Creativity, Technology, and Gratitude with Nikki Jones

What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. Today I have a fantastic conversation with Nicki Jones for you. Now, Nikki's been teaching for 16 years, she's taught first and third grade. And currently, she's an instructional technology coach. And she's passionate about helping, inspiring and training educators to integrate technology in ways that are innovative, highly engaging ways to promote student choice, voice and creation. And in this conversation, listen to how Nikki talks about being willing to take risks. Listen, as she talks about different ways, that we can find inspiration for using technology tools inside our classrooms, listen to strategies that she uses to introduce technology to her students. Listen, and she talks about the one point rubric, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. I am super excited today, because I have a wonderful guest, someone who it's amazing the connection that we have, and we've never met before. But we'll get into that connection. A little later into the podcast, I want to welcome Nikki Jones to teaching champions podcast. Welcome, Nikki, thank you so much for having me. I've been listening to your podcast. And I'm just so excited to be here. And I'm excited to have you because you are an amazing technology wizard. And I can't wait to get some of the information to everybody, but could for the listeners that don't know who you are. Could you share your journey with us, please. So I am an Instructional Technology coach, I have been in education for 16 years. I'm originally from Western New York, and I got my undergraduate there. We'll chat about that connection in a second. And then I moved actually just like everybody else in Western New York, I had an education degree, and I didn't want to be a substitute. So I moved to Northern Virginia, where I am currently located, I started teaching first grade and I fell in love with it. I always thought I wanted to teach kindergarten. And then first grade was like a newfound love because they're just a little more independent. They can mostly tie their shoes. And I was just seeing such growth and progress and teaching them to read and write. And I really fell in love with that I was at a school, that administration really supported technology integration, and I was constantly using it in my classroom. And then I somehow landed the role as an instructional technology coach, and I fell in love with the job I it was like a dream job I didn't even know that I wanted, I was able to make an impact on a larger scale with our whole school community and work with teachers. And then life kind of threw a twist. And we were moving and I wanted to be a little bit closer to where we were going to be living. I was pregnant and I didn't want to be commuting with a small baby at home. So I applied for lots of jobs on this end of the county, I was kind of willing to go back into the classroom or whatever role that I could obtain to be closer to home. And I emailed a school that was just opening. And this lovely principal, she interviewed me and she hired me I was six months pregnant. It's gonna be out the first three months of school. My due date was the three days before school started. I never taught third grade, not sure what she was thinking. She had some faith and I started teaching third grade. I absolutely loved it. I kind of fell in love with these kids even more because the independence that they had, they had a sense of humor, they were really able to like dig deep into reading and get meaning. So it was a lot of fun. I had an amazing team that I loved. And then our coach left and I was asked to take that role again because I was just using so much technology in my classroom. So I felt strongly because I had six years that I had really built kind of some relationships in the building and I felt confident that I would be able to kind of get our school to the next level with technology integration and steam. So I have been an instructional technology coach My current school for the last three years. And here we are, I know that you were saying that you were lucky enough to become that and Instructional Technology coach, right as COVID hit, which I'm sure moving into that position was a little stressful. I mean, it was stressful for everybody at that time. I might not have said lucky at the beginning, when you asked me, that was definitely a struggle, because it was more of kind of that management of technology, right, helping students and families learn how to get logged into things, how to download things, we had just launched a new learning management system, we were using Canvas for the first time. So the aspect of, you know, teaching teachers how to get their instruction, how to get all of their materials, and everything into Canvas in a clean and easy way for six year olds to access and helping them get passwords and all of the things I might not have said I was lucky. I guess I'm happy that I was able to be of support to those that needed it. And it took a while to really get that instructional piece in there that I find so hard for. And then I really kind of took that as a role for me to be able to help and support educators. So when I went to them, it was always like, where are you struggling most? How can I help you? Let me help you get your kids engaged? Let me help you try a new platform. Try something with your students. Because zoom, let's be honest, an entire day of zoom was six year olds is rough. Yeah. So that was really