90 days left in 2018....

This post is a little professional and a little personal.  Right around this time of year, I think a lot of us begin to reflect on the resolutions that we made on January 1 and examine how much progress we've made towards accomplishing them so far, along with figuring out how much we can realistically get accomplished before the end of the year. I am no exception to this!

Rachel Hollis, author of "Girl, Wash Your Face" (which, if you haven't read, you need to) has started a 90 day challenge to pick people up for these last 90 days of the year, refocus their intention, and push them towards accomplishing those goals that they set out to accomplish at the beginning of the year!  I signed up for it, because, well,  I LOVE a challenge. It began today!!  She challenges members of this challenge to what she calls, "5 to thrive!" I already know that my challenges will be #1 and #2.  I'm going to work at it though!

Every week of the challenge for the rest of the year, she will be sending out an email to those that signed up for the challenge and each of these emails will contain a powerful quote to focus on for the week.  Here's what got us started today:

Reading Rachel's words in the email that I received this morning, really made me reflect on what I set out to do this year.  At the beginning of the year, I wrote a blog post about my goals for the new year.  Read all about it HERE!  Below are the goals that I wanted to accomplish both personally and professionally.  My responses to their progress are in red.

Professionally, I wanted to accomplish:

• Launching the first Google Bootcamp in our District!  Check!  I did this!  Since then, several of my colleagues have started Google Bootcamps are their schools, with their teachers!  We've see a LOT of success from this effort!
• Creating a district wide instructional technology podcast.  I totally forgot about this one!  I'll definitely be moving this goal to 2019!  It's been SUPER busy!
• Creating a cohort of edtech superhero educators!!!  This tells me that I need to be more specific with my goals!  While I definitely believe that I've had an impact on numerous educators this year, I don't know that I'd call them a "cohort."  I take this as a lesson learned to be more specific!
• Launching the next phase of Tablet2Read.  Our district is currently working on this as we speak.  We may be moving this to 2019 but we'll see!
• Launching the second year of our Central Office Tech and Talk Series.  This one is in the works!

Personally, I wanted to accomplish:

• Continue growing my PLN on Twitter, learning from amazing ed tech educators! Check!
• Continue blogging, more often.  Check!
• Spotlight Speak with EdTechTeam. Check!  This has been the highlight of my year!  The opportunities that have come as a result of this have been incredible!  I've been able to meet AMAZING educators from all across the world and make a true difference!  
• Deliver at least ONE keynote this year.  Check!  I've actually delivered several!  It gets better and better each and every time that I deliver it.  It's been a true pleasure to deliver my message of the importance of finding your why and living with intention to educators all across the nation!
• Sign up for and take Classy Videos by Tony Vincent.  Check!  I did indeed take Tony's course and would DEFINITELY recommend it to others!  I LOVE that the course is still available for me to access.  I've gone back to the videos numerous times to refresh my mind with the content that he shared.  
• Renew my Google Certified Trainer status.  Check!  
• Renew my Microsoft Innovative Educator and Surface Expert status.  Check!  
• Apply for the Google Innovator program.  Check!  I applied annnnnnnd....I got in!!!  CRAZY!!!  Little ole me got in!!  I spend time in Los Angeles with 37 other edtech educators from around the United States (and Canada) learning all about the Design Thinking Process as well as brainstorming a solution to my Google Innovator Project.  More about this in the next blog, but check out www.MentorMeEdu.org for more information in the meantime!
• Being active with the second cohort of Our Voice Academy.  In process!
• FINISH MY DISSERTATION and FINALLY become Dr. Natasha Rachell!!!!  ALMOST!!!
• Attend ISTE.  Check!  
• Get healthier: eat better, exercise, drink more water, meditate.  Hmmmm...eat better, yes.  Exercise, nope!  Drink more water, at times!  Meditate, not as much as I'd like.
• Continue on my spiritual journey.  Always a work in progress!
• More to come..... There has been a LOT more and I'll blog all about this at the end of the year!

