For this week’s GTD topic, I decided to explore the world of Pinterest. I have been told for years by my fellow teachers that Pinterest was a great way to gather ideas for lesson plans and to organize them with pins.

Upon joining Pinterest, I followed five topics. They were Geography, American History, World War II, Education, and History. These are subjects I teach and need help with from time to time. I was able right away to find some good ideas for teaching the five themes of geography. There were plenty of lesson plans available which were very helpful. I was impressed with this part of the assignment.

Logging in a few days later, I became less impressed. I was very shocked to discover that the World War II topic generated pins on my home feed with extremely graphically violent photographs. Do not get me wrong, as a history teacher I do not believe history should be censored. However, I feel strongly that people need trigger warnings about what they are going to see. I do not believe that I or anyone else should be greeted with graphic violence upon logging into Pinterest.

Overall, I will probably keep using Pinterest for lesson ideas. However I did need to unfollow the World War II topic. I think Pinterest can be a great tool for collecting and organizing, but it should be used carefully.