fun. Yeah, no, I bet. And it's a you know, sometimes we don't realize how resilient we are, you know, the lessons that we can take away. And what we learned after going through that lot, a lot of great takeaways. Now, we talked about that connection piece. And the one neat thing about social media is that you can meet some phenomenal people from all across the country. But do you want to get into a little bit about how we got connected? So it's wild, right? You are connected with so many other educators. And I love Twitter because I get to connect with these like minded educators. And I don't even know how I think it started because of Laney and then Lainey roll. So she evolving with gratitude. And I think you were on her podcast, is that right? Initially, yes, made the connection. And then we kind of started digging deeper. Because when you say you're from New York, everybody thinks New York City, right? Like Western New York. So when I initially tell people, I'm from New York, I always say Western New York. And then you're like, wait, what part of Western New York and we kind of kept digging a little bit further and very close in proximity to where I grew up is where you are currently living? Yeah. So how are you about 40 minutes away? 40 minutes away, like that's nothing. And then digging a little bit deeper, we found go into this. Yeah, we went to the same community college, which it you know, is a small community college, only about 2500 students. And then we went to the same graduate program, we went to the same university, which is another small university, only about 4000 students. So to be connected with someone that lives many states away, but share such a amazing past is pretty awesome. It's such a small world, right? Like we say that, but that's crazy that we've connected. I mean, I guess that randomly through social media, because we have so many common interests, but that we were able to kind of trace that connection back is really wild. Yeah, it is wild. That is for sure. So but let's say you are here to talk a lot about technology. And you know, one thing when when I look at your Twitter feed, I just see so many amazing things that you're putting out there. What are some great like new technology pieces that you're seeing right now that could benefit people in the classroom or that you would share with your staff. So I tend to gravitate towards those tech tools that really allow for creation and students to get creative and have that choice and voice anything that empowers students to share their learning, in a way that is that for them is something that I go for. So Microsoft flip, they're actually 10 years old. They're not new, but they are always at the top of my list because it's one of those tools that it's super easy to use. It's just like social learning, right? We're on social media, but it's social learning for students and they have so much fun creating the Hang it can be used for reading, writing social studies, science, language arts. as a second language learner, there are just so many possibilities. And I love that I can teach my staff and I can teach our learners, one tool that's so versatile that they can use it for multiple different projects. And I can use it at any level. So our kindergarteners last year, I was actually most successful with flip with our kindergarten students, their one to one with an iPad, and they were using the flip app. And it wasn't necessarily brain surgery, things that they were doing, but they learned about shapes. So they went on a shape hunt, and they took pictures of shapes around the classroom. And were able to sort those and orally explain, you know, what they found and the attributes of the shape. And that's so empowering for a five or six year old that can't read or write, but they're able to, you know, share their learning in a different meaningful way. And that goes all the way up through our fifth grade or higher ed students that are using flip as well. And then I know you can talk, yeah, go oh, can I jump into like, if someone doesn't know what flip is? Like? What are some of the possibilities that flip offers? I know you gave that that great one with a kindergartener. Yeah. So when other grades jornais from Team flip sides, if you can think it, you can flip it, you can literally so flip is a video recording platform, essentially, in its ease it is you pop the app open, you can press the record, and you can kind of start recording yourself just like you would, you know, on your camera. But the cool thing is that it saves right to that app, it can be organized in different different groups, different topics, and then you give students different prompts. So the cool part is, it can be very simple, right, you can just open the camera and start recording, or it can be super complex. And there are a lot of camera features. There are lenses, there are stickers that you can add, you can add your own photos. So even thinking, you know, in education, it's all about building relationships, getting to know our students, at the beginning of the year in the middle of the year, right now is a great time to kind of re build those connections, we're coming back from break. So just having them open it up and maybe share three adjectives about themselves three of their favorite things. And three things they want to learn the rest of the year would be a really fun way for them to kind of explore. And every time I introduce it, I always like to give them just like we do with manipulatives, like, go and push all the buttons just have five or 10 