Keynotes & workshops
Find the session for your room.
Every talk is built around real stories, live demonstrations and something your audience can do on Monday morning. Each one can run as a keynote, a breakout or a longer workshop, in person or virtual.
Signature keynote · Leaders
Building What Endures
Leading Beyond Trends in an Age of Constant Innovation
Every school leader has watched it happen: a promising initiative launches with energy, then quietly fades when the next trend, budget cycle or leadership change arrives. The cause is rarely a lack of effort. It is a design problem.
Brandon introduces a four-stage playbook for turning new ideas into systems that last long after any single tool, initiative or person. With live demonstrations and stories from music, chess and athletics, he shows why lasting change starts with people rather than products.
50–60 minutes · In person or virtual · Keynote or half-day workshop
What it is
A method you can repeat, a map of where your work stands, and a next move for Monday morning.
What it is not
Not a product pitch. Not a tour of tools. Not one more acronym for your plate.
Inside the playbook
Four stages, one signal chain. Step on a pedal to see where each stage starts. The rest happens in the room.
The Believer
A process of evangelization
- Focus
- Relationships, and an honest look at the status quo
- Goal
- Unpacked in the keynote
- Secret
- Unpacked in the keynote
- Outcome
- Unpacked in the keynote
Participants will be able to
- Diagnose which of four stages a current initiative is in, using the observable signs of each.
- Distinguish easy wins from quick wins, and find one high-impact, low-effort move that builds staff belief.
- Separate a system from its parts, and explain why a purchased product or board policy alone is not a system.
- Draft a play call for one initiative: what to prioritize, what to let go of, and how to build a system that no longer depends on you.
Keynote · Whole staff & leaders
More Tools, Less Time
Why legacy technology hasn’t delivered, and what AI could change
Ed tech has promised schools more time for decades, and teachers keep losing it. Brandon traces why: a system built on predictive plans, short on agility, and running on its scarcest resource. Then he makes the case for AI as the first tool that can help schools scale what great teachers already do, as long as it isn’t treated as one more thing.
- See why more tools have rarely meant more time
- Tell a predictive plan from an agile one, and why feedback is the difference
- Measure success by the process of learning, not the output of school
AI is not one more thing. It is one more opportunity to get technology integration right, or wrong, in schools.
From the keynote
Keynote · Faculty
AI or Not AI: That Is the Question
Like Hamlet, certainty is elusive
This session takes on the two questions underneath most AI conversations in schools: can we really tell whether something is AI-generated, and should we be using AI to ___? Perhaps the path forward is best practiced backward. Yes, the audience sings the alphabet backwards.
- Why AI detection is mostly guessing, and why humans guess wrong too
- What schools learned from 1:1 devices, cell phones, Wikipedia and calculators
- A premortem for deciding when AI belongs in the work
AI can write a song, but AI can’t write my songs.
From the keynote
Assembly · Students
Once Upon a Time
A student’s guide to AI
Brandon’s eighth-grade algebra teacher told him he’d never carry a calculator everywhere. Now everyone carries a calculator for thought. This talk helps students use it with intention: ask why first, treat AI as a thought partner instead of a thought replacer, and never hand their story to a machine.
- The Tree of Whys: when the reasons line up, use AI; when they conflict, pause
- Thought partner vs. thought replacer
- Personal agency, and why problems are rarely one-dimensional
Tools without intention only create noise.
From the talk
Session · Arts & curriculum
We Already Do That
Applying arts education theory to every classroom
Brandon set out to prove music was the difference-maker in schools, and the research stopped him. What arts and athletics classrooms really have is high-impact practice built in: deliberate practice, immediate feedback, rehearsal and reflection. Your arts teachers are already doing what you want everywhere else.
- What the research does and doesn’t say about the arts and achievement
- The high-impact practices hiding in arts and athletics rooms
- How to bring them into every classroom
There is no music in an instrument, phone or amplified speaker. The music comes from me.
From the session
Session · Communications
Beyond the Newsletter
Breaking free from communications Groundhog Day
Public schools never had to market themselves. Now they sit on data companies would pay millions for, and still send everyone the same update in language families don’t use. Brandon maps how plain language, better data and the right tools turn school communication into real partnership with families and communities.
- Trade eduspeak for plain language families actually read
- Use the data you already have to reach the right people
- Plan any campaign with a simple brief: goals, audience, channels, timeline, stakeholders
Communication should be a means of creativity, not compliance.
From the session
Also available
Workshops, retreats and facilitation.
Designing Educator-Centered AI Systems
For district leaders building AI into curriculum and operations.
Built to Engage
The pedagogical leaders you’re looking for are already on staff.
Storytelling in Educational Systems
For admin retreats and leadership teams.
Digital Accessibility & WCAG 101
For HR, business office and tech teams.
AI Think Tank Facilitation
Regional and district working sessions.
Enjoy the Moment
A short, personal talk about the moments teachers get to share.
Not sure which talk fits your event?
Tell Brandon about your audience and goals. He’ll recommend a talk or shape one for your event.