My Disney Class podcast

Starting The Year The Edmagineering Way!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan welcome back our Disney partner in crime, Brian Collins! Brian has been on the podcast many times and for good reason. He is a former Imagineer, he is an educator, currently works in several fields bringing innovation to a multitude of problems, and well, he's our friend.

On today's show, Brian is here to give us some inspiration and ideas on how we can bring innovation

and creativity into our classroom this year. He not only gives us great ideas but does so in his typical Imagineering way, through fun and great stories!

We hope you enjoyed our visit with our favorite former Imagineer. We here at My Disney Class Podcast, wish all of you an incredible and wonderful school year and like always let us know if we can help make your year anymore wonderful, we love to help bring magic to education! Also if you haven't already, remember to join the fun and supportive community we have in our Facebook group, Educators who love Disney, and don't forget to rate and review our podcast on Apple music. Your support and feedback will only make us better!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan are again coming to you from Walt Disney World. Ryan, Howie, and Brian have wrapped up another successful P.D. Magic experiential learning trip with some incredible educators from all over the world. They spent five days visiting all four parks and doing a monorail edu. resort crawl with the group. They immersed themselves in the magic and discovered how to take that magic back to their districts, schools, and most importantly to their students.

In this final episode of season 7 of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan are sharing with you their final thoughts on the trip, as well as sharing with you are participants' reflections from the last day. On our final day, the group has a farewell lunch to say our goodbyes, reflect, and share our final takeaways and inspirations that we are going to take back to our schools. These reflections were recorded during this time at Sauti's Canteen in Animal Kingdom, so please excuse the background noises.

We hope you enjoy today's show as we share the thoughts and reflections of our incredible educators that joined us on our 2022 P.D. Magic trip. If this sounds like something you or your teacher friends may be interested in doing next year, make sure to check back on our webpage for details starting in the fall. Also remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already fantastic community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie are coming to you live, well not really live, but they record this episode on location at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World. About halfway through PD Magic, Howie and Ryan ask Brian Collins and Daniel McComb to join them after their third day in the parks and do a round table discussion about the day's events.

The table will share some of their favorite moments from our PD Magic tour of the Magic Kingdom and they will also talk about what they learned and how they plan on utilizing those inspirations in their classrooms next year. There is definitely a lot that can be learned in the fertile imagination space of the Magic Kingdom!

We hope you enjoy today's show "live" from the Magic Kingdom! Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already fantastic community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

In today's My Disney Class Podcast episode, Howie and Ryan welcome their good friend Brian Collins. As most of you know by now Brian works with us to help bring magic and pixie dust to the world of education. Some of you

might not know that Brian continues to branch out into many other areas of education and technology with several different companies and groups.

These groups with Brian are doing so many innovative things that we had to have him on to share all the exciting things coming down the pipe. One of those organizations Brian is working with is called the Enzo Institute and Brian and representatives from that company took a trip to Dubai recently to take part in a global conference called Expo 2020. Brian will discuss this trip in today's episode and share what his takeaways were as well as share what

he feels is the future of education based on his global view. For those of you that don't know Brian, come on what's that matter with you, just kidding but here's a quick background on Brian. Brian was a Disney cast member since the early 1990s and helped create magic daily as he worked both on the front line of customer service at the Contemporary Resort and as a Disney Imagineer. During his time at WDI, Brian was a show writer and worked on classic attractions like Jungle Cruise and The Great Movie Ride, just to name a few. This is Brian's 5th time on the show, sixth if you count a Retro Replay of one of his earlier episodes, and if you are looking for more of his background story then you definitely want to check out episode 20 of season 2 or episode 12 of season 3.

We hope that you enjoy our conversation with Brian and if you have any questions or want to connect with any of us, including Brian, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie discuss what they are looking forward to this summer. To say that this school year has been a tough one is a major understatement and looking forward to reenergizing and filling the tank back up is not something that an educator should be bashful about. In fact, this time of year for educators is a vital part of helping them be the best educators they can be in the upcoming Fall.

Howie and Ryan will both share their top 5 things, plus or minus, that they are looking forward to and hoping to accomplish this summer. You will of course hear about their upcoming Disney trips, P.D. Magic, as well as things other than Disney that they do to help them unwind. They even share a few hopes they have to learn a few new things to better themselves and grow in their time off.

