This document discusses Lauren Brodlo's experience using social media tools for educational purposes. She was initially skeptical of using Twitter but found it beneficial for connecting with other teachers and accessing professional articles. Her greatest success was learning to use Twitter, while her greatest challenge was building a personal learning network (PLN). She enjoys using tools like Delicious, Classroom 2.0, and Animoto to organize resources, build her PLN through blogging, and create slideshows.

1. Social Media
for Educators
By: Lauren Brodlo

2. Most Useful Tools
 I have to say that I was a bit skeptical
when I started this course and saw some
of the items that I needed to do. I was
not on Twitter and had no desire to tweet.
However, I have found the educational
side of using Twitter to be very beneficial.
 I also like Delicious, however I need to find
a way to be able to access this at school.

3. Successes and Challenges
 I would say that my greatest success was
learning how to use Twitter. I felt
completely lost for the first few weeks, but
slowly started to understand it and how to
use it.
 My greatest challenge was building a
PLN. I am still not feeling great about it,
but I feel like I have started to see the
benefits of one.

4. Moodle and Online learning
 I have always been someone who enjoys
online learning. I think that allows people
the opportunity to really learn things on
their own with the guidance of an
instructor. Had I been in a class each
week, I would have depended more on
the instructor to explain things, instead of
really learning how to do some things on
my own.

5. Twitter
 You can find me on Twitter as lb81379
 Twitter was the learning tool that I did not
think that I would like, but ended up
finding to be very beneficial. I really
enjoyed getting connected with other
teachers and professional organizations. I
have gained access to many professional
articles and have shared some great
experiences with other teachers.

6. Delicious.com
http://www.delicious.com/lbrodlo
Delicious is a wonderful way to put all of the
websites that you use in all subjects onto one
page. I found many sites that I have used over
the past 8 years and now have them in one
spot.
The only downfall that I have found is that I
currently can’t access this at school. Obviously,
this presents a bit of problem since school is
where I most want to use it.

7. Classroom 2.0
http://www.classroom20.com/profile/LaurenBrodlo
Building a Personal Learning Network was probably the
most challenging part of this course for me. I didn’t
really understand it in the beginning. The more I visited
Classroom 2.0, the more I understood the point behind
it.
I built my homepage for Classroom 2.0 and then
decided to begin a blog about bullying- Bullies Beware.
This blog has allowed me to share articles with other
teachers and get ideas from them on what they do in
their classrooms. I can now see the benefits of building
this network.

8. Animoto
http://animoto.com/play/k2F900vyG54Lt8GtgIhpPw
Animoto is another one of my favorite tools to use for
my classroom and for my personal use. It is such an
easy tool to use to make a slideshow/video of your
pictures. My students truly enjoyed seeing
themselves on the slideshow and it didn’t take too
much time to complete!