minutes, where you push all the buttons, learn all the things, get it out of your system. And then I kind of tried to like focus it on three things that I want them to do. So for that activity, I just said, Maybe I want them to do three adjectives with text, I want them to find three things that they really love in the sticker button. And then I want them to make sure they orally tell me three goals that they have, or three things that they want to learn. So whenever I give a new tech tool, that's always my tip, it can be really overwhelming. If you try to teach somebody, an educator or a young learner, all of the things. So I really just like to try to take three, if I'm giving them an assignment to focus on that. So flip is really like the possibilities are endless. I've done things from stop motion, which you wouldn't think like a video recording app. But it's awesome. Because even if your students are shy to be on camera, you can use they have audio only feature, they have a create feature, you can have your head as like an emoji or a cacti with the different lenses. So this is definitely one of my apps that I you know, went to as a classroom teacher, but that I always go for when I am facilitating in a coaching role, because the possibilities are really just endless. Yes, that's awesome. What are some of the other things that you've seen out there that are just fantastic technology to bring into. So the other one that is always at the top? I have a lot at the top of my list. This could take awhile. Adobe is another one that I love. I also love Canva kind of they go hand in hand and both have pros and you know can do a little bit different things. Adobe is usually my go to and again, it's all about that student creation and the creativity. Adobe allows students to create basically graphic images or videos and I really love to start with templates. Because when we're talking about creativity, sometimes a blank page is really intimidating. If we tell students like, Hey, you're gonna make a brochure or a poster about a mid atlantic state, they might sit and look at that lake page for a really long time. But if I give them a template, which is really easy to do through Adobe, and kind of have some things outlined some basic things, and I have, have you heard the one point rubric? I wasn't planning on talking about that right now. But the single point rubric, have you heard it? Oh, please, expand upon this. Oh, my gosh, so Jennifer Gonzalez is the creator of the single point rubric. And I learned this through Adobe. And it's something that I really have been implementing a ton with, especially those older, you know, two through five students. But basically, it's not one point in the essence that you can only receive one point, it's one point that there is one goal, or one thing for you to create. And then essentially, you can get, you can still get that kind of we do mastery here. So 4321, I really don't even put a one on there. But all of the different pieces of the rubric that you usually have kind of in the left hand column, and then you're breaking down, you know how rubric, I feel like I'm going off here. But a rubric, we usually are like, You did four things, you did three things, you did two things, you had a hard time, right, you are struggling, we take so much time, creating this rubric that has those four boxes, were really essentially you're looking for a single point, right? That they identified the location of the Mid Atlantic state, and it had the capital or whatever that one point is, that is your single and then on the left, you have like, this is where you need to grow. These are something that I can give you feedback on that you didn't quite meet it. And then over here on the right is how you exceed it. So when we're thinking about that, for three to one, mastery, the four is going to be like over here, you really went above and beyond in my expectation, the one I gave wasn't great, because it was just, you know, a basic identification. And then the three right there in the middle, you've met this, like you've got your single point, you did it, bam. And then over here, where we can justify those twos and ones become less subjective, because we're giving them feedback. These are the areas that I need to see you improve upon. So we need Jennifer Gonzalez, go look that up. She probably explained that way better. But the single point rubric for creativity and the iteration process, and really giving students feedback when we're having them use tools like Adobe there we do we have that wrap around. So that's one thing that I really love Adobe for the templates for the creativity and giving students a place to start and then they can kind of make it their own. I always tell them like this is something for you to start with. But when you give it back to me, it doesn't have to look anything like this. And I kind of got in using Adobe through social media. Back in December, Claudio Zavala, he is a rockstar educator. If you don't know him, go and find him. He does. He works as an Adobe evangelist. And he puts out amazing templates and quick little tutorials for using Adobe Express. But he launched a template or he put out on social media, this template and I kind of became hooked. So it was like a half face you put half face of your photograph. And then the other side are what makes you you like your identity, what would you use to define yourself, I have used this tablet. So many times with students and staff. It's actually a big mural in our building. It was we did it at the beginning of