The document summarizes the author's experience using social media for educational purposes. It discusses the author's favorite tool (delicious for bookmarking websites), successes (learning about personal learning networks and joining blogs/groups), challenges (initially grasping the concept of a PLN and contributing to conversations), views on Moodle and online learning (flexibility and relevance to the course topic), and links to the author's social media accounts created for the course. The author concludes by thanking the instructor and classmates for another valuable online learning experience.

1. Building Social Media for Educators Susan Marks March 2011

2. Most Useful Tool delicious This is my favorite tool. I come across so many great websites when I am surfing the web, but later when I want to get back to a specific site I forget where it was. I now know I can find it by going to my bookmarks. I also love how you can network and subscribe on this site. My plan is to utilize this with my grade partners so we all have access to the same sites.

3. Successes The top success for me in this class was learning and understanding what a PLN is. I had not heard of it prior to this class, although I was dabbling in it but in an unorganized way. Joining some great blogs and social network groups. One that I am really enjoying is the Classroom 2.0 which has a subgroup for elementary teachers. Although, we did not talk about it in this class, using my iGoogle to track blogs and house all my key sites that I enjoy visiting.

4. Challenges The biggest challenge I had was grasping the concept of a PLN. At first, I could see all the pieces but was having a hard time seeing the big picture. As I worked my way through the course, I began to understand that is all about connecting to other people and that it was up to me to set up my own PLN in away that the connections are meaningful. Some minor sub-challenges: Jumping into conversations on the Social Networks and feeling like I have something important to contribute. Using Twitter – still struggling with how it seems so random. The more people I follow, the more tweets but no categorization of topics on those tweets is what I find challenging. This may seem silly, but how every site you must register with a user name and password. Uggg, it is hard to keep up with.

5. Moodle and Online Learning I am a huge fan of Moodle and Online Learning. Ability to complete the course on my time frame is a huge advantage. The fact this course is about connecting with people via the internet, I don’t see any other way it should be taught. I love the selection of courses that are now available and find the Moodle sight user friendly.

6. My Work My LinkedIn Account My Glogster Account My Twitter Account My delicious Account

7. Thank You! Another great online course. Learned many new things to help me keep up with our ever changing 21st Century. Thanks Rich and to all the other classmates!