Pinterest in the Classroom

Photo Credit: http://edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/pinterestlogo-379x243.jpg

In recent years, Pinterest has become one of the most popular social networking sites on the web. Users create boards and "pin" ideas by displaying pictures with links to websites, recipes, DIY projects and more. It is a great way to share information while expressing your interests. However, Pinterest can be used for more than a fun pass time, it can be applied in the classrooms. One of the largest group of users on Pinterest consists of teachers who post projects, classroom activity ideas and links to resources other teachers can use. Teachers can involve students in using Pinterest for learning purposes. Using Pinterest is a way to get students interested in learning by bringing the lesson to them in a domain they already enjoy. It feels less like work and more like fun.

Potential ways of incorporating Pinterest include posting links to study helps and practice problems students can use to increase their understanding, posting current events or interesting facts that relate to what is currently being studied in class, or creating boards specific to a lesson with enough pins for the student to have plenty of resources to ensure their complete understanding of what is being taught. I recently completed a project for my Education Technology class in which I created a board and populated it with pins related to an Algebra I framework for scatterplots. I included resources for learning about scatterplots, correlation and line of best fit, as well as activities related to these projects. I then created a project based learning assignment for my hypothetical students.

For this assignment student would work in pairs to create scatter plots with variables and data of their choosing. Students were asked to each choose a favorite sports team within one sport and then choose two variables to make into a scatter plot.

You can view the activity here.

I then completed the assignment from the point of view of the students. By doing this I learned that without doing the project you may miss obstacles that students may not be able to overcome. If the teacher does the assignment first, they can be aware of these problems and either change the assignment or be able offer the students guidance through these issues before they even start the assignment.

 First I created fictional students named Jack and Sarah and chose the sport, teams and variables to use in my scatter plot. I chose popular teams and common statistics so they would be easier to find and my sources would be more reliable.














I then looked up the statistics on the official team websites and recorded them into a table. I learned in this process that some issues may come up. For example, because I chose points scored I could not include goalies in my data set. I also had to exclude defensive players because they hardly ever scored points and would have skewed the data.

The information was compiled in a Word Document because it allowed me to organize the information. I included a logo to bring some color and visual appeal into the project. I then created a table to record the data points I collected. I provided the sources of my data as well as an explanation of the sample size that I chose.













I then interest the data into a scatterplot building software called meta-chart. This program allowed me to label my axis, change colors, and make my scatter plot neat and organized.

The software made a decent-looking scatterplot, but I did encounter some limitations of the software which I had to address in my activity assignment. The software would only allow me to enter 12 pairs of data, so I had to tell students that this was okay but to make sure they included all of the data in their table.













I originally thought the students would be able to copy and paste the scatter plot into the word document, but it turns out you have to download it and then insert the image into the document, an adjustment I addressed in the assignment process.

And finally, I added a description of the correlation and interpretation of the data. Because the scatter plot showed no correlation, no line of best fit was necessary and I addressed this in my observations. I then repeated these steps for the other student and compared the results. The final product can be viewed here.