🎓 new year, new resources to save ⏰ & 💵
⏰ TL;DR
🧩 Resource of the Week - 3rd 9-Weeks Quote of the Day Digital Bell Ringer Notebook
🛠️ Tech Tip - How to tell if someone is using ChatGPT
💎 Gem/GPT of the Week - Standards-Based Lesson Planner ➡️ Gemini // ChatGPT
😂 Just for Funzies - Teacher Nicknames
🎓 HONOR ROLL ONLY - Leadership Workshop: Elevate those around you!
👋 REAL TALK
Coming back from Christmas break always hits a lil different.
You roll in with that “new year, new me” vibe, ready to crush it like Fred Flintstone…and then boom 💥 same kids, same desks, same chaos, and somehow less patience because everyone forgot how to human over the holidays (aka same me).
Here’s the dealio: better doesn’t mean perfect—it means intentional.
You don’t need to flip your classroom upside down like you’re in Stranger Things, and/or reinvent the wheel. Just pick one or two small things that make your day smoother and help your students feel like actual people, not NPCs in your lesson plan.
Momentum > motivation.
Every. Single. Time.
One trick I do is get a post-it of that small thing you want to get better at, and stick that thing directly on your computer screen (off to the side, of course). That way you’re forced to remember the small steps needed to be who you want to be.
Not about perfection, but about putting in the reps.
The best baseball players of all-time only hit the ball once out of every three at-bats.
So, if this semester isn’t about doing everything better, but doing one thing better…you’re already winning, my friend!
Here’s to 2026 being the BEST YEAR EVER!!
New year, New(ish) us!
📥 THE DROP
🧩 Free Resource of the Week - 3rd 9-Weeks Quote of the Day Digital Notebook
This is hands down one of my favorite classroom tools for a few reasons:
Gives you 2–3 minutes at the start of class to take attendance, answer emails, and breathe
Builds consistency and routine
Sparks surprisingly great conversations now that you’ve got some rapport with your students
Low prep. High impact. Steals the awkward “what are we doing today?” moment right from da jump!
👉 Download the Quote of the Day Notebook for the 3rd 9-Weeks
🛠️ Tech Tip
📚 How to tell if someone is using ChatGPT!
3 easy ways to spot (possible) ChatGPT writing:
The em—dash giveaway
Students love it now. MOST humans almost never used it before 2023 (not looking at you, English teachers). If you see a bunch of em dashes popping up, raise an eyebrow. 🤨Randomly bolded words mid sentence
Not headings. Not emphasis. Just… bold for no reason. That’s a classic AI habit.A space at the beginning of a paragraph
Not a tab. An actual single space before the first word. Weirdly common with AI-generated text.
None of these prove anything by themselves, but when you see all three together…that’s like the Infinity Gauntlet for C—GPT wrote my paper. 😂
💎 Gem/GPT of the Week
Standards-Based Lesson Planner ➡️ Gemini // ChatGPT
One of my big goals this semester is to create a plethora of free Gemini Gems and GPTs teachers can/will actually use.
Saw what my buddy Eric Curts has been doing and I got inspired like a light bulb above ya head. If teachers had simple tools where they could just drop stuff in and get something useful back, lesson ideas, feedback, questions, summaries, whatevs, it could save them HOURS every week.
That’s the energy we bringing into 2026. Less busywork. Better teaching. More margin. Better memes. 😂
🔐 THE VAULT
Weekly highlighted tips, trainings, & resources just for the Honor Roll VIPs! 👩🏫 Admin ➡️ get full access for your ENTIRE school!
🥋 Leadership in Education!
This was a live training I did a while back on Leadership and how to elevate those around us!
👉 Watch the Training Here (Honor Roll Only)
Not in the Honor Roll yet?
You can join today and grow with 50+ trainings, slide decks, and every course I have!!
Check it out if you’re in the Honor Roll! 🙌
✈️ Places I’ll Be
Come hang with me if you’re nearby and/or want an excuse for a road trip! 😁
3.2.2026 - SE Arkansas ESC
3.5.2026 - NCTIES 2026 - Raleigh, NC
6.9.2026 Regional Office of Education #4
6.16.2026 InnovateEDU Tech Conference
6.23.2026 SE Missouri State University
8.7.2026 Pottsville Schools
8.19.2026 Trenton R-IX
If you want me to speak at your school and/or conference, hit me up! Snagging days for the summer now! 🙌
Also, I’m currently looking for:
One school in Northwest Arkansas
One school in the Little Rock area
…to host a Google in an AI World one-day conference for teachers (in collaboration with Google)!
If you work at a school (or know one) that might be interested, please reply to this email and let ya boi know! We’d toss y’all a ton of free spots if you’d be so kind to host!
💌 Never Stop Learning!
