Pinterest for Beginners

Yes, Pinterest can be a great way to gather recipes.

Yes, Pinterest can be good for some laughs.

Yes, Pinterest can make you feel totally inadequate.

But Pinterest can also be a fantastic resource for educators, bringing together people from all corners who have a common interest and common goals.  Last year, I was pinning a bunch of music lesson plans and saw many pins in common with a high school classmate of mine. Its like we were sitting in the teacher's lounge tossing ideas around, when in reality we hadn't seen each other since high school and I had only heard through the grapevine that she was also a music educator.

Here's what you need to do to get started:
~ Go to www.pinterest.com.
~ Create a profile with your own username and password.
~ Click on your name in the top right corner and go to "Find Friends" to connect with others through your e-mail or Facebook contacts.
~ You can browse categories in the top left corner. Start with "Education!"
~ Look for particular ideas using the search bar.
~ As you browse through the pictures and summary, click on the picture to be taken to the original site of the idea. There, you can dig deeper into the resource and decide if its something you'd like to come back to in the future.
~ Once you've found something you'd like to remember, click on the red "Pin It" button.

~ Once you've pinned it, you'll be asked to create a board. Think of this like a cork board or bulletin board with a theme. You can put all of your school-related pins together, or create more specific boards ("Teaching Rhythm," "First Grade Music," "Jazz Resources," etc...)

Get to searching, get to pinning, and don't be too overwhelmed by everything that's out there!

You can start by following two of my boards from my Pinterest account. (You'll have to create your username/login first, and then you can navigate to these pages):
School Stuff (don't be intimidated by the creative title)
IMEC iPad Session 2014 (from my ILMEA conference presentation)

What's your Pinterest board that we can follow? What Pinterest boards do you recommend?