the year. And it's something our staff and our students still like stand enamored at and love to look at in awe. We've changed that from you know, describing your identity to doing character traits. So you can put a book character in there, and what are the traits that make up the book character. So I've taken each month Adobe releases a monthly challenge. And I usually I love to do the challenges myself personally to be creative, and gives amazing swag. And then I love to introduce them to students, but also kind of take them and put a twist on them for how to pull them back into the content. So at using them kind of as that starting point as an idea, borrowing that idea and kind of sparking it into something that goes into the classroom. Have you heard of you want to say anything about Adobe, you're hooked now I see it. I am hooked well. It's just that creativity piece and we can get into that a little bit later. If you want to continue there. We can get into a little bit now because I think it education and we kind of we hear creativity. And we think like, they'll do that in music, they'll, they'll get creative in art. And we don't always feel that it belongs in the classroom. And I've really kind of done a lot of research and spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into and with. So our former steam coach at my building, Caitlin Finisterre, she's also amazing. And her and I really worked a lot last year and through COVID, actually, with this piece of creativity and getting it beyond it being expected outside of the classroom or looking at it like it's something extra. So really giving students choice and voice and giving them the ability to create, you know, beyond a worksheet or beyond just the end of the unit assessment is something that's really powerful. And I think we need to kind of look at it in a different lens in education that even though your students are maybe not going to be graphic designers, they can definitely make a poster that or a flyer that explains the layers of the earth or you know, whatever science or social studies reading math content that you're doing, and just giving them the ability to do that and be empowered. I think that's really too special. Yeah, I think it's huge. I think it's special, I think creativity is the engagement piece, I think when we give the students that voice and choice, that engagement pieces, shoots through the roof. I also think sometimes, like you said, we get hesitant with creativity, I guess that's something that's really been on my mind lately. And like sparking ideas. I read a book about idea flow. And they were saying the guy teaches it, one of the Ivy League schools that wrote the book, and he was talking about like, businesses and coming up with new ideas. And he was saying that he's given this presentation to this major firm. And so all the workers are there. And then this head CEO is there. And he says, you know, how many ideas do you need to get to get to that homerun, because we always think we see these things that come out on these new inventions or these new policies. And we always think that that's just naturally it just happened. And so, you know, he says, All these people are shouting out numbers. And then the hag guy raised his hand. And he said, you just need one, one idea. And this ivy league professor, he said, No, he said that they've done studies, and to come up with all these genius ideas that we see. You need. And it's crazy said it's over 2000 ideas to get to that one great one great idea. You know, it's just sometimes with that creativity, experimenting, we get. We fear that failure. You know, I'm reading a book right now, I'm all about the Savannah, bananas. I don't know. Have you? Do you have any idea about the Savannah, bananas? No idea about Savannah bananas? Yeah, it's crazy. It's so he's, he took over this baseball team, this guy took it's like a minor league baseball team. But he's changed the game of baseball, because he said it's boring. So he does all these crazy things. And it's just this huge attraction, that so he says, like, they try three different things every single night. And they have like cameras up in the stands watching to see how many people leave the game, when they leave the game. They're analyzing, like what different, you know, experiments are working with the crowd. And the whole thing is what I'm getting with is that creativity piece that, you know, our kids sometimes I think are afraid to experiment, maybe afraid to fail. That's because of the restraints that we've put on them. Like we should be pushing them to create that so many things that I just Yes, did oh, and I wanted to elaborate on I think, yes, that fear of failure is I mean, even as adults, when you tell somebody, they're going to do something creative. That's like intimidating, we don't want to fail. And I think it's so important. Our littlest learners are the ones that are ready to be creative. And then that kind of gets stifled as they go through education and for what it's worth, what our education system is and the way that we kind of view success in lots of different components that go into this creativity or lack thereof of creativity because I find that the the fourth and fifth graders struggle a little bit more because they're wanting me to tell them exactly what I want, right? They aren't they're not they don't have this free ability to just, you know, share what they learned. They're really looking for me And it's kind of been a shift for the students, like, I'm not giving you a worksheet, you're not gonna just fill in the blanks like, we're gonna get into this, and you're gonna explain it to me. And that's a relearning for them. And I think, you know, before the show, we were talking a little bit about this. And as educators, we're always pressed for time, right? And we're always thinking about, we have to get through all the content. And we have to get through all the curriculum. And the one thing with creativity, and the technology integration that I always really try to emphasize is it's not something extra, right? When I'm trying to get your students to be creative, I want them to be engaged and to remember, and to really show their mastery of content. When I'm doing technology integration. I'm not coming to play a game, I'm coming to really enhance your instruction. And that's what I want educators also doing that it's not something extra, it's something that is right along in there with your reading, writing, math, science, social studies, it's not extra. And then one other thing that you said that was interesting, and I had to do a quick Google Steal Like an Artist is another really cool book. It is Austin Kion. I'm not sure. Maybe, yeah, I read that book, have you. So I was thinking of that, as you're talking about, you know, needing all of these ideas. And his kind of whole idea is like, every idea is borrowed from someone else. So people have had really great ideas. And don't be afraid. And that kind of goes back to that template thing that I was talking about, like, borrow those ideas, steal those ideas, what people are doing well, like, take it and use it or take it and tweak it. And a lot of what you talk about, you know, through your podcast is like these lessons that we can learn. And that's kind of what I'm always looking for, or want to learn to, like, how can we do that. And then the last thing that I'm thinking in my brain is your that 2000 ideas, and the iteration process. So through creativity, and I've learned this a lot through Adobe, the iteration process is like really taking your one idea that you have like that one, beginning poster or flyer or whatever it is that you're going to create, and then quickly iterating it and turning it into three different designs, turning it into six different designs. I didn't even know what how to name but that was something that I just naturally did when I was creating. And I think that that's so important in getting the feedback. So as I'm thinking of your 2000 ideas that might be extreme for what I'm creating, or what we're expecting our learners to create, but that as a place to start and teaching them how to do that, and how to have that free thinking. And it's okay, if the first five ideas were horrible, or you didn't use them, or you got feedback that change that idea. So I think what you're hitting on that failure in that grit that's so important that we are teaching our learners in whatever way we can. Yeah, 100%. And, you know, within that idea of flow, one that that author that came up with those 2000 ideas, one activity that he said is every single day. And I think he got this from other like creatives out there, but they do like, they give themselves a limit. Like every single day they write down like 10 new ideas, the guy from the savannah bananas, reference that, that his well, just and so what you do is every single day right now and these ideas right now and these ideas, and like you said, you know, five or six might not work, but it might be that Sabbath, or that Savannah banana guy, and you'll have to check it out. I'm gonna get on. It's great for the kids. So the kids are loving it. Like they do all these fun stuff to make it just super entertaining. He takes girls team. It's a guy's team. But thinking of some other baseball thing, some other silly baseball thing. Yeah, yeah, no, but it's all about entertainment. He does a ton references a ton from Walt Disney, and he can make it family friendly and everything but he said, you know, you take an idea. So they experiment the baseball park like three different ideas that they want their their kids are to experiment, see how it goes. And he said, first time it never goes perfectly. And he goes sometimes the best defense or when they go terribly wrong. But he also said, you know, you take it and then you get back. And then they meet after the game and they talk about the different stuff that they did they make those adjustments, and then they try it again. And I think that's a big thing with technology is the first time that we implement it. Sometimes it goes terribly wrong. But that reflection piece thinking about it, going back tweaking it, trying it again, and having that resilience like your kids are not going to remember that it that's like We're stifling ourselves, right, you're worried what's going to happen. If I forget what to click or I forget what to do. I'm still like, I'm, I consider myself like very fluid with technology. But every time I do flip or Adobe with, I mean, last night, so every night, my kids make a Microsoft flip. And this is I use flip in my personal life a lot too. So every night they do and this I kind of got from Laney, we had always talked about the best part of our day, right before we went to bed. And just a way of like, showing gratitude and just ending the day on a really positive note and kind of getting reset for bedtime. And in all the ways that I used when I said, I need to record like, I need to save these. So every night, my boys, they record it, sometimes they use the only feature, sometimes they add a picture from