Pinterest!

So, I'll confess I have a new web obsession.  Pinterest.  It's my favorite new find of this past summer, and if you've never heard of it, you MUST check it out!  With Pinterest you can create a board or boards to "pin" things to that you find on the world wide web.  You can create boards with themes so that your "pins" are organized as well.  It's so much more visual than old fashioned bookmarking.  I also love pinterest because once you create your account, you can follow others and see the types of things they are pinning that interest you AND others can follow you too.  If you feel like collaborating ideas, you can also allow others to pin interests to your board/s by inviting them as a co-author.  I love signing on and looking at all of the items that were pinned each day by friends that I follow.  It is such a huge source of inspiration for fresh ideas for a number of things.  I find that I enjoy looking at fashion, decorating, design, cooking, teaching, and technology pins.  My own mother (with whom I also turned on to Pinterest) can't stop finding and actually creating things for her classroom with the ideas she sees on Pinterest.

For now, I have mainly used Pinterest for my own inspiration.  Pinterest could easily be incorporated into the classroom too!  Students could create boards based on various content areas or for different projects they are working on to collect web resources and ideas.  Students could collaborate on a board if they were to be working on a group project as well.

I love Pinterest, and I hope you do too!

Explore and sign up for Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com

Follow me on Pinterst here!: http://pinterest.com/lrhendley/

Happy Pinning!
Lauren

Tech Lab Bulletin Board Ideas: Do they exist?

Well as I mentioned in my last post, I switched positions this year from 4th grade to middle school (6th-8th) technology teacher.  With the change in position, came a room change as well.  My room would now be one of my school's two tech labs.  As much as this excited me, it was also a daunting task as the tech lab needed a major overhaul, and it is quite a large room!

About a month ago I began my tech lab reno.  I was lucky enough to have my mother, who was in town visiting, help me for a few days and get the actual cleaning and computer set-up configuration completed.  Then there were the walls.  The large, blank walls.  Oh yes, and some really blank bulletin boards too.  I began searching online, then searched some more and just had a REALLY hard time finding quality tech lab bulletin board ideas and/or tech lab posters.  If it wasn't for the Elementary Tech Teachers, Teachfactory, and Pinterest I would have been left without any inspiration at all.  (Just so you know, I feel quite advanced when it comes to searching the Web.  There really isn't much out there in terms of computer lab decor--try searching for yourself, you'll see!)

Anyway, with a few ideas in my brain, I was able to come up with some cute concepts to decorate my walls/boards.  (See my photos below).

I am actually still in the market for come neat technology posters for a few smaller areas in my lab.  More specifically posters about technology tools, Web 2.0, tech quotes, etc.  If you know if any place that has some great posters and prices be sure to leave a comment!

Overall, I am happy with the outcome.  I'm sure I'll be tweaking things as the year progresses.  I'd love to see other ideas of tech bulletin boards as well, if you'd like to share!  Happy decorating!