Getting Started with Pinterest

In addition to blogging, another tool I hope you will enjoy using for this class is Pinterest, which is a bookmarking tool that allows you to keep track of things you find online — images, videos, webpages, anything you want to keep track of. It's a tool that I find really useful, and maybe you will find it useful too! I have quite a few Pinterest Boards, most of which are related to these classes. By creating a Pinterest account you will be able to easily browse my Boards, and I hope you will also enjoy using your own Pinterest Board as a bookmarking tool to keep track of materials for this class. 

For this assignment, I'd like you to set up a Pinterest Board and give it a try. Some of you may already be using Pinterest, which is great; if you already have a PInterest account, just create a new Board to use for this class. Also, there are some Pinterest Tech Tips that explain other Pinterest features — so, if you are curious about Pinterest after doing this assignment and want to learn more about it, you can get started on earning some extra credit Tech TIps already this week.

STEP ONE: CREATE A PINTEREST ACCOUNT. Go to Pinterest.com and follow the instructions provided for creating a new account.

STEP TWO: CREATE A BOARD. If you are not already there yet, go to your Pinterest page. The address of this page is simply pinterest.com/username. For example, my page is:

http://www.pinterest.com/laurakgibbs/

Just below your profile photo you will see the list of your boards, and to the left you can click to Create a Board.

You can then create your board. Think carefully when you name your board; the name of your board will also be the name of the board's web address, so you do not want to change the name of the board later. A good basic title might be Myth-Folklore Portfolio or Indian Epics Portfolio, depending on which class you are in. If you get really into Pinterest later on, you can create more specialized boards related to your project topic, for example, or to any other topic in the class of interest to you.

For this assignment, please make a public board, but you might be interested to know that you can have private boards (Pinterest calls them "secret boards").

STEP THREE: ADD PINS. Now you can start adding pins to your board. You can easily add pins from other people's Boards (see list of my Boards below), or you can add any webpage you want to your Board by using the little "plus" button that you will see in the lower right-hand corner of every page at the Pinterest website. Please add five or so pins to your Board just to make sure you are feeling confident about how that works! You already have some things you can pin from your own blog already this week (there's even a Tech Tip about pinning blog posts), and you might also enjoy browsing my class-related Boards, repinning items from those Boards to your Board:

• Myth-Folklore Portfolio and Myth-Folklore Storybooks 
• Myth-Folklore UnTextbook and UnTextbook Stories 
• Indian Epics Portfolio and Indian Epics Storybooks
• Indian Epics Images and Ocean of Stories (a new project I'm working on) 
• Writing and Words and Free Books Online (another new project) 
• Word from Mythology and Words from India 
• for any Latin students out there: Bestiaria Latina and LatinLOLCats

If you have a few minutes to complete some of the extra-credit Pinterest Tech Tips, you might find these especially helpful: Pinterest for Learing and Discovery, Pinning Blog Posts, and Pinterest Buttons and Bookmarklets. 

And in the next two assignments after this one, you'll get another chance to explore some of these class-related Pinterest Boards! :-)

STEP FOUR: SEND ME AN EMAIL. For this Tech Tip, you need to send me an email with the address of your Pinterest Board for this class so that I can include it in the Class Pinterest Directory. Use this subject line for your email: Pinterest Board Link. In that email please let me know if you have used PInterest before and also let me know what system you currently use for bookmarking (saving favorites in your browser? Diigo? some other bookmarking tool?). Also, just to help me gauge interest in this option, do you think you will be interested in using Pinterest as an extra credit option in this class? Do you have any questions about Pinterest at this time?

After you've sent me the email, you are ready to do the Declaration: