This week's book bite/review is on The Shark and the Goldfish by Jon Gordon. A short fable of less than one hundred pages which focuses on forming a positive mentality. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of this message - all too often, leadership can be too focused on the negatives, but also can be too focused on the "dream" ignoring reality. The tight focus on the fable also weakens the book to a large extent. The book begins by pointing out that "each day you make this ch

The Rundown offers help in fixing those aspects of AI-generated infographics that might wrong or just off. Can you see what I mean? After gathering your information, you can use Google Gemini or ChatGPT to generate an infographic - these two tend to be best currently (c April 2026). The next step adds on what is key: Give those prompts to Gemini, generate some options, and download the best PNG. Then, upload it to Canva, click Edit, open Magic Studio, and Magic Layers. Canva

This week’s review is on Enhancing Professional Practice: The Framework for Teaching (3rd Edition) by Charlotte Danielson, Jim S. Furman, and Lee Kappes. A book that offers three primary resources centered on the idea that good teaching can be measured through observation, reflection, and feedback, Enhancing Professional Practice serves as the bedrock for schools and systems around the world. By taking a concrete step towards tying proper professional methods to a systematic

After setting up an identity file and somewhat inspired by Nufar Gaspar and a blog post on a language skill from Mike Caulfield, I thought my next step would be setting up a skill around my presentation style. For coaching and development, I create presentations and outlines frequently. I have found that both Gemini (in Presentations) and Claude tend towards high word count and few images. I have found this not helpful at all - close in terms of some content suggestions - but

This Week's review is on Making Room for Impact: A De-Implementation Guide for Educators by Arran Hamilton, John Hattie, and Dylan Wiliam. A hands-on guide for taking a critical eye at the multitude of initiatives schools and districts tend to run, Making Room for Impact comes at a critical time for the educational field. Over the last quarter century, buoyed by increased funding, stagnated test scores, and changing educational expectations, schools have added more and more t

An identity file is a document which provides the AI with detailed instructions to guide its responses to your personal preferences. I had been meaning to set one up for a while but daunted by the text of what to include. Fortunately, The AI Daily Brief's April 25 episode, "How to Build a Personal Agentic Operating System" with Nufar Gaspar, offered an easy solution, have AI write a first draft for you. In this case, I went to Claude and set it to work with this initial promp

This week’s review is on Learning by Doing (4th Edition): A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work by Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Robert Eaker, Thomas W. Many, Mike Mattos, and Anthony Muhammad. A central concept in the school modernization movement, PLCs and their creation process receive a clear over in Learning by Doing. This edition further expands on the process and offers resources and examples to assist schools in moving from "individual teachers be

Stephen Fitzpatrick, a high school educator, with a substack on " Teaching in the Age of AI " shared a post on design thinking and teaching teachers on how to move forward with AI as designers: When I first started using AI seriously, I was doing what most teachers do - asking questions, iterating on responses, but primarily generating text - converting ideas into polished plans and getting feedback and analysis on my own work. AI remains useful for all of those tasks. But a

This week’s review is on Virtue-Based Restorative Discipline: A Catholic Response to Bullying Behavior by Lynne Lange. It's rare to find a book that so perfectly fills a niche. Long a desire of mine, a truly Catholic discipline policy is the center of this former assistant superintendent's book. In an era of increasing school choice and technological tumult, we need to ensure our schools are authentically Catholic. Beyond the liturgies, wall decoration, and classroom procedur

As AI integrates more into the work apps we regularly use, we can add a true assistant to work flows. The Rundown offers some quick setup tips. They recommend Claude and until Gemini catches up a bit, if you're comfortable allowing that access it might be best to use it. Open Claude with Gmail access and run one triage session on your unread inbox. The goal is to show Claude what matters before automating the process Prompt: “Generate an interactive email triage report for t

Released in 2021 and leading to the dismissal of one of its authors from Google , " On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots " is a formative paper in the field of AI. Written by Emily M. Bender , Timnit Gebru , Angelina McMillan-Major , and (Sh)margaret (Sch)mitchell , the paper presented a critique of GPTs at the dawning of its age. Its title has become shorthand for those denigrating the latest models and a source of angst for boomers of AI technology. What follows are my not

Generating a schedule can be one of the most frustrating aspects of school leadership. Figuring out so many moving parts is a huge pain. I worked with a leader in Virginia to have some AI assistance in starting off a first draft. There is a tool that I know one school is using: https://www.timetablemaster.com/timetable-generator-ai That being said, I think you could set up something in Gemini/ChatGPT/Claude. You can start with just a basic prompt: "You are an expert in schedu

This week's review is on Leading in a Culture of Change by Michael Fullan and the accompanying workbook . Michael Fullan offers a focused work on what leadership in schools and districts demands and how to support that growth. While lacking many of the in-depth ideas and strategies as other leadership or principal-focused books do, Fullan's overall message is an important for those seeking to build collective capacity for leadership. Fullan's goal is three-fold (vi): "how le

Now is the perfect time for private school leaders to start thinking about federal funding and next year's priorities. My knowledgeable colleague, Marc Hoban , will be leading a quick webinar on this essential topic. I encourage every school to learn about this and ensure that the money you have access to is being used to help your students! You can register here: https://events.zoom.us/ev/Av9VpqzF3Jnd655wyOSlmngj6MavWWH3YdXV4tzRi_tyAvnjOSGz~AtEK0bqrHWi1jmmc7d6fe-bezSwAcSKvUa

Excited to share my first guest post for the FACTS blog! When we first interact with a large language model (LLM), such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, we see a standard input textbox. We might resort to our usual search queries, as if we were using Google or another search engine (shout-out to Ask Jeeves!). However, due to the construction of their model, the accumulation of their training data, and the tool’s neural networks, the skill of prompting is the key to unlocking

Dr. Catlin Tucker , a leading author and presenter on education, whose work I have found highly valuable when looking at Tier One and MTSS, released an AI framework in early January of 2026. Given the value of her work in other realms, her thoughts on Generative AI are worth the price of admission. The framework and a series of podcasts/articles detailing the framework can be found on her website. What's In It The framework is clearly focused on the idea of skills - building

Dr. Tim Uhl discussed Pope Leo XIV's October Apostolic Letter " Drawing New Maps of Hope " with Faustin Weber on his podcast, Catholic School Matters . The document was issued on the "60th anniversary of the Conciliar Declaration Gravissimum educationis " and owes much of its structure to a close reading of that document. However, Pope Leo highlights the big change in the last 60 years: " a complex, fragmented, digitized educational environment" (1.2) and one which requires p

Released on January 14, 2026, " A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect " seeks to analyze the current moment, globally, with education and AI and present a path forward. Like many treatments and the way education handles innovation in general, the rapidly changing nature of Artificial Intelligence, fueled by capitalistic drive, can make it seem to be older than one month. However, the reports basic approach and tenets can prove valuable for edu

In December, with a group of like-minded friends in the neighborhood/school/parish, we purchased Tin Can Phones. They arrived last week and we quickly set them up. Since, then I have seen the promise and blessing of having a real phone in the house (for cheaper!). The children call each other to check in on playing and organize activities - which is great in itself. More importantly, I have seen my youngest call and speak with his extended family nearly every day. The blessin

Published in 2025 by Meaghan Crowley Sullivan of LMU's iDEAL Institute , The Catholic Companion Framework For Technology and Innovation: Faithful Guidance for Catholic Educators Navigating Technology, Artificial Intelligence,& Innovation seeks to be "an invitation to reflect, to engage, and to act" in our Catholic community (4). It is certainly a solid initial first step in how our schools and educators can engage with the problems and solutions AI presents. Before diving i