A Look Back At 2016

Every year I take a look back at what I’ve done for Byrdseed. Here’s a quick recap on 2016…

Speaking

This year, I spoke at 50 events ranging from the National Conference to local parent nights. I traveled to a dozen US states, plus my first international event in Canada! I even put on two of my own events this year in California and Texas.

Here’s where I’ve been so far (2016 is highlighted):

2016 map

I’m looking forward to filling in a few more states as next year’s calendar fills up.

Byrdseed.com

This year I wrote 45 new articles for Byrdseed. Over 430,000 visitors read a total of 2 million pages. It blows me away that Byrdseed continues to grow every year. Who knew how many people were interested in gifted education? Here’s how the monthly visitors have grown each year:

2016 visitors

Most visitors came from the US (over 70%), but Canada, Australia, the UK, India, and the Philippines brought over 10,000 visitors each.

Over 15,000 of you now subscribe to the monthly emails, 6,000 follow Byrdseed on Twitter and (most excitedly) over 5,000 already subscribe to the weekly Puzzlements mailer.

Popular Articles

The most read articles that I wrote in 2016 were:

  1. Teaching Gifted Kids To Explain Their Thinking Glad to see that this was widely read, as I think it’s an important concept: just because a student is “smart” doesn’t mean they don’t need to be taught.
  2. Recommended Books In The 900-1000 Lexile Range I did a couple of crowdsourced lists like this and really enjoyed gathering everyone’s suggestions.
  3. Most Popular Puzzlements of March The final three articles are related to my weekly Puzzlement mailers.
  4. Most Popular Puzzlements for January
  5. Most Popular Puzzlements for October

Byrdseed.TV

I added 35 new videos to Byrdseed.TV, now over three years old. As the site has developed, I’ve leaned towards creating student-focused videos rather than videos just for teachers. Most lessons now feature a version for kids.

A Book!

Thanks to some logistical help from my fantastic wife, I now have an entirely self-published book: my Advanced Vocabulary Guide This was a really fun project, and I hope to have another out in 2017. Update: These vocabulary resources are now included in the Byrdseed.TV library of resources.

The Don’t Do List

It’s easy to add goals and projects (I’d love to write three books, create a board game, and start a podcast!) but it’s more important to figure out what to say no to. I wrote about starting a Don’t Do List and try to revisit it annually. What am I doing that I can’t do, aren’t good at, or just don’t want to do anymore?

  • 50 events in a year was probably too much. I started to burn out, missed fun outings back home, and struggled to keep up with my other projects. I need to be strategic about my travel schedule.
  • Running Hatch twice this year was meaningful and fun, but the organization and promotion is too much for my one-man shop. Perhaps every other year?
  • Aiming for a new video every week at Byrdseed.TV wasn’t sustainable as my travel increased, especially since I also create student versions now. I’d rather do two a month and keep the quality up.

What’s Next?

I’m super excited about a project my pal Lisa Van Gemert and I have been working on throughout 2016: high quality, online professional development that we call The Gifted Guild. I think it’s going to be awesome. We’re launching in January 2017.