away...