We're in love...

On Saturday, I posted about Pinterest. Today I am going to show you how I've been using Pinterest for my early intervention work. I began by just looking at all of the different boards out there, and as I mentioned, like Alice you can find yourself in a any number of crazy places!  So let's backtrack and talk about how I found some of my pins.  

Once I realized that I wanted to collect pins that reflected images around early intervention and assistive technology I first searched the kids section. There I found many other images from OTs, PTs, and SLPs and teachers. Then I went back to some of my tried and true websites and started pinning those images as well.  And then I thought, wait a second, I am repinning from others, why not invite those folks to pin to my board?  And you should see how it has exploded, I've added a dozen followers, too!   

Here's another shot of my EI Board, which you can follow here: http://pinterest.com/caseywaid/ei-ideas/

Are you using Pinterest?  If so, I'd like to follow you and read about what you are doing with your boards.

Whew...we're back!

Last month we talked about using Delicious for keeping track of our bookmarks. In the weeks since, we've found that many of our friends are more excited by Pinterest. Pinterest is an app (or application) that can be used as an add-on to Facebook or separately. To use Pinterest, one must be invited by another user. It seems to take some folks a little time to get the hang of how it works, this post will explain how we are using it. Once you've gotten over those hurdles the fun begins!  

Pinning as a way to Bookmark

Pinterest really comes out of the design world. Users have boards, think inspiration boards or bulletin boards. Onto which they "pin" images. You can then follow other users, their individual pins or just repin their finds to your own boards. When you first join you start with some generic boards, onto which you can pin your first finds. You can also create your own boards, with their own names. The fun is watching what is hot and popular (more on that later).  

As someone who doesn't self-identify as particularly crafty or arty I was a reluctant pinterest user. But I can safely say that I have both gotten the hang of it and I'm having fun! My neighbors are both crafty and involved in architecture and design so their boards have lots of design ideas, they separate them out by color or period. Meanwhile, not suprisingly, I am using some of my boards to collect ideas around early intervention and assistive technology, as you may be able to see here: http://pinterest.com/caseywaid/ei-ideas/

Popular Pins

One can find, that like Alice you drop into a rabbit hole when hanging out on Pinterest, so beware! You can view all pins, or search by categories, you can get lost, nah sucked into viewing loads of boards and pins! Then you may even find yourself down at the IKEA searching for spice racks that will make the most marvelous little bookshelves...found on this great blog:  theplanetpink.com . Unfortunately, our local IKEA is out of stock on this lovely item...they pegged me immediately as a Pinterest user, and said that though the folks over at http://www.ikeahackers.net/ had been at this for much longer it wasn't until Pinterest that they really saw DIYers who intended to hack their wares for other purposes.  

Hacking Pinterest

And my use of Pinterest to track early intervention strategies and assistve technology would probably fit under the heading of Pinterest hack. It can be hard to predict which social media site or app will be popular. I will probably use both Delicious and Pinterest for now. Let me know which ones you are using and how you are using them!