Tag: Jennifer Casa Todd

The Podcast Broadcast for October 19th – What you need to listen to this week

On By paulmcguire2013In Digital Transformation, Innovation, Looking for Learning Partnerships, new professional development, The Podcast Broadcast, voicEd Radio1 Comment
some of the great podcasts on VoicEd Radio every week.

I am continuing my posts on upcoming episodes of the Podcast Broadcast that Stephen Hurley and I are putting out on VoicEd Radio every week.

I think this is an important series, podcasters are coming up with great material that educators need to be aware of. When we start thinking of new ways to do PD, the material coming out every week offers a wonderful variety of learning opportunities for educators. What do you want to learn? Whose voice do you want to hear?

This week, we will be talking about This Week in Canadian EdTech with Robert Martellacci, My Bad with Jon Harper, Faith in the System by Munazzah Shirwani and the upcoming Digital Citizenship Summit taking place next week in Toronto.

Two of these podcasts have to do with community discussions – this is where new learning really happens. Even in the digital age, face to face conversations offer great new, unscripted learning opportunities.

Robert Martellacci and Stephen Hurley discuss a really interesting initiative that is coming out of Sackville called Sackville 2020. I love this initiative and I would like to hear much more about this. The discussion on the podcast explored how to develop productive partnerships involving both public and private enterprises. The Sackville 2020 initiative as described in the Sackville Tribune Post is developing something new and exciting that takes education out of its traditional silo.

The Sackville Schools 2020 vision is one which includes more outdoor learning spaces, community connections, hands-on learning, inclusive education, bright and open areas, more innovative teaching approaches and so much more. It’s a concept that would help bring more 21st-century approaches to the local education system and to ensure our children are being provided with more experiential and community-based learning opportunities.

Here is part of the discussion on how this initiative is changing how people are envisioning education and outreach into the community.

I would not have known anything about this great initiative if I hadn’t listened in on the podcast this week. This really is new learning that has a great potential to bring us together in a wider community. Could this be a way to innovate into the future of education?

At the very same time, there is a really interesting conference that will take place in Toronto next week, the Digital Citizen Summit or Digcit Summit.

The collection of speakers is impressive and the conversation will be really important. Listening to In Conversation with Stephen Hurley, I realized that the whole theme of the summit has lots to do with something we featured last week when we discussed (too briefly) the work of Jennifer Casa-Todd. I love her positive spirit and the work she is doing to help educators to see the positive side and the wonderful potential of social media in the classroom. At a time when we are getting pushback from all sorts of populist forces that want to stifle the use of social media, this is an enlivening breath of fresh air.

The podcast is a great introduction to the upcoming conference which will have a positive impact on how we use social media in education. Here one of the organizers Carlo Fusco is talking with Stephen Hurley.

The next two podcasts will take listeners in a different, but equally important direction. I really like My Bad by Jon Harper. I would argue that this short, concise podcast should be required listening for educators, especially administrators. Each episode explores a mistake (My Bad) that an educator has made and what they learned from it. It is a humbling experience and one that many educators could benefit from.

In education these days, we are all about making mistakes and learning from them. But the reality is no one likes making mistakes and very few are willing to talk about them. If more people did this we would certainly have a more humane system overall.

I looked at two of Jon’s podcasts this week, one from an administrator who reflects on how she sometimes judged her own admin harshly and the second from an elementary teacher who talks about calling out a 6-year old student in front of his peers. These conversations are difficult to listen to, but maybe this is exactly what we need to be doing. Listening to the mistakes of others and learning to become a little bit more humble is a useful practice.

Here is part of the second conversation.

Finally this week, a podcast that is new to me but one that I will continue to listen to every week. Faith in the System is a podcast by Munazzah Shirwani. In her profile, she calls herself a ‘rookie podcaster’, but she is already really good. I listened to her second episode this week, Confessions of a Sikh High School Teacher.  She talks with Amrit Kaur Dhaliwal, program coordinator for a secondary school program at Khalsa Community School in Brampton where she has been teaching for over ten years.

Over 40 minutes the conversation ranges over a number of issues involving faith and schools. It is a really different podcast and it is truly compelling. At one point Munazzah and Amrit get into a discussion about discrimination in Canada and its impact on both of them. This is really important for us to listen to, I have included an excerpt here.

Again, this is terrific stuff and there is so much that we can learn here. The conversation is frank and intelligent and it leads us into a world that is probably unfamiliar to many of us. Here is the beauty of podcasting and digital radio. Within a few minutes, we can take part in important conversations that can inform our practice.

I hope you listen to a few of these snippets. The Podcast Broadcast will air again this Saturday at 10:00 am and I hope you listen in. You never know how these conversations will turn out, but that is the beauty of live radio.

