My Disney Class podcast

Design, Disney, and Library Anthropology with Sarah Beals Sager   In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Sarah Beals Sager to the show.  Ryan met Sarah through a mutual Disney friend, Dr. Cody Havard, a couple of years ago. They both sat on a panel that discussed Marvel and fandom for Dr. Harvard's University of Memphis class. After hearing Sarah talk about her fando...

Play Me Some Disney Music!   In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie continue where they left off spotlighting the importance of music to tell and drive a story. Remember educators are master storytellers and the great ones are able to excite and utilize all the audiences' senses. Music can be very motivating and emotional for audiences and educators can use that to their adv...

Remembering a GREAT Interview with a REPEAT of Lee Cockerell Interview Today on the show, Ryan and Howie welcome an extraordinary guest to the show, Lee Cockerell. Lee is the former Executive Vice President of Operations for the Walt Disney World Resort. As the Senior Operating Executive for then years Lee led a team of 40,000 cast members and was responsible for the operations of 20 resort hotels...

Let's all sing like the birdies sing! In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan spotlight the importance of music to tell and drive a story. Remember educators are master storytellers and the great ones are able to excite and utilize all the audiences' senses. Music can be very motivating and emotional for audiences and educators can use that to our advantage just like Walt Dis...

Happy Teacher with Erin King In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Erin King to the show. Erin is currently fulfilling the role of Program analyst for continuous improvement in the Fulton County School District. Fulton County School District is in Atlanta GA and serves approximately 94,000 students that attend classes in 58 elementary schools, 19 middle schools, 15...

I'm Dreaming of a Disney Christmas In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan discuss their Disney dreams this holiday season. This includes several recent D23 Destination D announcements about upcoming attractions and events at Walt Disney World and the other Disney theme parks. Ryan and Howie really are excited for the future of the Disney Parks and both can't wait to get back...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Emily Gathman. Emily is a 6th grade Science teacher at Bussey Middle School in Garland Texas. She loves to inspire her students to be creative problem-solvers as they tackle real-world Science and engineering problems in her classroom. In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Emily Gathman. Emily is...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie pick up where they left off a month ago when they were discussing Walt's original Florida Project and plan to make E.P.C.O.T. the heart of everything that was going to go on in central Florida. In this episode, Howie and Ryan start at the solemn point of Walt's death and how the company and Roy had to decide on what to do next. Do they...

Getting Primed with Michael Crawford In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan welcome Michael Crawford to the show. Michael is currently a show writer at the Walt Disney Company and has also written for The Walt Disney Family Museum, The Disney Archives, Imagineering, and D23! In this episode, he will guide us through how his passion for Disney started for him and how that led...

Planning for the Community of Tomorrow! In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie take a deep dive into Walt Disney's plans for the Experimental, Prototype, Community of Tomorrow (E.P.C.O.T) or what later would be labeled as Progress City. This was an unfinished concept for a planned community developed by Walt Disney and designed by WED Enterprises in the 1960s. Its purpose wa...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Megan Zimdars to the show. Megan is in her 6th year teaching and is currently working with 4th graders at Boswell Elementary in Lebanon MO. Megan teaches Social Studies and ELA and does so in some of the most magical ways all in a classroom that is themed wonderfully to inspire students of all ages! On today's show, Megan will s...

Howie and Ryan look at how Walt Disney approached taking risks and jumping into new things throughout his life. Just like teachers all over the world are doing right now as they start the New Year in their schools. As we discuss all the ups and downs of Walt's journey to creating a magical escape that we all love and enjoy, we think you will find similarities in those ups and downs to the ones we...

  In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan welcome back the Director of CTE at Georgetown ISD, Bretton Schulz. For the last show of Season 6, we had Bretton on and shared some interviews Howie did with some of the students in Bretton's CTE program but we ran out of time to hear everything Bretton had to share about the incredible program and we had a couple more student interv...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan look at integrating career exposure and guidance into classroom teaching. Just think about all the different types of storytellers there are just working for Disney Imagineering. There are engineers of all kinds of course but they only make up a small number nowadays in the vast careers that help make the magic. Other Imagineering jobs...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan welcome the Director of CTE at Georgetown ISD, Bretton Schulz. For those of you that may not know, CTE stands for Career and Technical Education. At Georgetown ISD they describe their CTE program as one that uses integrated instruction and curricula, current technologies, and state-of-the-art equipment. They also have business partnersh...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan are waving their flags in celebration of the fourth of July! They love the good ol' USA and so did Mr. Walt Disney himself! Walt was quoted saying, "Actually, if you could see close in my eyes, the American flag is waving in both of them, and up my spine is growing this red, white and blue stripe." In the show today, Ryan and Howie are...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Howie and Ryan welcome their partner and pal, Brian Collins back to the show to participate in some summer dreaming! Howie was inspired by a song in the 2008 Tinkerbell Album titled, "Come Fly With Me" and in this song is a line about dreams. So on today's show, Howie, Ryan, and Brian are going to share what their childhood dreams were and what dreams...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie's dreams of summer vacation are becoming real, and with that comes a fun list of to-dos to do! So in this episode, Howie and Ryan are sharing their plans for this summer and giving their thoughts on what teachers should make time to do this summer as well. These suggestions run the gamut from organizing your classroom to bingeing your f...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Kevin Roughton. Kevin is a middle school history teacher at Jurupa Middle School in Jurupa Valley CA not too far from Disneyland! He is an educational speaker, author, and was also selected as an Outstanding Middle School Educator of California Counsel For The Social Studies.  Let's just put it this way, he's a great educator an...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie are dreaming of those lazy summer days just around the corner but with that comes the reality that school is not out yet. The last month of school can be really challenging for us educators and also for our students! In this episode, Howie and Ryan discuss activities, tips, and lessons learned that will hopefully help you tackle those l...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Jaime Williams to the show. Jaime is originally from Albertville, AL. Her research interests are in the areas of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources with a primary focus on how personality characteristics, especially aggression, can have a detrimental effect on a firm or on other people within an organization. Her disser...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie look to help educators who are still teaching remotely or may teach remotely from time to time. On the March 1st show, Howie and Ryan tried to tackle the difficult task of teaching in the new normal of social distancing, face masks, no group work, etc. that educators all over the world are trying to adjust to. They attempted to take a c...

In today's episode, Ryan and Howie welcome back author and friend Lou Prosperi to talk about his new book Telling Your Story the Walt Disney World Way .  This is his third book in the series that started with The Imagineering Pyramid and was followed by The Imagineering Process . Before writing these books, Lou worked in the game industry for over ten years as a freelance game designer and writer...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie look to tackle the difficult role of the educator in our current situation due to the pandemic. Already a year into living with quarantines, masks, social distancing, and the root of it all, COVID, educators have been looking for ways to keep their students and themselves safe while still keeping the wonderment and awe of learning going...

In today's episode of My Disney Class Podcast, Ryan and Howie welcome Dave Bakker, co-founder, and COO of Pocketlab. Pocketlab by Myriad Sensors is a group of sensors created to collect data wirelessly. When you use them in your classroom with your students you can create lab reports, analyze data, and watch your students view and collaborate about the data in real-time. Currently, there are three...