About Adam Phyall
Dr. Adam Phyall focuses on how teachers can keep students engaged in rigorous learning by putting technology in the hands of students. Adam works directly with teachers showing them fun and easy methods of incorporating technology into instruction by “Putting the Pieces Together.” Throughout his professional career, Dr. Phyall worked extensively with Title I and Urban schools to improve technology integration with economically disadvantaged students. He has planned and developed Mobile Learning plans for school districts in Georgia and Missouri that have led to 1:1 device initiatives. His philosophy on teaching is “if you’re having fun teaching it, then your students will have fun learning it.”
Game On! – Guest Adam Phyall - Transcript
Introduction: Hello, and welcome to The Game On Podcast! My name is Adam Bellow. I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Breakout EDU, but I'm also a father, a serial ed-tech entrepreneur, and an advocate for positive change in the classroom. Each episode of The Game On Podcast is going to feature a new voice from someone who's making an amazing impact in helping to pave the way for the future of education. We're going to get to explore their ideas and opinions as well as learn from those successes and failures of these amazing educational gurus. All right, let's get started.
All right. Welcome to the Game On podcast. I'm your host Adam Bellow and I'm so excited to be joined by an incredible, amazing educator and advocate for social change and education and just a good friend so Adam Phyall thank you so much for being here. Adam is the director of technology for the school district in Newton County, which is in Georgia. And he's also an ISTE Board Member and has multiple podcasts of his own and other things. So Adam, welcome. And why don't you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you.
Adam Phyall [01:00]: You know what, actually, this is the first time I've ever been introduced by an Adam. So thank you Adam, for introducing Adam to this podcast.
Adam Bellow [01:09]: Oh, you're welcome, Adam. You're welcome, Adam. It's my pleasure.
Adam Phyall [01:12]: When you're doing that, you're almost like the Rock you're talking in third person, you know, Adam wants to intro.
Adam Bellow [01:20]: It does sound weird and, as, as you know, and the audience may know as well, we run in a relatively tight-knit circle, and we are the two Adams - it's fun.
Adam Phyall [01:29]: Yeah, people get us confused all the time. I have to make sure I let them know I'm the Black Adam because they're all mixed up.
Adam Bellow [01:38]: Well, that goes right back to the Rock. What a segue there…
Adam Phyall [01:41]: There we go.
Adam Bellow [01:43]: I love it. Well, it is great to have you here. Always fun to chat and yeah, as I said why don't you tell us a little bit about you for those of you that don't know you yet?
Adam Phyall [01:51]: Well, I have been in education - Gosh, I remember being the young teacher in the building now. That's how long I've been doing this, getting around that 20-year mark of doing education former high school science teacher I was always that guy that was doing all the stuff with technology in the classroom. I was the one with the MacBook, figuring out how to use the scan converter, doing all these things and just became that teacher that was helping other teachers make their classroom more engaging. And from there, the technology bug hit me, instructional technology now technology director. I've been doing this for a while now in Covington, Georgia. Also, known as the Hollywood of the South. We've trademarked that ladies and gentlemen. We do a lot of filming. If you're into like Vampire Diary shows or whatever, I've never watched them, but they film those and stuff around in my neighborhood.
Just got done filming, I think The Color Purple or something - some really awesome stuff happening around here. You really get involved with students really trying to put them in opportunities to succeed. That's one of the things I've been a huge advocate for, and not just as students, but also with our parents, because we often forget that the quickest way to change someone's social-economic makeup, setting, is to give their parents those opportunities. It always blows my mind when we tell kids, "Hey, stay in school and do your work one day, you going to make money". Reminds me of those old milk commercials. It's like you see the kid drinking the milk and is like "In a few years, I'm going to be.” then all of a sudden it's like this hot supermodel or just like crazy athlete, and that's kind of like a pipe dream we sell kids when it's like, "Hey, there're opportunities in our communities right now with these STEM jobs where if we tell our parents connect with our corporate partners, we can turn around it in 18 months, 12 months, change their whole standard of living. So those are some things that we've been focusing, I know I said a lot, so there you go.