We hope you enjoy today's show about Ryan and Howie's hopes and dreams for this summer and we hope that you too will find time to relax and unwind. We all know you deserve it and need it! Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already fantastic community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Devan Lewis to the show. Devan is a middle school STEM teacher at McFarland School that really strives to foster the principles and passions found in most Disney Imagineers.

Devan shares with us where her passion for Disney and specifically Disney Imagineers comes from and shares why she feels this passion is key to create a classroom of creatives. Devan also shares the story of how and why her Principal allowed her to actually create a whole class and curriculum based on Disney Imagineering and how that class has grow and developed into several classes now.

Devan also shares with us several of her projects that she's done with her students including a visual storytelling project that ends with the students creating a diorama that tells the story completely about a character by only using the visuals in the diorama. This is a really awesome project and wait until you hear about one little girls project and the details she used to tell her story. Devan also shares a few other projects she's done or is planning on doing. We are sure you will find them as inspiring as we do and maybe you too will be encouraged to bring some Imagineering into your classroom.

We hope you enjoy today's episode and as always, we would love for you to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. If you have any feedback or would like to come on the show, please email us at [email protected], and don't forget to join our Facebook community at Educators Who Love Disney.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Lisa Funke to the show. Lisa is currently working for the Glenview Public School District as the LRC Director. LRC Directors are in charge of planning, organizing, and directing all activities for the Learning Resource Center at schools. This is the evolution of what we used to call libraries at schools but now offer our students so much more than books! Lisa works specifically at Glen Grove School which is a 3 through 5th-grade intermediate school. One of Lisa's favorite parts of her job is getting to create and facilitate lessons about various topics for students.

On today's show, Lisa will share with us her journey in education which includes starting at a Community College for two years before transferring to Bradley University which led her to her educational learning home National Louis University. Lisa also shares with us where she developed her passion for Disney and how she utilizes what she loves about Disney to help enrich her students' learning.

Lisa is also joining Howie, Ryan, and Brian at P.D. Magic this summer and she shares why she needed to go and what she is looking forward to. She shares what her biggest hopes are for the trip as well as what she plans to do with the inspiration she gains the following school year. We can't wait to have Lisa back to share with our listeners what she's learned and what she's doing with all the learning she gained from the trip. Look for her return in Season 8 with all the details!

We hope you enjoy today's show and find Lisa as amazing as we do! Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

Putting the F back in education

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie are discussing how to put the FUN back in education! This is no April fools joke, these last couple of years have been really tough in the educational world, tougher than are normal challenging years. This is why Howie and Ryan thought on this April fools day it was fitting to discuss the importance of having fun in school for both the students and the teachers. They also share ways and techniques that can help educators create a fun environment as well as fun activities and strategies that can be used.

Ryan and Howie are pretty sure we can all agree that the Disney parks are extremely fun. They are wildly immersive and for the most part, all the attractions tell a great story that can live on in our lives long after the thrills of the rides have faded from our memories. Further, Disney seeks to entertain and educate, so not only do guests get these amazing experiences they remember for a lifetime but after they leave there is almost always something about their visit that inspires them. We hope that this show can also act as an inspiration for you and be that spark that helps you continue to create fun and engaging lessons for your students and staff.

We hope you enjoy today's show about some of the different ways you can bring the magic of fun into your classroom or buildings. Remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie is turning the tables on his partner in crime, Ryan. Ryan Boeckman, who started this wild ride of an adventure with Howie almost 8 years ago, is a middle school science teacher in St. Louis Missouri. He has been recognized as an outstanding science and mathematics teacher by the St. Louis Science Center and has been teaching in public schools for a little over 20 years. Obviously, he loves Disney and has been working most of his 20 plus years in education incorporating what he has learned from studying the Walt Disney Company and the man Walt Disney himself, into his classroom practices.

On today's show, Howie will be asking all the questions and Ryan is answering them, all about his past, education path, love of Disney, and how he met Howie and started this crazy dream of helping education as a whole by bringing the magic! Though this episode hits a lot of the high points and interesting markers of Ryan's career, there is obviously a lot more to his story. On today's show, we just scratch the surface in hopes that this will help you our listeners, some long time and some brand new, get to know one of the hosts just a little bit better.

We do really hope that you enjoy hearing a little bit more in-depth background on Ryan and of course remember, if you like the show and want to help us spread the word about it and build our already amazing community, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!