Technology changes way too quickly for us to focus on specific social media platforms or software applications in this class. Instead, I’d like for us to focus on how to stay abreast of emerging trends and developments in social media. I want you to learn to use social media strategically to connect with experts and professionals in your chosen field. These experts can show you what you need to learn in order to keep current in your field and share ideas and resources to help you in that quest. If you walk away from this class having truly grasped how to do this, you are set for a lifetime of independent learning!

PERSONAL LEARNING PROJECT (40% of your final grade) 

To help you develop these independent learning skills, I have developed the personal learning project. This project will not only teach you how to identify experts in your field, but also how to connect with them, how to share ideas with them, and how to learn from their knowledge. In essence, you will set up your own network of online mentors using social media tools. These mentors will act as your teachers. In this class, we will call this network a personal learning network.

For this assignment, you and your group will develop a workshop on a specific area of social media/PR. First, you will need to identify a topic area you would like to develop a workshop on. Sample topic areas include (but are by no means limited to):

• Social media measurement: How to evaluate the success of social media endeavors
• Google + for nonprofits
• Content curation as an internal communication tool
• Using social media for fundraising
•  Maximizing ROI with Google Adwords and Analytics

You will also need to identify the type of audience you’d like to tailor this workshop to. At the end of the semester, you will actually give the workshop to the audience you picked. While the final product you will deliver will be the workshop and the workshop materials, much of the learning will occur along the way. That’s why there are a number of graded assignments throughout the semester that will assess your learning and make sure you are on the right track.

PART 1 – TOPIC SELECTION  (5% OF FINAL GRADE)

For this part of the assignment, your group will pick a topic area for the workshop, identify sub-topics for each group member and describe the type of audience you’re creating this workshop for.

PART 2 – THE PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK  (10% OF FINAL GRADE)

This is an individual assignment. Once your topic has been approved, each of you will create a personal learning network (PLN) to guide you in your learning. For this part of the project you will identify experts in the area of your workshop topic, connect with them, study the resources they share online and use them as your personal mentors.

Your personal learning network needs to include a Twitter, blog, and social bookmarking component. I've posted detailed instructions on how to build a personal learning network via Twitter on our course blog. You also need to identify blogs, web sites, and social bookmarks that are relevant to your workshop topic and subscribe to them. You may even want to subscribe to a Google Alert on your topic (optional). At the end of the semester, you will need to hand in a description of your personal learning network. You’ll be evaluated based on the depth and breadth of the personal learning network you built. In order to hand this in, create a list of people you follow on:

• Twitter: list the people in your Twitter PLN with their Twitter UserId. Only list people that pertain to this project (i.e. don't list your buddies here)
• Blogs: list the bloggers you followed for this project. Identify them by a) name, b) blog URL, and c) blog name.
• Social bookmarking sites: list the people you follow on Delicious or any other social bookmarking site. Again, only list people you followed for this particular project. List them with their social bookmarking URL.
• Any other social media sites/platforms 

PART 3 – THE PLN PROGRESS REPORT  (5% OF FINAL GRADE)

This is an individual assignment. On February 28^th/March 1^st, you will give a 4-5 minute presentation in which you will present the learning network you've created thus far. The point of the presentation is to show us some of the experts you’ve identified thus far and to provide examples of useful information you’ve received from them. Please create a separate slide for your Twitter, social bookmarking, and blogging network and include the following information. Please upload your slides to the dropbox before class. You’ll be evaluated based on the progress made on your PLN by the time of your presentation.

•  Twitter network slide

-       How many experts on your workshop's topic area are you following?

-       List at least 5 of those experts by their Twitter handle and give an example of useful info (related to your workshop s topic area) each of them has tweeted about.

• Social Bookmarking network slide

-       How many experts on your workshop 's topic area are you following on Delicious or another social bookmarking service?

-       List at least 5 of those experts by their Social Bookmarking UserID and give an example of useful info (related to your workshop 's topic area) each of them has bookmarked

• Blogging network slide

-       How many bloggers who are experts on your workshop 's topic area are you subscribing to with your feedreader?

-       List at least 5 of those bloggers (name the title of their blog) and give an example of useful info (related to your workshop 's topic area) each of them has blogged about.  

PART 4 –WORKSHOP & WORKSHOP MATERIALS (15% OF FINAL GRADE) 

At the end of the semester your group will host a 75-minute training workshop to the audience you picked. By then, your personal learning network and your own research and blogging should have allowed you to establish yourself as a credible source on your workshop topic. For this part of the assignment, you will need to:

-       decide on the material to be covered and divide the workload

-       create training materials appropriate for your particular audience

-       create engaging visuals that summarize your key points

-       deliver the workshop in a professional manner

The detailed grading criteria can be found on Blackboard under “Course Documents.”

PART 5 –WORKSHOP PUBLICITY  (5% OF FINAL GRADE) 

Social media platforms are often used to create publicity for an event or to raise interest in it. Since you are planning an event for this class, I want to put you in charge of the publicity for this event. In order to do so successfully, you will need to put into practice what you learned about engaging audiences via social media.

This is an individual assignment. At the end of the semester you will hand in a report, which displays all the ways in which you tried to get word out about your workshop. For instance, if you tweeted about it, provide screenshots of your tweets. If you blogged about it, provide the URL to your posts. If you used other social media, or other forms of publicity, please provide a copy. Your report will also need to include a brief analysis explaining how successful these publicity attempts were (i.e. how many retweets did your tweets receive, how many people blogged about it or mentioned it elsewhere, how many clicks did your blog post receive, etc.).