Adam Bellow [03:43]: No, but it's so important. I love that last point. I think that's so, so big. A lot of times we just overlook those opportunities that are right there for a number of reasons so that's awesome that you're making those connections for folks. Awesome. Well, we're going to get into the heart of this over here and we like to kick it off. Obviously at breakout games are super important to us. So our level one question is about games and I want to know what was your favorite game to play as a kid? And what's your favorite game now? What are you playing now?
Adam Phyall [04:13]: Ooh, ooh, see, as a kid growing up you know what, It was one of those things where I, always joke with my department, I was one of the poors growing up. I was one of six kids so when we'd get things, it would always be a family gift. So, growing up, we would get board games a lot of times, like holidays, like Christmas, birthdays. It would be something that everyone could participate in so, always grew up with having different board games that we played, and then I was so excited when we first got our Nintendo. So that was the thing, of course, you had your Nintendo and then we had the OG, the one that came with Duck Hunt and Mario, and you had the Zapper on there.
I got to take it back. My favorite game, of course, growing up was just original Mario. I ran through that game so many times frontwards and backwards because once again like I said, I was one of the poors - so we had that game. We played Mario for like two years before we finally got our second game but I do remember going to the Blockbuster movie gallery. That was just like that thing where you could rent that game and then you would play it and then couldn't turn off the Nintendo, but you could turn off the TV and then you had to turn it back on so the classics my Zelda, Metroid, those things, but yeah, Mario, the original OG Mario was my favorite one growing up. Now, today I'm super lame because my wife doesn't let me out of the house much, so I connect with my buddies and we'll get on Call of Duty and we'll play that. As I mentioned, 1 of 6 kids, I have twin brothers that are, gosh - they're 30 now so they're in different parts of the country, so we will connect and play. So, it's one of those really cool things where we'll sit around, get in a party chat, just chopping it up, just talking about crazy things our parents did or what's going on in our lives. I mean, that's just what we do to connect and kind of have that fun stuff that as siblings and also as my friends, my buddies from college. So that's one thing I can really say that I love how technology has bridged those gaps and allowed people to connect, and one of my best buds that I've made, actually, I met him playing Call of Duty like gosh, about eight or nine years ago.
Adam Bellow [06:22]: Wow.
Adam Phyall [06:22]: And to the tune of like, we met online through a mutual friend and then the mutual friend stopped playing and then my friend started playing now. He got married recently and I was in his wedding so like, it was like one of those amazing things that technology connected two people that had nothing in common with each other prior to that and now we're best buds. We'll call each other all the time and trade barbecue recipes so, those are those amazing things technology can do.
Adam Bellow [06:45]: Oh, that is amazing. That is so awesome. Yeah, it brings me back because I remember the first Nintendo, actually, I remember my cousins got it for whatever holiday was 85, 86, whenever it came out and they wouldn't let us play. So, my parents went out and for the holidays, they got us a Nintendo, but after three days they felt it was too addicting for us and they got rid of it so I had aNintendo though.
Adam Phyall [07:08]: They were worried about screen time.
Adam Bellow [07:09]: That's right. That's right. Well, my parents were both teachers and they were very into the fact that's like hey, I had a computer in my room and I was able to do creative things with it, like coding and, and drawing and I did rudimentary things on the computer, but the video games, they were very against it. So, my friend down the street who actually ironically I moved and he still lives down the street for me. He moved as well. I remember many, many, many days and sleepovers playing Mario and all those, especially Mario. I had Mario 3 as well.
Adam Phyall [07:36]: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Adam Bellow [07:37]: So just the.....
Adam Phyall [07:38]: When you get the warp whistle.
Adam Bellow [07:40]: That's right. That's awesome. All right. We're going to kick it up into level two and Level 2 is about your history, your origin story. So, everyone's got one. We talked about the roles that you have now and how you've been in the classroom for 20 years. We're in the classroom as a science teacher I moved into the administration side of things. What is it that put you on the path to become who you are today in doing the work that you're doing?
Adam Phyall [08:05]: Well, I was working in a lab late one night and lightning struck and.
