In today’s episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie are digging deeper into the magic of Walt Disney World and the classroom. Some of you may or may not know that beyond the traditional theme park attractions, Disney World offers many premium and Free add-on experiences that help plus your trip. Among the many choices, Howie and Ryan share some of their favorites, like listening to the piano player at The Grand Floridian and enjoying a campfire at Fort Wilderness.
Drawing from this inspiration, we look at how we can add-on to our classrooms and lessons to help make our schools more magical than they already are. We hope that you learn a few new things you can do at Disney World and a whole bunch of new add-on ideas for your classroom.
Like always, we encourage you to share your own Disney and classroom add-ons with us over on our Facebook page,facebook.com/mydisneyclass/
On today’s show Howie and Ryan welcome Faith Plunkett. Faith is an Entertainment Technology Academy instructor at Monte Sano Elementary in Huntsville Alabama. Say what! This sounds like a dream job for the My Disney Class boys. Faith not only has an incredible job title but she innovates inside her classroom to create an educational environment that allows students to explore their passions and reach new heights.
Howie and Ryan could not wait to learn more about this unique program offered in the Huntsville school district and how Faith has helped shape it from very early on in its conception.
The Entertainment Technology Academy (ETA) is a K-12 program that students may elect to continue on with after elementary in middle school and then high school. All elementary students take part in this program which means Faith sees every student in her classroom throughout the year.
This unique opportunity also has its challenges as a kindergartener working in her room will definitely have a different educational technology path than a 5th grader, but Faith has some great formulas for working with technology and all of her students.
We hope you enjoy learning about Faith’s story as much as we did and are equally inspired by the way she teaches computer programming, video game design, robotics, creativity, and much much more.
Season 3 and D23
Welcome to Season 3 of My Disney Class Podcast! Ryan and Howie are thrilled to be starting their third season co-hosting the show and are incredibly grateful to all the listeners for tuning in. In this episode, we look at the big announcements that were made at the bi-annual D23 conference. This may have been the biggest year yet with announcements about a new Mickey Mouse themed attraction, completion of Toy Story and Star Wars Land, a Star Wars themed hotel experience, and much much more!
Thinking about how Disney makes these big announcements and changes got us thinking about how educators do similar things as the new school year approaches. We discuss some of these common practices that educators do over the summer and how we can make magic when we return to the new school year. Changes are never easy but they are necessary for advancement. Remember what Walt said, “Disneyland is something that will never be finished. It’s something that I can keep developing. It will be a live, breathing thing that will need change.”