Please share this post with the elementary educators you know and help empower them to try something new.

I’m pleased to announce a recent addition to my website with the NEW Educator’s Resource Center!

I have been and will continue compiling information helpful to teaching engineering in the elementary classroom with links for engineering related books, websites, videos and activities.  All my links are classroom budget and time friendly – I welcome you to visit my website today for innovative ideas for your elementary classroom!

In addition to the website, I also offer assistance through email/phone coaching as well as professional development seminars, tele-seminars and/or webinars.  Contact me today to help you on your way!

Wow!  Yesterday, I enjoyed an hour-long Twitter tutoring session from a wonderful mother of 4 I met on Twitter recently.  My Twitter story is like many others before me – “started, didn’t get Twitter, stopped for a while, started again, then really GOT Twitter!”

About 3 weeks ago, I got started back on Twitter and within a few days, somehow found Mindi @B_A_Bookworm.  From our 1st Twitter micro-chat, Mindi has been warm, encouraging and helpful.  If she lived in my neighborhood, Mindi is someone I would choose to get to know better.

Alas, Mindi lives about 4 states away.  Not likely we’d ever meet in the pen & paper world, but the virtual Twitter world altars the time and distance dimensions – making connections possible that weren’t there before.

But Facebook makes connections, so why Twitter?  Facebook is wonderful, but Facebook operates on the premise of  the known – it suggests friends I am likely to have known or know someone who knows them.

Twitter is like a communal string of house parties and I get to jump around from party to party to check out who’s there.  I might spend a few minutes and move on or linger to learn more about some of the party guests.

I wanted to learn more about Twitter and Mindi generously gave of her time Wed. morning to guide me.  Some of the things we covered were:

*WeFollow.com – site to find Twitter users based on keywords such as homeschool, politics, celebrities, etc.

*HootSuite.com – site to manage social media networks.  Sign up for an account, add your social media info (Facebook account name, Twitter account name, LinkedIn, etc.) and you can see the day’s activity across several networks on one screen.  Can even schedule Tweets.

*TweetChat.com – Twitter chat rooms for various hashtag groups such as #kidlit.  No group membership needed – join the parties anytime.  Note – sign up for an account with TweetChat to view the Twitter message box and participate in chats.

*Bit.ly – although Mindi and I did not discuss this one – wanted to add it for anyone who may read this post looking for Twitter help.  This site shortens URLs to fit in the 140 characters allowed on Twitter.  Other URL shortener sites include owl.ly, tiny.url & probably a few more!

*Mompreneursonline.com – found on Twitter, but not a Twitter app.  Mindi recommends this site loaded with helpful tips for Mom Entrepeneurs.

*Themomentrepreneur.blogspot.com – another site recommended by Mindi.  Interactive Google support group for mom entrepreneurs.

Thank you @B_A_Bookworm for all your help!

Share with me ~ What is your impression of Twitter?  Have you experienced a Twitter “ah-ha!” moment? Care to share?

Do you Twitter?  I don’t.  I signed up in January or February of this year and to date, I have 6 followers, 5 people I follow and 6 tweets.  Compared to some Twitter fanatics who have 10,000+ followers and billions of tweets, I am non-existent in the Twitter universe.

Why did I join Twitter?  Well, I thought it might be nice to learn something new.

Why do I stay with Twitter when I’m not tweeting? Well, I’m not really sure.  Something about Twitter keeps pulling at me.  Perhaps it’s the desire to truly understand Twitter.  Or to truly understand why millions of people are crazy about Twitter.  Or to learn a new technology.  Or maybe it’s because my kids think the name “Twitter” is absolutely adorable.  Or just maybe because that Twitter bird is so cute!

I really enjoy Facebook.  I like to see friend’s pictures, new Facebook games they’re playing, comments from others on friends’ status updates, etc.  I do like when Facebook emails me about writings on my wall because I do not check Facebook everyday.

Then there’s LinkedIn.  At first, I wasn’t sure about LinkedIn.  I liked the professional aspect to it, but it seemed lacking in truly connecting the various web networks while Facebook is amazingly good at connecting people.  Slowly, LinkedIn is getting better.  I really like the weekly updates from my LinkedIn connections.  LinkedIn sends these updates to my email and I can see at a glance, what many people are doing this week.

But Twitter is just Twitter.  It doesn’t email me to alert me to status updates.  It doesn’t send me a summary of weekly happenings in my network.  And to top it off, it can be difficult to jump in and out of Twitter.  I find that if I don’t read some people’s Twitter updates daily, I can’t make heads or tails of their Twitter pages chock full of @replies, retweets and status updates.

As I’m writing this post, I just remembered a recent email LinkedIn sent me about adding Twitter to my LinkedIn account.  Now that could be the smartest move yet by LinkedIn!

I recently decided that Twitter was just not for me (although I never canceled my account – it was on my list).  Then along came David Haslam.

Yesterday, I attended a wonderful meeting of local Michigan authors.  David was one of the authors at the meeting and he wrote “The Twitter Workbook.”  David got me excited again about trying Twitter and I purchased a copy of his book.  Maybe now, I can truly understand Twitter – I’ll keep you “posted”.

Do you Twitter? If so, what do you like about it?  If not, please share your reason for not “tweeting.”

Just updated my website with a link to my blog.  Oh, I feel so official now! Check out my updated site: www.pattyobriennovak.com

Oh and when I search google for Patty O’Brien Novak, my website is the 1st result!  Whoohooo!  I tried for days to figure that one out.  Couple of weeks of doing nothing fixed it right up for me – LOL!

Have a great night!

Wow my 1st blog entry!  Sometimes I feel so late to the blog scene, but my Microsoft Word 2003 doesn’t even recognize the term “blogging” and I’m still ahead of my 7-year old son (ahemm, 7 1/2-year old son, he corrects me as he is reading over my shoulder!) just asked “what’s a blog?”  So I can’t be thaaattt far behind, right?

Setting up this blog is another story. You bloggers make it look so easy – I was not prepared for the hours I spent searching for free themes (found some lovely ones at www.freethemelayouts.com) and the time spent configuring my Wordpress settings as well as time to just figure out what each link on my “dashboard” was for!

So I’m here now and ready to write.  Let the blogging begin!