The way that social media is used has changed tremendously over the last few years. In the past, I used social media as a way to simply catch up on the lives of friends, follow celebrities, or look at pretty pictures. Although I still do those things, I'm now using social media as a form of professional development. In this blog post, I'll detail how to use social media to learn from other music teachers, gather ideas, and even learn new songs! Pinterest When I first happened upon Pinterest, I found tons of pins about home decor and women's fashion, and I wasn't all that interested. But then I discovered pins about education, and specifically music education, and I was hooked! To search for music education pins, simply start a Pinterest account, then in the search bar, type "music education," "Kodaly," "Orff," etc. for lots of great pins with great ideas! When I typed "music education" into Pinterest today, I saw these pins: See t......

The way that social media is used has changed tremendously over the last few years. In the past, I used social media as a way to simply catch up on the lives of friends, follow celebrities, or look at pretty pictures. Although I still do those things, I'm now using social media as a form of professional development. In this blog post, I'll detail how to use social media to learn from other music teachers, gather ideas, and even learn new songs! Pinterest When I first happened upon Pinterest, I found tons of pins about home decor and women's fashion, and I wasn't all that interested. But then I discovered pins about education, and specifically music education, and I was hooked! To search for music education pins, simply start a Pinterest account, then in the search bar, type "music education," "Kodaly," "Orff," etc. for lots of great pins with great ideas! When I typed "music education" into Pinterest today, I saw these pins: See t......

When I first heard about Pinterest a few years ago, I didn't understand its appeal. I love clothes and fashion and shoes and home decor, but not enough to sit for hours in front of the computer looking at what other people would like to wear or decorate their house with. Then, I stumbled upon some teaching boards and I was hooked! There are so many incredible ideas I've learned about from Pinterest. However, I've learned a lot from trial and error, so I thought I'd share my seven tips for using Pinterest. #1: Click on each pin Pinterest can be so addicting, it's easy to just pin away. However, if you don't click each pin before pinning it again, you might not realize that you're pinning spam, or that the pin has no link...or that it goes to the wrong link (more on that in a minute). If you take that one extra second, then your followers will pin your pins more often (instead of getting excited only to find out that the pin doesn't go anywhere!)  #2: When......

I've been on Pinterest and Facebook for quite a while, and have felt very comfortable with both. Twitter, on the other hand, has been a bit of an enigma to me. The functionality of Twitter is a bit different, and in my circle of friends, there just aren't that many people on Twitter. Over the last few months, I've schooled myself in the ways of Twitter. I'm going to blog my suggestions about why and how to use Twitter as a teacher. First of all, why tweet? We are all busy people just dealing with everyday life. If you have time, you may like to sit down and relax by looking at your Facebook feed, reading teacher blogs, and/or pinning on Pinterest. Twitter just seems like one more thing to add to our to-do list. Why do it? This is a question I asked myself for quite a while. Without any answers, I stayed off of Twitter. But out of curiosity, I came back to Twitter (@aileenmiracle), and finally found a few answers. #1 reason to use Twitter: Entertainment I'm not neces......

I've been on Pinterest and Facebook for quite a while, and have felt very comfortable with both. Twitter, on the other hand, has been a bit of an enigma to me. The functionality of Twitter is a bit different, and in my circle of friends, there just aren't that many people on Twitter. Over the last few months, I've schooled myself in the ways of Twitter. I'm going to blog my suggestions about why and how to use Twitter as a teacher. First of all, why tweet? We are all busy people just dealing with everyday life. If you have time, you may like to sit down and relax by looking at your Facebook feed, reading teacher blogs, and/or pinning on Pinterest. Twitter just seems like one more thing to add to our to-do list. Why do it? This is a question I asked myself for quite a while. Without any answers, I stayed off of Twitter. But out of curiosity, I came back to Twitter (@aileenmiracle), and finally found a few answers. #1 reason to use Twitter: Entertainment I'm not neces......