Learn Lead Grow

Brett Favre is one of my favorite NFL quarterbacks of all time because of the way that he played the game. Favre was known to start big games with nervous jitters, making huge mistakes and missing open receivers; however, he was always a different person after the first big hit he would take. While some quarterbacks avoided hits, Favre would look for opportunities to take that first big hit! It would energize and inspire him. Are You Taking Hits? If we are honest, leadership is a lot like playing quarterback in the NFL. We don't always have the luxury of having a clean jersey and unbruised body at the end of the day. What often defines good quarterbacks from great ones is the ability to recover from a hit. Some quarterbacks avoid hits, while others look for them.  Every leader needs criticism, disappointment, and adversity to grow, but the real question is, how do you handle the hits you WILL take? Get Up or Stay Down? In a recent leadership interview, I was reminded that e

Have you ever thought about the "know" behind a "no?" I know that it is a play on words, but sometimes we just cannot see that there are better things ahead. We are so blinded by disappointment and not getting our way, but things happen for a reason. We just may find out or know why at a later time. A great example of this came from a story that a friend shared with me a few days ago. The story resonated with me because it made me ponder the meaning of life's difficult times. A Man and His Message A man was on his way to preach a message to a large audience in a foreign country. He could hardly contain his excitement at the opportunity to reach a large group of people. Prior to his arrival, large tents were constructed and other preparations were made to the grounds. The day before the event, heavy rains hit the area and continued into the next day, prompting officials to cancel the event. The man left for home extremely disappointed, depleted, and depre

I recently came across several educators who have not hand the chance to enjoy using Kahoot!   To help my colleagues, I developed the following Kahoot! Cheat Sheet . Please feel free to share with others who want to learn how to use this valuable tool!

Brain research is crystal clear. We need to find different ways to represent material to students. I am always looking for new ways to present information and came across Visme . It comes in both a free and paid version. What is Visme?  If you have never heard of Visme, it is a compelling and engaging presentation tool that may come in handy in your classroom. When you create a new Visme, you have the option of creating a presentation, infographic, banner, or custom presentation. How Do I Use Visme? Step 1: Create Your Visme Once you create a free account, you can choose which type of presentation that you would like to create (i.e. Presentation, Infographic, Banner, or Blank).  When you decide what you would like to create, Visme provides you with a variety of templates to choose from. Step 2: Create and Add Content Once you have chosen what you want to create, you are now ready to begin adding content. Visme provides an easy-to-use platform for addin

Mysimpleshow is a unique web-based platform to create engaging videos for your classroom! The platform is easy to use and provides you with helpful tutorials do design you first video. Step 1: Draft In the draft phase, you will create your storyline to frame your story. Mysimpleshow provides you with templates to create your own storyline or create your very own! Step 2: Writing Next, you will write your script in the form of chapters. If you don't like the structure, you can make revisions or additions. The text that you write is for the voice over appearing in your video. Step 3: Visualize Next, you will want to add visualizations to bring your script to life! Add visuals, text, or your own content to make your story come to life! Mysimpleshow looks for key words in your story and populates it with suggested images. Step 4: Finalize Finally, in the Finalize stage, you can make the final revisions to your video such as adding your own voice, adding a narrator'

Math fluency is an important skill to master for elementary students. Teachers often use a variety of different tools and techniques to help students recall the answers to basic math facts automatically and without hesitation. Math Fight is an iPad App, which helps students practice valuable math skills in a gamified and engaging way. The App is designed for two students to compete against one another to answer a series of questions the fastest and most accurate. As students answer questions correctly, they accumulate points. The free version of Math Fight provides students with addition and subtraction practice. The Math Fight Pro version is $1.99 and provides students with multiplication and division practice.  What are some of your favorite ways to practice math fluency? I would love to hear! Leave a comment below. 

It is hard to believe that I am on month six of my leadership  to  interview 50 leaders in one year.   As of today, I have interviewed 29 different leaders. Although some are in business, others in education, and others in the non-profit sector, they share many different similarities and themes.  There are no wasted experiences.  Have you ever felt that you were wasting your time? I recently interviewed a leader, who reminded me of the simple fact that there are no wasted experiences. Every experience in life can be used to prepare you for the future. Mark is a testament to this fact. At age 10, his younger brother drowned. His mother fell into a deep dark depression and was emotionally unavailable for the family for over a year. Instead of looking back on this experience through pessimistic eyes, he realized that this was an opportunity to learn how to take care of himself at an early age. As an adult, Mark has dealt with the loss of his father, job loss, a series of disappoin

I enjoy connecting with other educators on Google + because it gives you an opportunity to learn from your peers. I learned about Extensify after reading a recent question posed by one of our community members. What is Extensity?  Tired of having too many Chrome Extensions at the top of your screen? You may want to consider using the Extensity Chrome Extension to help you manage, enable, and disable all of your favorite Chrome Extensions with just a click of the mouse. Why would you want to do this?  Chrome Extensions may slow down the performance of your browser. Increase performance by shutting down the extensions that you don't need. If you like to stay organized, Extensify can be a helpful tool to help clean up your browser.  Extensity offers some excellent features.  Turn off / on individual extensions  Easily turn off / on ALL of your extensions with a click of a mouse Access Google Apps too!  Easily search for any of your apps and extensions Us

If you are a G Suite School, then you know the power of Google Classroom. It makes allocating resources, communicating events, and turning in assignments extremely easy! Classroom just recently underwent a huge change! You can now create your own Google Classroom with your personal Google account! This is great news for teachers who want to build their own Classrooms for afterschool activities, professional development, communicating with parents, etc. Simply visit classroom.google.com to create or join your very first class!

Managing tabs is not only something that adults need to master, it is an essential skill that we can teach our students. What is OneTab?  The OneTab extension is a Chrome extension that can be used to quickly gather open tabs, reduce the amount of memory used, and convert your tabs into a list. Your list can be restored, shared, and organized. How does it work?  Check out my brief video to see how easy it is to use! Why Use This? OneTab is the perfect tool to automatically generate lists of links to share in a conference or a classroom. Why not save time and work smarter? OneTab gives you the ability to do both.