Adam Bellow [08:13]: You became the Flash?
Adam Phyall [08:14]: Oh, okay, different origin of the story, different origin of the story, all. So funny story though, when I was in school, I was always fairly good. I was a fairly good kid as far as academics go. Behavior we'll leave that for another day. The A/B kid didn't really have to try too hard in the class so I knew I was going to do something, but I didn't quite know what. I knew I was going to be able to do something in a field where I could kind of help people maybe, so got to college. I was going to do occupational therapy, really didn't feel too strongly about it, but I literally got online and figured out the job trajectory paths and like, okay, well, this one's going to make, this is going to grow, it's going to be decent money in the next, 10-15 years I'll probably go within that area. But then when I was in college, I was taking a course of math class. Math's never been my strongest class, but apparently, I was killing in this math class, and so my peers were like, "Hey Adam, you know, you got this stuff, you ace this test I want to study with you" "I was like oh sure." It didn't hurt that it was all the ladies that were asking. So it was like, Hey, yes I can, you can tutor. I can tutor you sure, sure, sure. So I had these tutoring sessions and they were like, "Oh my gosh, Adam, you're doing a better job explaining this than the professor. You have a knack for making the complex seem simple." And then that's when it hit me that, Hmmm, maybe I should be an educator and then I looked at what educators make and I was like, crap.
But I followed that passion but since I was at that point I was taking a lot of science classes. I knew a lot of pre-med majors. My goal was to just marry a doctor. I'm like, okay, well I can be the broke teacher and I can marry a doctor. That was my game plan. And when I was in college, I was at a party, met this young lady and fell in love, and then we started dating and then I said, "Hey, what's your major?" She's said "Education." I was like, crap! So needless to say I'm an educator and I married an educator. My plan didn't work out at all, but that's how I ended up in education, and as I mentioned earlier, I was just always that teacher looking for different ways to do things.
Going back to when I would see a karaoke game, I'm like, okay, "Is there a way that I could bring this into my classroom?" I was always that teacher trying to find those new, innovative ways to get students engaged in the process of learning, and so from there, I started doing those things and other teachers started noticing, the kids want to go to your class, they're skipping my class to come back to your class. And so then I started helping other teachers do those things and it was more rewarding. I was seeing that I could have a bigger impact by helping more teachers do these strategies than just my kids. So teaching high school, multiple peers, I had 120 kids I taught per day or something but now by helping all these other teachers, now I'm helping thousands of students get better strategies, get better engaged, build more relationships in the classroom. So, that's how I just kind of left the classroom and started helping more teachers and do these things and now to be able to have a platform, whether it's throughFuture Ready schools or podcast I get to do with Carl Hooker, called Un-disrupted or keynoting or presenting at conferences, really giving teachers and educators and parents more opportunities, there is really get their children and students involved in this learning process and really grow.
Adam Bellow [11:33]: I love that. I love that, and I feel like, it's funny, it's a very common theme, I think in terms of some of it mirrors my own story in terms of whatever moves I was making, I joke and I say I failed upwards, but I think in a lot of ways it was like I did get to do that same similar path where it was like teaching to technology training specialist so I was working with the district. I'm a tech director for multiple districts so like that growth where you're always able to try to impact more and more folks, and your reach has been extensive both from all the speaking you've been doing and the podcast and everything else said which is great and you get to get that positive message out there.
Adam Phyall [12:11]: The crazy thing with that when you're doing this, you don't realize your impact at times until somebody comes up to you at a conference or out the blue because I mean, you're just doing it. I mean, I think most people who are doing this the right way are not trying to do it for the glory or seeing their name and lights on a webpage or whatever, but you're at a conference and I remember vividly, it was like two years ago or three years ago at our Georgia ed tech conference, and I was not presenting at the conference. I was just there with my team from Newton County and this lady comes and she's like, "Adam, Adam". And I'm like, "Oh, okay, well, what did I do?" She's like, "Are you presenting?" And I'm like, "No, no, I'm just kind of here observing and hopping the sessions this time around." She like, "Oh my gosh, I know you don't remember this, but seven years ago you presented on this app and I grabbed it. You were talking about how students that suffer from dyslexia could use this app and I grabbed it and my son uses it and that changed his life and he's doing..", I was just like, wow. It was this an app that I ran across and we were doing an app share and I shared some strategies. But to that, I shared that one thing seven years ago, it made an impression on that lady that she had to track me down and tell me this. She was like, "I had to tell you that." She said, "I didn't want to write it on Twitter. I wanted to see you in person."
