Welcome to 2021! It's already been a year, and it's only January 11th. I took some time, and by some I mean a LOT of time away from a great number of things at the end of 2020. I have been looking around and carefully considering what I want to pick back up for the new year. With that in mind, I am introducing SEASON THREE of Curious Quotes, Points to Ponder, and Inspiring Insights. This season focus on Universal Themes & Generalizations. I imagine that many of you are familiar with the concept and probably already employ this strategy in your learning environment. My hope here is that this will be of some benefit to you and your students. 

It's FALL! Normally, that would mean that I was about to pack my bags and gear up to spend a lot of time in airports, hotels, and conference centers, but it's 2020. So, everything is a little different this year. Sadly, there won't be any new #CarpetDiem photos to share. Instead, I will be spending a lot of time in front of my computer presenting virtually. 

The Virtual Insanity 2020 Fall Tour kicks off this Saturday, October 3rd with a Gifted 360 Reunion with the Arizona Association for Gifted and Talented. Over the course of 2 months, I've got a dozen events on the schedule. I'm excited to share some brand new material and to launch the next Gifted 360 course. It's called Designing Personalized Learning Experiences. I think it is really good, and the type of resource that I wished that I had when I was a teacher of the gifted. 

While I will miss the travel this fall, the Virtual Insanity Tour offers a rather unique opportunity for you. In the past, you probably only ever thought to attend a conference in your own state. With everything being online, you now have access to conferences from anywhere! I've presented in 40 states, and I can tell you that there are some great opportunities to learn out there. So, take a look at the lineup I have here and consider registering for a conference that is virtually out of state. 

I hope to see you online soon! 

If you have an upcoming conference or are in need of professional learning, please keep me in mind. I have lots of options available, and I am happy to share. 

I selected the themes for Season Two of Curious Quotes, Points to Ponder, and Inspiring Insights based on the finalists for the naming of NASA's 2020 Mars Rover. While the rover was named Perseverance, the technology demonstration project is named Ingenuity and is literally a helicopter designed to fly over the surface of Mars collecting data and providing views never seen before. I am more than a little excited to see what this is going to look like. With that in mind, I was really looking forward to having a week of quotes on the topic of Ingenuity. It turns out there are not a ton of great quotes on the subject. I felt pretty limited and to push my creativity even further, I decided to limit myself to a single font this week. Let's jump into the beauty that is American Typewriter and Ingenuity. 

It's WEEK FIVE of Curious Quotes Season Two. This week's theme is CLARITY. As I was looking for this week's quotes, it occurred to me that quotes about clarity tend to be a lot longer than I usually care to use for this project. I suppose that explaining clarity just requires a lot of words. Which is rather ironic. To reduce the visual noise, I tried to keep the slides as clean and clear as possible. So here are five quotes from Pericles, Mies van der Rohe, Diane von Ferstenberg, Wynton Marsalis, and Vincent Van Gogh.

This week, we take a closer "look" at VISION. When 2020 started, there were so many references to having a 20/20 vision. It quickly became trite. I tried to steer clear of bad puns and instead set my sight on selecting these five quotes on the topic. Represented here are Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, and Simon Senak. 

This week on Curious Quotes, I try to tackle the theme of PROMISE. What I learned is that unlike previous themes, promises are very complex. There are also a multitude of meanings and interpretations. Which I suppose makes the concept of promise a big idea worth exploring. It also seems that with every promise there is the real potential of it become broken. In this way, promises are very precious. Let's dive in to five brand new quotes, and PROMISE me that you will vote for your favorite at the end. 

This week on Curious Quotes we take on the theme of Courage. I combed through hundreds quotes on the topic looking for five that resonated with me during these tumultuous times. So here's some advice from Harper Lee, Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henri Matisse, and William Faulkner. Which one is your favorite? Be sure to VOTE at the end of the post? Have a favorite quote about courage that I did not include? Leave me a comment, and I will add to the request list. 

We kick off Season Two of Curious Quotes with a set of quotes about PERSEVERANCE. In the Age of COVID-19, it seems that we all need to stay focused on persevering through the current situation, and it seems especially fitting that the name selected for NASA's 2020 Mars Rover was Perseverance. The themes for Season Two are based on the nine finalists from NASA's Name the Rover Competition. Each Monday morning for the next nine week, I will be releasing a new set of five slides for you to use however you see fit. My hope is that they will give you something to ponder and discuss with others.  

We started with 80 Slides and now we are down to the final matchup. Who will be named the 2020 Quote Madness Champion? When this began, I had no idea that it would come down to these two pioneers from the 1960s and 1970s. Also, this goes to show that black and white slides can have a powerful impact. There is a great deal that I love about each of these slides, and very few minor things that I would change about them if I thought it would make a difference to anyone other than me. It is all in your hands now. Please choose your Quote Madness 2020 Champion. 

When this all started, we had 80 slides, and now we are down to THE FINAL FOUR! In today's matchups, it is Shirley Chisholm VS Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy VS Socrates. It is quite an interesting cast of characters: THREE Civil Rights pioneers, TWO who were assassinated in 1968, and ONE who was executed for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens. 

VOTING CLOSES APRIL 2, 2020 at 12pm ET.