My Disney Class podcast

EPCOT FUTURE WORLD OF EDUCATION

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie are discussing how they might approach creating lessons out of EPCOT attractions. In the show today we get a peek inside the workings of both Howie's and Ryan's mind and boy can that be scary! It all starts with a nightmare that Howie had that an upcoming book on EPCOT was due to the publisher and no ideas were coming to mind on how to create lessons for one of our favorite parks, EPCOT. This leads Ryan and Howie to the content of today's show which is how we approach each attraction from the start. What's the first impression of an attraction? What educational inspiration does this attraction give us? What's the story? How can we take that story and use it to our advantage to create an engaging and inspiring lesson for our students? We will take a look at these questions and more as we walk around EPCOT in today's discussion.

So as we walk and explore EPCOT for educational gold, which we found a ton, our inspiration took us to many places from the Sciences to History and even poetry. Howie and Ryan even got so carried away that they only made it through Future World. Look for a future episode where they continue their walk around EPCOT gaining educational inspiration around every corner and churro!

Ryan and Howie welcome an extra special guest to the show, Mark DiBlasi.

So, who doesn't like playing board games? Many families regularly play board games when they gather together and many play board games when they gather for parties and such, but did you know that many educators are now using board games in their classrooms. So on today's show, we are looking into how and why we should consider using board games in our classrooms. Here are five of the many reasons that board games can be a useful tool in the classroom.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan are discussing how teachers can help students who are struggling with hidden hurdles. We all know that everyone has something they are dealing with and nobody's life is perfect. We all have struggles, but how do we as teachers address all these struggles with everything else going on in school and when our students often keep these struggles to themselves?

In today's show, Ryan and Howie are discussing stories of some of their former students and family that have such struggles and how they as teachers, parents, family, etc. can help. They also discuss some general classroom routines and procedures that you can use as a teacher to help all your students, even when they haven't shared their hidden struggles with you.

Also, they bring on a very special guest at the end of the show that shares his personal experience as a current 5th grader with a genetic eye disorder called Stargardt. Cooper is Ryan's nephew and he has decided to come on the show to talk candidly about his hidden struggles and also about how he recently raised nearly $4,000 for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Cooper and My Disney Class all hope that researchers will find a cure for this and all the eye diseases out there!

We hope you enjoy this show and hope that this show serves as a reminder that all of us are carrying around hidden struggles and sometimes the simple act of kindness can make all the difference.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan are 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. What some of you might not know is 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.

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 4th time on the show, fifth 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, Howie and Ryan are getting into the fall spirit and sharing their top ten biggest thrills or scary experiences at Walt Disney World! This is sure to be a wild ride through the spinning teacups of Ryan and Howie's minds and memories. So buckle up and don't pick up any hitchhiking ghosts as we take a journey through the scariest experiences at WDW.

By this time in the school year, most of us are really ready for a break and if you're like Ryan you partake in the Halloween candy that is meant for your students way too much. That's why we decided to just have a little bit of fun on today's episode and share some of the scariest experiences that we've had in the parks. Now we know what you're going to say," Walt Disney World isn't scary!" but we think you will agree that the experiences that we are sharing in this episode would scare even the bravest Gaston or even a braver Merida. We hope you enjoy this fun break as much as we did and we hope this encourages you to find those moments in your classroom when you can take a break with your students and have a little fun. We hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Halloween and like always we'd love to have you join our community over on Educators Who Love Disney Facebook group.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome a wonderful guest that is known for his hard work, leadership, customer service, and for being a guy who understands that developing a successful culture in your kingdom starts with you. Today we welcome none other than Mr. Dan Cockerell former Vice President of Magic Kingdom.

Dan has had one heck of a journey inside and through the Walt Disney World Co. He started in the Walt Disney World college program before his legendary dad begun his career at WDW, though we find out that Valarie, Dan's wife, beat both of them as she started at WDW 2 years before Dan! Dan then went back to college to finish up at Boston University, graduating in 1991. He then went back to Walt Disney World and was hired as a parking attendant at E.P.C.O.T. which lead him to work overseas at then Euro Disney ( now called Disneyland Paris). From there he went on to work on the resort's side of the business, working at places like Pop Century. Dan continued to work his way through various positions in the company learning everything he could which lead him to be promoted to Vice President of E.P.C.O.T, Vice President of Hollywood Studios, and then his final position, Vice President of the Most Magical Place on Earth, Magic Kingdom.