their day, sometimes they play with stickers or pen, it's all over the place. But my four year old, he's, he can turn get to the app, he can get to the group, he can press record. And last night, he wanted two different gifts. So he you know, he wanted three. So he somehow used three fingers, and got all three of them on the page, I would have just clicked on and gone to have a back and forth and add multiple times. But his brain said, let me see what happens when I click three of them. So he wasn't afraid that it wasn't going to work. He just tried it. And I feel so two things in that as educators, I feel like we just need to have more of that risk taking. And one thing in my role is I kind of get to be that support net, right. So when you're introducing something new, I really you know, how I kind of start as I like to model the lesson, I'm gonna just come in, and I'm going to do it, and you can watch and you can sit back and hang out. And then maybe the next time I come in, we're going to plan it together. And we're going to kind of teach it together and in go off of each other. And then maybe the third or fourth time after you've had some more, maybe I'll create it for you. And you're going to implement it on your own. But I'll be there as a backup, like if you don't remember the button to push. And then that's where we get into those reflective pieces. And that reflective piece of being able to sit down and have a conversation with a teacher like, how did that go? How did that make you feel? Will you do it again? How are we going to change this. And then one other interesting thing, we were talking a little bit about that departmentalization piece in the upper grade levels. And it's always interesting to teach with our fifth grade teachers for the day, because that first lesson is a little rocky, right? There are some things you just didn't hire. Now, you didn't really think about the timing of a transition or something. We kind of tweak it. The second lesson is like, oh, that like this is getting better. And then the third class, by the end of the day, they get like cream of the crop the best lesson, you figured out everything that's wrong all day, and are able to fix it. So that's really cool. I think maybe we need to like think about middle schools like rearranging their schedules, so they have a chance to get the best teaching, but part of that reflective practice and doing something over and over again. And even thinking if you're not in that role, every year you teach, you know, as a second grade teacher, you're teaching the same content, the same curriculum, but maybe the way you approach it is a little bit different or, you know, integrating technology more or it's just interesting and fascinating to think about that reflective piece and how much it can impact our practice. Yeah, it's huge. It's absolutely huge. And you know, you got my wheels turning right here, just, you know, so many great things. But when you talked about I love that gratitude piece that you talked about with your own families, like, as a mom, like the boys, when they get older, it'd be neat for them to look back at it, but probably even neater for you. It's so powerful even now to look back on. And so I'll just share one other little personal thing. Our four year old is a Praxic. So he has really limited language and he is going to speech regularly. He goes to speech two times a week. He's in a special ed preschool program. And we started using flipped with him forever ago. But I started using it for him to practice language. So it's really cool to see his progress from a year and a half ago what he was able to say to now and then the gratitude piece to he hasn't we have 274 videos. So 274 video goes, how different he sounded and what he was grateful for. And I think Laney is just so amazing and having that gratitude practice in your life as an educator, as a mom as a human is so important and it's something that I really have tried to still in my voice and my heart always gets so happy when he says like, today we were driving to school. And he said, I'm so grateful that it's a beautiful snowy day, and we still get to go to school. Like that's, that's really cool. And you say that or he'll say, I'm really proud of you. That's what he will. That's another one that we're like big on is showing gratitude through being proud of people. And he'll, he'll just chime in with I'm really proud of you for making my lunch and getting up early and taking care of us. And it's so cute. From a seven year old perspective. It's so important that we we do that in our classrooms and our homes. Yeah, teaching it modeling it and you got me thinking, like, how can we do that? Could we do a video thing inside our classrooms, without doing that every single day look so powerful, that would be amazing. And you we need to talk more about this idea. My brain has already going in a million directions. But we need to talk more about that idea. Because you could even have each student so you could have it like a daily check in with their gratitude, where the cool thing about flip is that it gives like an authentic audience for my students, because they're able to see each other's videos. But then there's also this cool piece where you can moderate the videos. And you can make it just so you as the teacher can see them, they can't see each others. Or you could have just a topic for each of your students. And it would be like a portfolio of their gratitude or their growth, you know, it could be daily, it could be weekly, that would be something