Adam Bellow [13:31]: Wow.
Adam Phyall [13:31]: "And tell you the impact and keep doing what you're doing." I was like, "Thank you. It just really just made my day." And those are those stories that just all the BS that we deal with in our profession, you throw all that out the window. Those moments are like Awwww.
Adam Bellow [13:43]: Yeah, I mean, it's bucket filling. It really, really is, and I would venture to say that folks like yourself the impact you don't even see the ripples. This is someone that got the opportunity to come up and tell you - but I would be willing to bet that there are so many that while you had that profound impact, it wasn't necessarily shared, and as you said, we don't do it for that. No one goes up there to make a speech to have that moment of gratitude. You do it to have the moment of impact, and I think that that's really special. That's awesome!!
Adam Phyall [14:15]: Yeah. It's even like beyond the bucket filling now, because in 2022 if you're in education, you're not just pouring out into other people's buckets, you're getting your bucket poke holes. So, stories like that, they patch your bucket. They even will give you a new bucket when those things happen because you're always getting attacked from all these different sides and talking heads and people who think, "Oh, like too much screen time or what are we doing with technology? Or, you know, we don't need this or do that." And then you're constantly defending what you're doing, but when you get those opportunities, it's like, okay, yeah, I am doing or we are doing the right work. We are doing what's best for kids. Yes, we are doing what we need to do. Those are those moments that really make life in your job make you want to stay in a profession a little bit longer.
Adam Bellow [15:02]: Our Level Three question does go and talk about challenges. What has been the biggest challenge or obstacle that you've overcome in your journey to get where you are to be able to make that impact?
Adam Phyall [15:11]: Wow. There's been so many. I think there's been a lot I can actually say. I've been definitely blessed to be in the right company with the right people, meeting people like yourself because we all know you have to have the skill, but then you also have to have the connections and the relationships, there's a power of connections. As a mutual friend, Matt Joseph would say, it really open up doors and have opportunities. But with that also being said, I'm not colorblind. I do know that I am a black male in a profession that is not dominated by black male professionals. It's a traditionally white male profession, and so I know that some of the challenges that I’ve faced have been the fact that I've been the minority representing.
And so it's, it's very difficult at times when you're in the room and questions come up and it's like, okay, "Adam, speak for all the minorities." It's like, that's not my job. That's not what I do, but I'm here so let me do that. I've Served on state panels, national panels and then when you look around the room and I'm the face that looks like me. That's it. And so it comes to, okay, we're dealing with this thing of, which is like, oh, we're talking about title and poverty schools, “Hey Adam…” What are you saying? Not all black students are from impoverished inner cities.
Adam Bellow [16:40]: Yeah.
Adam Phyall [16:40]: And it's not a racist thing, it's this ignorance on certain things so it's that education piece that I have to also bring and be aware of in those environments - that I have to let people know that, "Hey, there're other sides to the story." You have to give students mirror and window opportunities and you have to look at the bigger picture at times. It's not just one perspective so, if I give a perspective and I always say, "Hey, this is Adam's perspective from my experience, from what I've been able to do. I'm not speaking for every black student or every minority in the country." We need to shake this room up. We need to disrupt this room and have some different faces, different voices - so we can make the best decisions for all students, not just what we think they want, same thing for educators and parents. So that's just like the biggest challenges that I've faced in trying to do the right work, trying to get the right people in the room to all have voices to make these things happen.
