IT Ain’t About You
Building real buy-in across technology, curriculum, parents, and community, so initiatives become owned by everyone instead of carried by one leader.
For district and tech leaders
Keynote Speaker · AI in Education · Digital Equity
Got Questions About AI in Your Schools? Just Ask Adam.
Dr. Adam A. Phyall III helps districts turn big ideas about technology, AI, and digital equity into classrooms where teachers and students actually want to show up. Twenty years of K–12 practice. Real strategies. Laughter included, at no extra charge.
Keynote Stages
FETC
TETA
MassCUE
NYSCATE
VSTE
ITEC
NJASA TechSpo
OETC
GaETC
Meet Adam
It Started in the Classroom.
Dr. Adam A. Phyall III is a national keynote speaker and thought leader in educational technology, AI in education, and digital equity. Before the big stages, he was a classroom teacher trying to get a room full of teenagers excited to learn. Then he ran instructional technology. Then technology and library media. Then he became a district CTO. More than two decades in K-12 taught him one lesson: the tool is never the point. People are the point.
Today he works alongside educators, administrators, and policymakers to prepare schools for what learning demands now: digital literacy, cybersecurity awareness, and teaching that is actually innovative. He serves on the ISTE Board of Directors, teaches at the university level, wrote ACT Now, and co-hosts the UnDisruptED podcast with Carl Hooker. His sessions are practical and inspiring, and people leave with something they can use on Monday morning. His philosophy on teaching is simple: “If you’re having fun teaching it, then your students will have fun learning it.”
20+
Years in K–12 classrooms and districts
Ed.D.
Digital Transformation, Capella University
ISTE
Board of Directors
Signature Keynotes
Four Talks. One Promise: Your People Leave Ready to Lead.
Every keynote runs 45 to 60 minutes and flexes to your schedule. Pair any of them with breakouts, a multi-day workshop, or ongoing district coaching.
Teaching for Tomorrow, Today
AI is this generation’s internet moment. Break the cycle of using new tools for old tasks and design learning that builds critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity.
Most requested
Why Digital Equity Matters
Practical, do-it-Monday steps to make sure every student and every teacher has the access, connectivity, and opportunity to thrive in a digital world.
For whole-system audiences
Game On
Why do kids grind for hours on a game that keeps beating them? Because it was designed that way. The best classrooms treat rigor as good design, not a filter.
For teachers and instructional leaders
Work With Adam
Strategy That Outlasts the Speaker.
You’ve seen the keynote that fires everyone up on Monday and is forgotten by Friday. This is different. Adam has been the classroom teacher, the director of instructional technology, and the district CTO. He has led national professional learning for a leading education nonprofit, partnering with districts across the country on digital equity, AI readiness, and leadership. He doesn’t drop in. He builds with you.
Proven Across Every Kind of System
Urban
Suburban
Rural
Title I
High-Mobility Communities
Virtual Academies
Spark It. Build It. Sustain It.
01
Spark
Ignite the Room
A keynote or parent event that gets your community moving in the same direction.
- Any signature keynote, tailored to your audience
- Convocations, conferences, and board retreats
- Family nights and community events
02
Build
Turn Momentum Into a Plan
Hands-on workshop days and a strategy session with your leadership team.
- Two on-site workshop days
- A strategy session with your leadership team
- A working plan for AI, digital literacy, or equitable access
- The stakeholder buy-in to carry it out
03
YEAR-LONG
Sustain
A Year of Partnership
This is how initiatives become systems.
- Four on-site days across the school year
- Monthly coaching with your leadership team
- A custom strategic plan
- A stakeholder engagement framework grounded in ACT Now
Four Ways In. One Goal: Better Outcomes for Every Learner.
District Strategy That Becomes Systems Change
Long-range technology planning, equitable access, and stakeholder buy-in frameworks that improve instruction and literacy across the board, and keep improving them after the plan is printed.
AI Leadership: From Panic to Policy
Most districts bought licenses and called it readiness. Adam helps leadership teams write AI guidance that holds up in a classroom: clear ownership, real stakeholder input, and a path from students using AI to shaping it. Pair it with the ACT Now AI Leadership Lab for year-long support.
Digital Literacy: Built In, Not Bolted On
Digital literacy fails as an initiative and works as a condition. Adam works on vision, culture, educator capacity, and curriculum so the work keeps going after the champion moves on. Human-centered from the start, because technology only works as well as the relationships around it.
Families as Partners, Not Spectators
Parent events and family engagement plans that move the conversation from screen time to skills. Families learn how to support the thinking, creating, and problem-solving their kids need for the long term.
Let’s Build Your Plan.
Every package is shaped around your district’s goals. Tell Adam where you’re headed and he’ll send pricing and availability.
On Stage
Every Stage Is a Classroom.
From FETC to MassCUE to your district’s opening day, same energy, every room.
If you’re having fun teaching it, then your students will have fun learning it.
The Book
Students Can’t Shape a Future They Can’t Reach.
ACT Now: Empowering Students to Shape Their Future Today is part personal call to action, part tech tale, and part framework for transformation. It starts with a simple belief: education should change a student’s life today, not someday. Who’s still locked out? How are you connecting your people? Are your tasks worth doing?
The People Who Track This Stuff Have Noticed
2025
District Administration
100 Educational Leaders
2025
Tech & Learning
Most Influential in EdTech
2020 & 2025
CDW
30 K–12 IT Influencers to Follow
The Podcast
Pull Up a Chair at UnDisruptED.
Adam and Carl Hooker talk honestly with the leaders reshaping school, AI, and everything in between. Less jargon. More real talk.
Book Adam
You Deserve More Than Another Slide Deck.
Opening keynote? Leadership retreat? Two-day professional learning experience? Tell Adam what you’re planning and he’ll come back with a proposal built for your people.
aphyall@askdradam.com
Speaking nationwide and globally