really special for you and that you could share. So flip automatically generates QR codes, you could generate those for families like the how it'd be a keepsake forever. I know we've talked about our connection with Melissa Hayes. But she does a lot with like the QR codes and sharing them with families or putting them on ornaments or keepsakes. That's there's lots of really special ways to use to use flip in and out of the classroom. So I'm glad that kind of circled back around. Yeah, no, that's fantastic. And you'll have to share that with Lanie. And for those listeners that don't know is Lanie Rao. She has her own podcast and a book under the same name evolving with gratitude. And she's just a such a blessing. It's a wonderful podcast, a beautiful book. So definitely check that out. But it's in her book she talks about like the gratitude jar. So this just, it takes that idea of most and expands it makes such a beautiful visual. Which an audio to Yes, it's exactly that it's a digital gratitude jar with flair. Yeah. That's so cool. As we wrap up, here are two of my favorite questions that I love to ask everybody is what is a podcast or a book that you would recommend? So we've kind of already talked about lady, she's amazing. One of the other educators that I always go to so Chris Wood, he wrote daily stem, he also has a daily stem podcast. He is on Twitter at Daily Sun. And he's just one of those like Rockstar educators that is really sharing innovative, but real ways to implement steam in every classroom. And he has so in the book, it's just a super quick, super easy read. It's really down to earth. Like, I feel like I could just walk up to him and be great friends with him. I've had like a lot of really good positive interactions with him. And he's just always sharing these practical I guess practical is the word that I'm thinking about, I think, you know, kind of like creativity we hear seem or stem and it's immediately intimidating. And his whole idea is getting stem into every classroom and he's a middle school math teacher and he's constantly putting stem in his classroom and a lot about like building relationships and school culture and communities. So he's just another one of those, like, phenomenal people to connect with. I feel like I can't narrow it down to just one. So I really through social love connecting with like whole communities. So I've talked a lot about Microsoft flip. So the Microsoft flip community, anybody in that community is really phenomenal. And you can even Scott titmus Jazz voice there's just so many and Cosma if you don't know an Cosmo, they could go and find her. She doesn't have a podcast, but she is just a bright light of sunshine. The Adobe team, same thing. Claudio Zavala was the thimble, Jesse Lindsey, like there's just so many and that's where I get a lot of my inspiration and my creativity and my ideas is I will surf Twitter and surf show those hashtags and get inspired by that. So I don't always listen to podcasts. But when I do daily stem, I love your podcast. I love Lenny's podcast. There's so many good ones out there. And then just check out some of those communities. That would be like one of my recommendations. Yeah. And I love that. And just like we talked so much about here, it's getting those, I there's so many amazing people out there. And they're willing to share care, and just to get ideas and spark and make it your own. And if someone wanted to connect with you, because you're one of the educators that we can look at and grab ideas from, what's the best way to connect with you, Nikki, I am always on Twitter. So at Mrs. Jones, seven to eight 112. That's a really good place. I'm always tweeting, I'm always retweeting and sharing kind of ideas, what I'm doing in the classroom are awesome ideas that I'm seeing, I love to lift others up and retweet those other good ideas. I think, you know, you don't always have to be the smartest person in the room. But you can get ideas from everybody. And I really love that too. So I'm sharing what I'm doing it I've kind of gone back and forth with this for a really long time. I don't do it to like, for me necessarily. I want to inspire others. And I want to share ideas, not because I want to accolade, but because I want others to be able to like put that into their practice and see the joy of creativity or See how easy that it can be to add these things to their classroom. And there are so many, so many other amazing educators that are doing it, also, and I love sharing and uplifting them as well. That's awesome. If you could have the listeners walk away with one thing, what would that be? I think just to take that risk and try one thing, maybe one thing from today. And I think that's easy for us to get overwhelmed with like, we talked about so many things. We talked about different apps, we talked about different techniques, we talked about so many things, but just take one. So if you can find one point from today and walk away with it and try to put it into practice, or do a little bit more research about, I think that's just a good place to start. Don't overwhelm yourself. And I think that what is it Comparison is the thief of joy is that what the quote is, I think that we're all in these different places. And sometimes we get caught up listening to a podcast or seeing a Twitter feed. And we say like, I'm not there, or I don't know how to do that. And we get overwhelmed. And it's easy to kind of back off and shut down. So my big challenge is you don't have to be like anybody else and just take one idea