Adam Bellow [17:46]: My question to you, and this is kind of like a “bonus round”, so to speak. Have you seen that starting to change? Because I know you've been in those rooms because your voice is, whether or not you feel it was because you were invited to the room because you are a black male initially, even people listening to you for two seconds know that your voice is one of the most effective and meaningful voices to hear from; that it's not just "Oh, I'm picked from tokenism or anything like that. Do you feel that that's changing? Do you feel like you are getting more people in the room or seeing a shift?
Adam Phyall [18:26]: You know what I have. I can honestly say I've seen some of the rooms change and it was to the point where I could pretty much write on a piece of paper the faces that I would see in those rooms, it was like, "Okay, I already know the black female they're going to get. It's one of three. I already know the Hispanic, the Latinx, I can tell you one of three, the Asian. I mean, I could just write down the list of the individuals that would be in the room, and I've seen that now changing. And it kind of goes back to the leaders that we are selecting. It goes to the superintendents that are being selected because very often superintendents are the ones who select their cabinet-level individuals, and we often know people, and so those people get those opportunities. And now I'm seeing a shift in the diversity of the hiring of our superintendents, of our leaders. So it's no longer a district where it is traditionally an African American district, where it has an African American superintendent. It may be a district and this is the first person of color to ever be in that position and then you're looking at their cabinet level and it's more diverse. You're having more mix-up of different groups of individuals and not just by race, by LGBTQ+ so you're seeing all of that happening in those spaces as well.
Adam Bellow [19:44]: Yeah.
Adam Phyall [19:44]: So I'm really happy to see all these different changes, and now the burden of being the black representative is not only on my shoulder in those spaces.
Adam Bellow [19:57]: Yeah.
Adam Phyall [19:58]: Because sometimes you said I don't, I want to talk about things other than that. That's not necessarily the badge I want to wear all the time. Let's talk about engaging practices. Let's talk about gamifying education. All these great things I want to talk about. I don't just want to be in the room talking about equity and access and what are we going to do for these kids and those kids to get them to the table. That's not the only thing I want to talk about.
Adam Bellow [20:26]: Yeah, no and it shouldn't be. I mean, I'm glad to see you are seeing some change.
Adam Phyall [20:31]: The last I want to add on that, it's to the point where I will talk to some of the people who are running these conferences or different things and say, "Hey, I know some people that you may not know that are trying to do some things. So, I'll put it on myself as well to open those opportunities because somebody opened opportunities for me to get a chance to have a platform, to talk in front of people.” So, I'm like, “Hey, here's somebody else that you may want to look at. Here's this woman who's doing some really great things in technology in this space. Here's this other African American male who I know just needs an opportunity to get out there in front of some people because they have a great story to tell.” So, I often tell folks, if you have an opportunity to open a door for someone else, going back to that power connections, let those people in. There's enough food for everybody to eat.
Everyone has a story to tell so definitely give those opportunities to people out there. That's one thing I love about a post-pandemic consequence is that all this original content's being created and giving more people platforms to get out here and have their voices heard and for people to say, “I want to hear more of what this person has to say. I want to have them talk to my staff. I want to have this person sit on this panel, sit on this board of advisors as we're shaping out this new tool.” So that's one thing I do love about the post-pandemic is this platform whether it's podcasting, whether it's video- vodcasting, whatever it is that people are doing out here. I definitely think it's been really beneficial for a lot of voices, not just in education, but in all aspects of our society.
Adam Bellow [22:10]: Yeah. I love that. It's a start. Yeah. It's a start. I mean, and as you know and as you alluded to, there's a long way to go before things really start to change, and I think part of that is, as you said, who's doing the role, but it's also who's invited into those spots where it's to the spotlight, so to speak.
All right. So let's bring it to the next level. Our Level Four question is about passion, and as everyone listening can hear you are full of passion. What are you most passionate about right now in education? And that could be something that you are trying to teach others and help people in your district, or it could really be something that you're passionate about learning more about yourself.
Adam Phyall [22:50]: Ooh, ooh, good one, good one there.
Adam Bellow [22:53]: My curve ball.