 

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Podcasting on VoicEd Radio – What you need to be listening to this week

On By paulmcguire2013In new professional development, voicEd Radio2 Comments

Over the past few weeks, Stephen Hurley and I have started a new venture on VoicEd Radio. We are broadcasting about some of the podcasts that are produced every week on VoicEd Radio. We call it the Podcast Broadcast.

There is no firm criteria on what gets chosen, but so far we have been focusing on some of the material that has been produced exclusively for VoicEd Radio. More accurately, we are looking at podcasting that has been inspired by the explosion of material being produced by educators both in Canada and the United States about every aspect of education at all levels.

So, I am using my blog as a way to organize my thoughts before going ‘live’ to discuss the weekly collection of material. Our broadcasts are one hour long, which seems like a long time, but when you are trying to get to the heart of four very different podcasts you really have to make sure you are organized and concise.

This week we are looking at podcasts by and then about some of the best broadcasters on VoicEd Radio. 

I started this week by listening to Shukes and Giff, an edtech podcast by Jen Giffen and Kim Pollishuke. They start each podcast I think if I was still active in the classroom, I would have to listen to this one every week. Their broadcasts are usually around 30 minutes long and they really pack a punch. Both teachers come prepared with an assortment of new innovations and announcements for the classroom. As they say, they are committed to sharing the edtech treasures they love. They also start each week with a joke, it’s hard to do better than that!

Why shouldn’t you play cards in the jungle?

Because there are too many cheetahs 

Shukes and Giff

Apart for the great rapid-fire banter that goes on throughout the show, the notes included as part of their weekly work are truly incredible. Everything is hyperlinked with notes that you can use to follow up on their recommendations.


a part of the Shukes and Giff conversation on Google Classroom

Here is a sample of their notes page for this one episode – so useful!

It would be great to get to know more about these really dynamic educators. So, Ramona Meharg, in her podcast, I Wish I Knew EDU recently had both of them on for a wide-ranging conversation about podcasting, education conferences and networking and the future of education. The idea behind this show is pretty cool, to explore the things you wished you knew when you started out in education.

In this podcast, it is really interesting to hear how Kim and Jen started out and how podcasting has become a natural extension of the work they do as education resource people for their schools. People with this much energy really need a voice beyond the confines of their own district. 


This clip is worth listening to just to get a sense of the great dynamic between Jen and Kim.

On our full show, Stephen and I will listen and talk about two more clips from Ramona’s show. The great thing about her podcast is that it is one hour long, so you can really get a sense of the people she is interviewing. Ramona is one in a growing list of podcasters who are giving voice to great broadcasters who really should be heard. 

So, there is a theme to this post and this week’s Podcast Broadcast. I am featuring podcasters and podcasts about the podcasters. VoicEd Radio has created a space where people can come together and learn with each other.

What is interesting now is that there are a whole series of broadcasts that feature other podcasters. I find it fascinating to learn from the ones who are creating content on a weekly basis.

Along with Shukes and Giff, we will also be looking at the work of Jennifer Casa Todd and her Social Leadia podcast. Jennifer is doing some really interesting work that follows the premise of her book.  Social media should not be seen as something destructive for our students. Instead, we need to look for ways to empower students to use social media in positive and creative ways. The way this is approached in the classroom makes all the difference. In her podcast series, Jennifer seeks out and interviews students who are using social media in new ways that enrich the learning in the classroom.

In this episode, Jennifer is interviewing Josh Feinsilber, the student inventor of Gimkit, a game inspired by the desire to improve on the popular educational quiz game Kahoot. Josh is exploring ways to enhance the in-class experience for both teachers and students. It is a really interesting project and an excellent example of how social media is able to bring about innovation and change.

Stephen Hurley interviews Jennifer Casa Todd in his innovative series the MADPD Spotlight. Series like this one and Ramona’s are really important. These interviews give podcasters the chance to explain the ideas behind their shows. In both broadcasts, I learned a great deal about what inspires both Shukes and Giff and Social Leadia.

Shukes and Giff is all about sharing and exploring the wide evolving world of edtech – essential listening for anyone who wants to keep current on the learning tools available to teachers and students.

In Social Leadia, there is a really essential exploration of the current debate on the impact of social media on the student. The current thinking, especially in Ontario where the new government is considering banning cell phones in the classroom is that social media enables inappropriate responses from young people. Jennifer argues that we need to give children the opportunity to see social media in a different light.  Social media as a place to converse, learn and grow – there needs to be an interruption in the negative narrative that currently exists.


Jennifer Casa Todd – pushing back on assumptions

We will feature more clips on our broadcast, but this clip will give you a sense of the rich conversation between Stephen and Jennifer.

Four podcasts and one hour to feature all this great material. It will be a challenge, but if we are able to attract more listeners to these broadcasts then the effort is certainly worthwhile. There is a great new world of learning out there and I hope you all take some time to dip in for a listen!