and try to put it into practice. And I am more than happy to help anybody or to answer questions or to share ideas or bounce ideas with. I'm always open to that. So great. So many phenomenal tips there, Nikki. And, you know, just to add on a little bit when you talk about you know, starting with that one thing is I've done a lot. One thing that I've tried to remind myself when you talk about Comparison is the thief of joy when you look at all these other rock stars out there, and then you look at yourself, a quote I heard before was, Don't compare like your chapter one to someone's chapter 20. It's to always remember that these people that are sharing the stuff, they've been doing it for a long time. So show yourself grace, but go out there, try it, implement it, reflect. And before you know it, you're gonna be racking it too, right. And I think that piece too, like, you might not be a rock star with technology. But there are so many other things that you're a rock star with giving yourself credit for those things. And you know, maybe you're a rockstar with classroom management, maybe you have amazing relationships in their classroom. And some of these things aren't necessarily always going to be noticed or easy to share or put out there. But giving yourself credit for those things, too, that maybe you don't know a thing about flip or Adobe or creativity. But you're here and you're willing to learn. Like, that's a big step. I think that's super powerful. And there are lots of things in your life that you're great at. So hit that and be great and keep on going. I love that. I love that Nikki, it's been such a pleasure and all blessing in you know, meeting you were so connected in so many ways, which is unbelievable. And you said like, you know, you want to be an uplifter. And just with that little time that we've spent together, you truly are truly such a blessing. And thank you so much that you share with us and so much that you give to your schooling and you know, we appreciate you my friend. Thank you so much for having me. I feel like my cheeks are smiling a little bit from just chatting with you and being able to share things that I'm so passionate about. And I'm just really excited and I just want to share really quick I haven't been in the classroom in a while I've been out on medical leave. So this is really brought me a lot of joy to be able to meet with you and kind of talk about all of these things that are She's going on and really important and impactful for me, but I haven't had my hands on them in a little bit. So this was really, I feel like kind of a little bit of therapy for me to just being able to connect with you and chat about it all. So I really appreciate you for that. Well, that's great. And, you know, best of luck. And I know that things are trending upward for you, which is definitely like, so. Well, thank you, Nikki, thank you. This was such a wonderful conversation with Nikki. She's such an awesome person, and she shared so many great things. Now, this is a teaching champions take where I share three of my favorite takeaways. The first gem I loved is how Nikki talked about the importance of taking risks. Because in order for us to evolve as educators, we have to be willing to take risks, we have to be willing to step out of that comfort zone. And doing that, with the understanding that we don't have to be perfect, the first time we do something is usually going to be a little uncomfortable. And maybe it doesn't go quite as smooth as we'd like it to. But it's all about that experimenting, learning, making tweaks. And then trying again, the second gem that I loved is how Nikki talked about the power of creativity, and really being inspired by those around you. And she referenced communities light flip, and Adobe. And there are so many more out there as well, that are filled with amazing people. And they're doing amazing things. And often these people they're willing to share. So check out these different groups, see what others are doing. Think how you can take something that they're doing in their classroom, and adapt it to fit your teaching style in your classroom. And the third gem that I loved was how Nicki shared the gratitude practice that she does with her boys at home. It's that gratitude jar with a twist. It's using Microsoft flip, creating videos and audio files of the things that her family is grateful for. It's phenomenal modeling. It's great practice for the family. And just think about the keepsake has been created. I know once you told me this that my wheels were turning. Now these are just a few of my favorite gems. Hit me up on social media, let me know what were some of your favorite takeaways from this conversation. A huge thank you to Nikki for sharing so many wonderful takeaways, and for being such an amazing uplifter. And thank you to you as well for being here, for being part of the teaching champions community. We support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think someone would benefit from this conversation, please share is all about supporting one another. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so that all new episodes chromed directly to you. In always remember, it doesn't matter if we're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada, the Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission, and we're always better together. Keep being amazing, my friends, and as you go out into the week, May you step into strength may step into shine. And let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody