When I look back on my Coetail experiences I think there are several ways in which I have engaged in on-line communities and used them to help my professional growth. From the very beginning in course one I was introduced to readers and immediately got sucked into Digg.  There are so many different blogs out in the art world and art education world that I have been plugged into for the last two years.  As a result I am constantly discovering new artists that I am then in turn sharing with my students and colleagues. One Artist I recently discovered through my Digg reader on Colossal is Scott Blake. This was a great little video I showed my animation students when I was introducing the simple idea of flip books and stop motion.

In an attempt to take my online professional community one step further I set up a twitter account. I was hoping to begin to develop a community on twitter that would keep me informed and discovering new ideas. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened for me just yet.  I’m not giving up but it has yet to become a regular check in for me. One on-line community that has suddenly taken off for me though is pinterest.  It was all a little unexpected but as an art teacher it total make sense.

I’ve been viewing other peoples boards for a while now because they are constantly popping up when I am doing searches that might relate to a material or concepts that I’m preparing to teach in my room. Earlier this year I finally decided that it was time for me to start making my own boards on pinterest. The plan was to simply have a holding space for things that influence me or ideas that I might want to revisit for a future lesson.

What surprised me shortly after I set up my account was how many people I knew were suddenly following me.  Many of these people are artists and art educators that I have know or come into contact with professionally or academically at some point.  I have loved seeing what types of things some of my previous colleagues have been pinning.  Some of them are even creating boards for specific classes where students can also share images on subjects that inspire them.  I love this idea and would like to explore it in some of my future classes.

The most exciting discovery for me though with my new interest in pinterest has been the ability to share images with my current colleagues.  The other art teachers that I currently work with are also on pinterest and we are all constantly pining images on each others boards that are related to conversations and units that we are currently engrossed in.  My colleague Michael and I teach different sections of the same class.  We have been doing some redesigning of our classes this semester and pinterest has become a great communication tool for us to share images. We often share ideas we feel we could use in class or use to help guide the design of our units. I have to say that this use of pinterest has been an unexpected and very pleasant surprise.

I do hope to get back to my abandoned twitter account at some point but for now I think I would like to work on nurturing this new found community in pinterest and explore its possibilities.