Medium Specificity

 Pinterest Link: 

https://www.pinterest.com/reynamay12/dream-house/

I have repeatedly told people that I feel like I'll always be one step behind in live because I don't have a pinterest.  It's a medium that I have always admired but felt too afraid to explore, believing that its endless content and possibilities would leave me feeling overwhelmed and/or addicted.  After all, I waste too much time as it is with just a facebook. However, I decided that having a specific goal in mind would give me the motivation and the focus to finally figure out this medium.  This goal was to gather ideas for house decor.  My husband and I recently moved into our new home and now that we're officially moved in I want to move on to the next step: making it ours.  Before this project I could not have told you what my style or aesthetic is, but now I have a pretty good idea.  But first, a little more about this medium.

Pinterest is basically an online scrapbook, but instead of pictures of family and friends, you create "boards" that represent a varitey of interests and purposes.  You can collect and organize photos, videos, articles, and other content and "pin" it to the appropriate board you've created.  It is a really great source for collecting ideas which is why I knew it would be the perfect medium to explore house decor.  Since pinterest is all about ideas, moods, and aesthetics, I think it is a much better way to get started than online shopping, searching google images, or strolling through hobby lobby.  First of all, pinterest allows you to keep everything you like in one place.  It is very organized and you can even create subcategories ("sections") within each category ("board").  Also, at this point in my exploring I'm not looking for specfic items that I want to buy.  I just want to get a feel of colors, styles, and layouts that I would like to incorporate into my home.  Once I fill up my "Dream House" board with enough pictures, I will have a really good idea of what I'd like to eventually purchase to decorate my home with.  There was honestly a bit of a learning curve when I started out, and I was certainly tempted to go back to my old ways of taking screen shots from google images, but evenually I found the entire process to be simple, efficient, and incredibly enjoyable. 

Affordances: As I mentioned, this medium is very useful in bookmarking and organizing all kinds of content.  There is an infinite amount of content covering any topic or interest one can think of.  It is easy to look back on things you have pinned, and the more you pin, the more other related content is suggested to you, providing you new ideas all the time.

Limitations: Although the boards you create can be quite organized, the site itself can be a bit overwhelming.  When starting off, the content seems random and difficult to navigate.  Concerning self expression, pinterest is limited because although people can search for and find content that represents them and their passions it's not really a place where they can create things of their own.  

As teachers, it is very important that we guide students as they practice responding to different digital media forms. Thevenin, in his "Responding" essay suggests that we can do this by creating an atmosphere in which students feel comfortable sharing their initial reactions. Once this is accomplished, we can encourage them to dig a bit deeper into their analyses.  We can then discuss elements of the medium, the affordances and limitations of the medium, what makes this medium unique, and how we can implement this understanding into our own creative work.