I was really dreaming big at the beginning of the year!  It's refreshing to know that I've made progress on ALMOST all of the goals that I set for myself.  With only 90 days left in the year 2018, I will definitely continue to work hard so that when I recap at the end of the year and begin to set my intention for 2019, I can cross all (hopefully) these off of the list!  It's not too late to continue working on these goals and even making a few more that I'll be able to achieve before the end of the year!

How about you, where are you with your 2018 goals?  You've got 90 days to make magic happen!

#thefridayfour

It's that time again!!!  Time to reflect!

1.  What went well this week?
I prepared a presentation for our district wide professional learning day that would be shared with all of our K-5 educators!  I used a lot of the skills that I learned in Tony Vincent's, Classy Graphics course!  I definitely feel more creative as a result of taking his course and using what I've learned to create amazing presentations that will be utilized during professional development.

2.  What can I do better next week?
Time management still continues to be something I need to improve on.  There just never seem to be enough hours in the day.  I have a planner that I use and I still run out of time!  Maybe I need to plan my day hour by hour....hmmmm.....

3.  Who or what did I affect in a positive way this week?
I helped one of the coordinators in our district with Google as she prepared for a working session this week.  She had a unit plan template that she needed to disseminate to her teachers.  While working in pairs, they needed to access the document, work within the document collaboratively and send it back to her.  We set her up a shared Google Drive that she then turned into a tiny.url and her teachers had at it!  They made copies of the template, renamed it with their information, collaborated on the document and then it was there waiting for her!  It worked perfectly!  We opted to go this route instead of using the Teams Drive because she didn't have the time to manually add each teacher in one by one.  Once she has time to do so, I'll work with her to create a Team Drive and move that folder into the drive so everyone is able to access it going forward!

4.  What is something I did professionally for myself?
I spent a lot of time in #classygraphics the course and resources this week!  I had to quickly create a flyer that is going to be administered at our Back2SchoolBash tomorrow.  I also started creating a series of graphics that I am calling "The Anatomy of..."  These are graphics that show the anatomy, or parts of different ed tech resources that I come across and love!  Of course I used those #classygraphics skills to create them!

Tag!  You're it!  What are YOUR Friday Four?

#thefridayfour

So, I had a thought!  Fridays are usually reflection days for me on what happened during the week. What went well?  What didn't go so well?  What can I do differently next week?  What can I do better next week?  Who did I affect this week?  Did I make a positive impact on someone or something this week?  You get the picture!  I decided to start what I'm going to call "The Friday 4!"

Every Friday (let's hope), I'm going to make a concerted effort to reflect on 4 things:

1. What went well this week?
2. What can I do better next week?
3. Who or what did I affect in a positive way this week?
4. What is something I did professionally for myself?

It's my hope that being more focused in my reflection each week, will help me to be more intentional about my goals for the following week.  So....it's week 1 and here goes!

What went well this week?

This week, in general, was just a REALLY productive week! It was the first week back with our entire Instructional Technology team.  We had numerous trainings and planning sessions that went really well!

What can I do better next week?
Next week, I am going to be sure to create a complete brain dump at the end of each day!  Although this week was super productive, I've had a feeling of "loose ends" all week.  I need to make the effort to get everything out of my brain and on to paper (or a computer!) so I know that I've dotted every i and crossed every t!

Who or what did I affect in a positive way this week?
New Teacher Orientation was today and I positively impacted 145 new teachers to my school district! I was able to trouble shoot issues of not being able to log into their email or their Google Classroom and although these issues were small to me, I know it's going to make a world of difference to them! They are eager to get started as new teachers to our district and begin getting their plans together!

What is something I did professionally for myself?
I purchased a few inspirational books to read, as if I don't have enough "books to read" on my bookshelf! I also blogged and spent some time analyzing analytics of my website! It's amazing to see the number grow every week as well as to see where in the world people are located that are reading what I've got to say!

So....what about you?  What are your #thefridayfour?  As you close out this week and prepare to celebrate the weekend, take a moment to reflect.  Take some time to get in the right mind to close out this week and get ready for the upcoming week!