Pintrest and Evernote: 3 ways they work in the classroom

I have zero experience using Pinterest and Evernote.  To be honest, I knew nothing about Evernote until this week, and as for Pinterest, it never really caught my attention.  Some days I feel like I can barely stay up to date with my Facebook and Twitter accounts that using another social media app feels a bit much.  However, after this week's readings and instructional videos, not only did my opinion about Pinterest change, but I found both applications to be very useful for educators.

Pinterest is the cool "new" app everyone is using. If you're like me and had only ever heard of it, Pinterest is basically a virtual pin board where you can pin pictures or videos you like from the Web and organize them in various ways.  Think of the corkboards you might see hanging on a wall in a college dorm room with all sorts of random stuff displayed, but not as messy.  Within the last 2 years the number of new users has grown exponentially, and one group of professionals that is really taking advantage of what Pinterest has to offer are educators.  For teachers, this is a great collaborative tool. Not only can you can share ideas with colleagues from all over the world, but it's also a great way to find lessons, ideas for the classroom organization or better ways to manage class time.  So how can you put Pintrest to use in your classroom? Well, if you do a board search on education alone, hundreds of ideas pop up, but these are three that I think are useful:
                 

• Visuals for presentations: Pinterest can be a great way for students to create an online poster as their visual element for a presentation, and I think middle school history teachers can use it to raise student interest levels.  For example, if students in a Texas History class are doing presentations on historical figures, instead of a typical PowerPoint presentation students can create a board and pin online content and images of the person they're covering.  No offense to anyone that enjoys using PowerPoint, but they do get a bit bland after a while.  This way not only do you incorporate an aspect of technology that students think is "cool," but it also offers them a way to be a little more creative with their topic.
• General class board: Teachers can create one board for the entire class where students can pin interesting material they find at home relating to that class.  For instance, high school students in an English literature course working on a unit on Shakespeare can pin information they find relevant and share it with all their classmates.  Teachers can then set up a day once a week, or once a month, for a group discussion where students can explain what they posted, and perhaps a new lesson can arise for later use during the school year.
• College Planning: Teachers and students are not the only ones that can incorporate Pinterest in schools. High school counselors can also use the app with junior and senior students for college planning.  Students can create a different board for every university they are interested in applying to and pin important information such as application deadlines, dates for student visits, costs, links to virtual tours and campus pictures.  This way all the information they find can be stored in one place and can easily be accessed to compare and contrast.  

Evernote, on the other hand, while a little more complex than Pinterest, offers just as many benefits but in notebook form.  Aside from storing photos and videos, you can create notes, store tweets, save emails, record your voice and tag items.  As I was watching the instructional video required for class, I couldn't help but think how great it would've been to us this app to organize paperwork when I worked for a construction company.  In essence, Evernote is organization at its best.  While teachers will find great use to organize different subjects, especially if they teach more than one grade level, students, I think, will benefit more.  Just like Pinterest if you search for way to incorporate Evernote into the classroom the suggestions are endless, but these are three ways I think are very practical:

• Weekly agenda: At any grade level, students loose track of assignments if they don't write them down. Even if they do, books can sometimes get lost.  With Evernote, teachers can set up a weekly schedule detailing assignments and due dates so students can keep track of the schedule from their computer or tablet.  In addition, reminders for deadlines can be set a day in advance so student don't forget when to turn something in. 
• Labeling images: One great thing about Evernote is how other apps can be integrated to work with it.  One that I recently read about is Skitch, which lets you label images.  Middle and high school science/biology teachers can use this in class, for example, to present diagrams or images when going over lessons on atoms or cells.  Instead of handing out worksheets that the students manually label and later use to study for a test, Skitch can help with labeling techniques and Evernote can store the image in a science notebook for future reference.
• Recording audio for a speech: Students taking a high school speech class (or students who participate in speech and debate) will find the audio recording option to be helpful.  Instead of asking a friend or parent to listen and critique their speech, students can record themselves and figure out what changes need to be made.  

These examples are just a few ways that Pinterest and Evernote can be incorporated into the classroom.  The more we learn about them and the more we incorporate them in school, the more students can continue to grow in the 21st century.