Adam Phyall [22:55]: I can really say that we've really been doing a really big job in my system, and I know I've been really pushing hard for this, and I'm really excited that we're getting some additional resources is increasing the number of girls that are in coding. When, probably about four years ago now, I was at a Tech & Learning event that, it was longer than that, probably six years ago, I was in a tech and learning event and they were talking about coding and computer science, and they were sharing the numbers of women or girls who took the AP, computer science exam across the country and the numbers were staggering. And then when they broke it down to the minority groups, it was one black female who took the AP computer science exam in the state of Mississippi. I mean, it was just like, oh my gosh, what's going on here? And, and this was lagging data so it may have been like 2015 whenever it was. So, I was like, okay, I'm in a position where I can do something about that so of course, we all know about the Hour of Code and all this stuff. I have the privilege to work with an all-female instructional team in my district, and there are some bad-@ss ladies. I just have to say it like that. They do some really great work, and so I challenge them to really put something together and we've been putting together this "InspiHer", event and so we pull some young ladies in from our schools and we do like a mini-conference.
It is totally funded by our vendors, we solicit for donations and they all have some of their female programmers whether zoom in or coming in person and talk to the young ladies. We have them build out our students, build out portfolios and expose them to opportunities and we've really done some amazing things and opened up avenues and given a career opportunity to some of these young ladies and this past month, we actually received a grant from META for $30,000 to help our program for this next year. And so we're now we're doing our own camp on the weekends and really doing college visits to, luckily we're very close to Spelman, all-girl HBCU so able to take some visits on campus, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, and really give these young ladies an opportunity and exposure to things that they normally would not.
And it's not just, "Hey, give us all your gifted, smart girls." We do look, hey, maybe they're not engaged in class because they haven't found their nack, and we have several students that have said, "Hey, I really enjoyed what you've been able to do with this program." And, I'm passionate about it, but I make sure I'm not in front of it. Going back to those ladies that I have the honor to work with, they're front. I planted the seed and they're running with it. I'm just kind of like that proud Papa, sitting back, watching it happen and I'm like, "Hey, this is y'all's project now." So I'm very passionate about it but I'm not hands-on, because I don't want to be the hands-on person because Hey, it is about the power of the ladies and doing those things and I've had to get out there and defend it.
Because there are some people like "What about the boys? We need something for the boys." Well, we have another program called 'Code 365' where we want our students to code every day. Ultimately, we would like for them to code 365 hours in one year.
Adam Bellow [26:20]: Oh cool.
Adam Phayall [26:20]: And so that's our program for all students. So, we do know all students need opportunities, but equity is not about equality. It's about giving who needs what they need when they need it. So, we want to make sure that we're supporting our young ladies because they need it right now, especially in that upper elementary, middle school age where they think that computers aren't for them - It's a boy thing. We want to make sure we're pouring into those ladies and letting them know, these are these opportunities for them that are out there because the way things are going, computers, technology resources, that's the way of the future. That's how their breads are going to be buttered, so we want to make sure that they're prepared for those opportunities, moving forward.
Adam Bellow [26:59]: All these groups and the program that you're talking about are just incredible. To provide those opportunities and make it a] non-stigmatized and b] as you said, it's the pathway to creating. I have two boys, but I tell them all the time I say listen, "You could watch YouTube videos about people modding Minecraft, or you could learn how to mod Minecraft and then make your own videos. You choose what you want to spend your time doing but if it were me, it would be to learn to create and to know that you could, so yeah, that's a very cool program.
All right. Well, we have arrived at level five. Our level five question, which is -- What is the best piece of advice you've gotten in your educational journey so far?
Adam Phyall [27:41]: Wow. I've gotten so much advice from so many people. Some I can say publicly and some I can't. You know what, I always go back to my first department chair back when I taught in Riverdale High School, Sergio Berdette. He was the nicest, coolest guy I ever met, and he was from Cuba and he poured into people. And so I remember one day and I don't know why he felt the need to tell me this, keep going on for about a second-year teacher or whatever, but I guess he saw that I had the potential to be a future leader or whatever, but he pulled me to the side and he was like, "You know, Adam, I want to make sure you understand that you need to take care of your people."
