Janelle Catlett (jacncville) on Pinterest: Supporting the Dreamer in All of Us!

Janelle Catlett (jacncville) on Pinterest
It's amazing to me how popular Pinterest has become for curating the web.  I know that typically, I join something early... then I don't "get it" and so I either keep messing with it or I leave it and completely ignore it for quite a while... which is what I did with Pinterest! I didn't really see a purpose at first... as my sis-in-law showed me how she was simply pinning color combinations to test ideas for her family room.  So... It wasn't until I got my ipad this past winter that I decided to re-visit Pinterest as a fun relaxing way to spend time with my ipad, getting to know it better!  I was so amazed at how fun it was to build what I would call a perfect magazine with all of your favorite things.  It was crazy how one awesome picture would reveal an amazing blog or resource that I found I wanted to remember and revisit.  I loved the personalization of my boards... at how they reflected who I was as a person.  I was so trying to keep Pinterest a fun, non-work related web tool... but as always, my lives merge and cannot be seperated.  I guess the real turning point for me was when Molly, an amazing art teacher at one of my schools, shared her Pinterest boards with me.  I was absolutely blown away at the extensive and highly organized art curriculum that she had built using Pinterest.  I was soo soo inspired by her boards and the amazing ideas that were gathered in front of my eyes... so then I tilted!  I began searching for my teacher friends, I began searching by educational categories.  And now... well... my boards really reflect me as a whole person and of course they will continue to expand in more categories as I diversify my boards.  It is an amazing and still very relaxing way to explore your interests via the web.  It supports the dreamer in all of us.

Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Top 100 Sites & Apps of 2012

Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber Hero: Top 100 Sites & Apps of 2012
As I think about where I was 5 years ago and so aware of the top sites... I'm now struggling to stay abreast of the new stuff... but I'm feeling new energy as I think about the possibilities I can explore in my own classroom next year!  I have many ideas and there are many new tools to learn.  Always learning... often confused!  But happy to have the time and energy to explore...