Dan retired from Disney in 2018 after 26 years and 19 different positions. Though he was retiring, he was ready to stop working. Dan and his wife Valerie have set out on a new venture and have started their own consulting and speaking business. You can find all the information about his services, book, podcasts, blogs, and more at CockerellConsulting.com or look for links on our show notes page.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan share ways they send stress to Neverland. Though we all would love to say that the profession of education is full of pixie dust every day, we know this isn't always true. Especially this time of year, when most of us are just coming off of summer break and starting a new school year. This time is especially hectic and as soon as you scratch one item off of your to-do-list, you have to add six more items. If you add the fact that most of us this year are currently starting in a new model with new procedures due to COVID, stress levels are breaking record highs!

In this episode, Ryan and Howie will share the ways they handle stress, which to no one's surprise has definite elements of Disney in them. We also would like to mention that in no way are Howie or Ryan mental health experts and in this podcast, we are just sharing what works for us. If you are having mental health issues, please seek out help and guidance from a professional.

We hope you enjoy this episode on stress and we know that you are doing great things in the classroom despite the added pressures this year. Please reach out to us if there is any way we could help you or your school and if you looking for a great support group of educators, come join our community of My Disney Class educators on our Facebook page, Educators who love Disney.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan welcome a fabulous gifted teacher from Slidell Louisanna, Monica Finch. Monica studied Gifted education at Northwestern State University and is currently teaching Gifted to 1st through 6th grades at St. Tammany Parish in Louisiana. She does travel between schools to meet her district's need for those students needing Gifted guidance. She definitely has a very unique story and you are really going to enjoy hearing how she brings the magic to all of her students in all the different buildings and different grade levels.

We first met Monica as she took our online P.D. Magic professional development course and she was so creative attacking each lesson and completed all 25 lessons with so much passion that we knew we needed to get her on the show. Our discussion will of course cover all the unique and creative ways she teaches and pushes her Gifted students to achieve their very best but we will also tackle her thoughts and fears with the upcoming school year with our concerns with COVID and online, blended and in-person learning.

We hope like always that you enjoy Monica's story as much as we do and we also once again want to thank you for joining our My Disney Class community in our 6th year!

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan are preparing for season 6 as well as preparing for the new school year. First, we wanted to say thank you to our incredible community of listeners that have made the past five seasons of My Disney Class so wonderful and educational. We look forward to a great season 6 with more great guests and lots of talk and love for Disney. Secondly, we know that season 6 and the new school year won't be like our last five seasons and we wanted to take time in this first episode of season 6 to share some of the ways we are preparing for the new type of school settings and the year ahead.

We hope you enjoy this episode as we discuss the three main options of learning out there, online, blended, and in-person. We look at the plusses and minuses of each choice and then address ways we can make sure to make the best of each situation and keep our students viewing their education in a positive light. We will also share some of the resources we have gathered to help us start the new year and with things like how to make online meets more interactive. We know these are trying times and we love to help any way we can, so please don't hesitate to reach out to either of us and we will do whatever we can. Also, if you haven't already joined our very supportive group of educators over on Facebook at Educators Who Love Disney, please do so we can all help each other through this pandemic and the upcoming school year.

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome a few of our educators that joined us on our 1st P.D. Magic class at Walt Disney World. Like we mentioned before, we had to postpone our 2020 group due to COVID 19 but reliving some of the memories with our 1st group was an awesome way to remind ourselves how powerful the Disney educator community is. Being that it had been a year since we were all together and since we were all going through this tough period during the pandemic, we thought we would get together on Zoom and check-in with each other.

P.D. Magic is more than just a professional development opportunity, it is also an experience where you walk away with new friends that just happen to work in education and love Disney like you!

We hope you enjoy the last episode of season 5 as we recorded our reunion and the wonderful discussion that took place that night. We talk about everything from the parks, how we dealt with distance learning, and our fears and questions for the future of both education and visiting the parks. Thanks again for listening. Howie and I can't believe we are finishing year 5!

You, the listener, are so important in what we do and are a key part of our My Disney Class Community. Please don't hesitate to reach out if we could ever be of any assistance and if you haven't already, come join our group on Facebook at Educators Who Love Disney.