And now I am sitting there, like, "I don't have any people, I just have students or whatever." And he was like, "As a leader, if you pour into your people, they will run through a brick wall for you.”
Adam Bellow [28:46]: Yeah.
Adam Phyall [28:46]: He said good test scores will happen, and it was so true because based on how he led the team, I remember one day I didn't turn in a paperwork, some paperwork on time or something, and he turned it in for me or whatever, and he came and he was like, "Adam, I know you. I had asked that you didn't turn it in, and I was able to get the information to turn it in. So I'm just going to let you know, I really need that.” I felt bad, he didn't chastise me or anything, but the fact that I let Sergio down, hurt me - because I knew he poured so much. I knew he took time out of his day to do something that I should have done, and so I've modeled my leadership style as a director as a department leader after Sergio because I knew how much he poured into the team and the things that he would do and the way most of us would run through a brick wall for him. If he told us to go to hell, we would've worn gasoline draws for him. That's the kind of leader I felt he was. So, I try to emulate that style and put that in as my leadership style for my team and hopefully, my team feels the same way that, I have their back, I pour into them, I support them because ultimately, I know I'm doing the right work as it pertains to our students and teachers and parents in our community. And if I'm pouring into my team, they're going to stay late, come in early, even though I don't want them to do that, but they're going to get the job done because they know, "Hey, we don't want to let Adam down and we know this is going to be what's best for kids. This is going to be what's best for our teachers, our community so we're going to get those done. So, I always take those lessons that I took from him to heart and try to emulate that in my leadership style.
Adam Bellow [30:26]: Yeah. I mean, that is such great advice, and just personally, I relate to that as well. I mean, I try very hard. We have a team of 15 and it's like, there's nothing that I wouldn't do for them and I believe that there's nothing that they wouldn't do for what we're doing here, not for me personally, but just like, as a culture, like to support one another, that's such a great lesson, especially in education and it kind of goes full circle back to what you're talking about with PLNs or having the group because we have a coterie of friends that are able to rely on each other and ask questions that are work-related but also get advice on things that we're facing and I think that whether it's public or a private chat or that's in the early days of Twitter, I know personally I relied on that quite a great deal so, and that’s where many of us met.
Adam Phyall [31:18]: Especially now where you talk about people wanting to resign and leave jobs, they stay for the people, money's great, but they stay for the people. If they feel that it's an environment, that's going to be best for them. They'll stay, and they'll put up with all kinds of crap on the outside, as long as they're happy because you are with your work family a lot longer than you are with your regular family, unfortunately, so you got to be happy and you got to believe in what you're doing.
Adam Bellow [31:43]: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean it's clear that you believe in what you're doing and it's clear that what you're doing is all kinds of awesome. So, I certainly thank you very, very much for spending some time and chatting with us, and why don't you tell everyone where we can find you online and connect with you more?
Adam Phyall [32:01]: You can find me all over the place. Follow me on Twitter @askadam3; funny story real quick about that. When I got on Twitter, people were like, oh, Twitter handle and I started thinking, what could I call myself? What could I call myself? And then I remembered everybody going back to the whole technology piece. They were like, "Oh, you need to, oh, just go ask Adam, ask Adam, ask Adam and I was like, "you know what, it had a ring to it and I was like, "I'm going to use ask Adam. Unfortunately, there was already an ask Adam used out there and I’m the third of my name and so I was like, you know what, yeah, it just sounds good so I'm going to say, I'm askadam3 and that's how I became to be, and you can follow me on the interwebs or I have website,skadam3.Com and I'm just all kind of all over the place. I'll be doing some stuff at ISTE board member stuff and also presenting multiple sessions, follow the podcast 'Undisrupted' on all streaming platforms and yeah.
Adam Bellow [33:00]: So basically just look and you'll be found.
Adam Phyall [33:05]: Yeah, I mean, if you look up Adam Phyall that's P H Y A L L even though I am the third, dad's not really on the internet that much, you can find me somewhere.
Adam Bellow [33:14]: That's awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for hanging out and until the next time everyone - Game On!