Podcasts for PD

In May my campus’s instructional coach, Kim Stroud, and I were talking about what our fall PD book study could be. She and I have been hosting book studies for four years together. We’ve uses titles such as Kids Deserve It by Todd Nesloney and Adam Welcome, Teach Like A Pirate by Dave Burgess, The Wild Card by Wade and Hope King, Culturize by Jimmy Casas, Personal & Authentic by Thomas C. Murray, and Shattering the Perfect Teacher Myth by Aaron Hogan. Teachers would read the book during a semester period and each week they would respond to question topics I created in Canvas/Google Classroom. They would give their own responses and then respond to a colleague to generate discussions. At the end of the book study we would meet in person and Kim would facilitate a discussion about the book, our takeaways, and goals moving forward. Teachers earn 9 hours of OCT (off contract time) of the 30 hours required each school year and get some great ideas through these books that deal with teacher issues, lesson planning, SEL, classroom management, etc. We’ve had great success with these books. In fact, after our first one (Kids Deserve It) the teachers who did the book study wanted to create a SPIRIT Committee for our campus to help generate more campus culture from the students to the staff. That committee is still active today and is run by Kim and myself. *If you’d like access to any of the book study questions or more information on titles and how we ran it, please message me!

However, in May when we were talking about the book studies, we worried they might be getting a bit stagnant. We weren’t finding books as easily, especially after a pandemic, that dealt with what teachers were experiencing in the classroom and beyond. Kim had the amazing idea to find podcast episodes instead of a book study. We liked the idea of podcasts because teachers can listen to them in car, while doing household chores, in their classrooms after school, etc. I posted a question box on my Instagram stories at the beginning of summer asking for podcast ideas that were about the education world or time management, SEL, mental health, etc. and my PLN delivered! I had a long list of podcasts to listen to and spent the summer going through various episodes and curating a playlist that covers a wide range of issues teachers might need advice about for 2022 such as social-emotional learning (SEL), mental health (their own and recognizing student issues), equity, creativity, inspirational, #edtech, how to reduce workload, student feedback, working with parents, self-pacing, goal setting and more. We wanted to provide a bit of everything and even have an option to choose two podcasts of their preference from The Mindful Kind so they have some choice in what they want to listen to.

How it’s going to work: Podcasts for PD will open in September. I have created this Google Form that teachers will fill out when they finish listening to a podcast. There are at least 21 on the list so they will do this 21 times after each one they listen to. They have until November 18 to listen to them all and provide feedback so they can take it at their own pace. Then on November 28 we will meet as a group after school for an hour to discuss takeaways, goals, etc. and Kim will run that session, as she’s way better at facilitating discussions than I am. At the end of the meeting all participants will receive 9 hours of OCT credit towards their goal of 30 for the year. We hope this is helpful and beneficial for our teachers in a multitude of ways: earning professional development credit, getting some tips and tricks to use in the classroom, and some goals for themselves and their students for the rest of the year. Book studies have been successful and we hope Podcasts for PD will be as well. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about our book studies/Podcasts for PD. Below is the current podcast playlist for our first semester. I’m sure it will change each semester as we get feedback and education changes. *If you have any suggestions for other podcasts, please share those as well!

This Teacher Life: Three Things You Have Permission To Do This Year 23 min, 3 Things We Should Do In Our Classrooms 18 min

The Creative Classroom with John Spencer: Creative Habits vs. Creative Momentum 20 min

Leading Equity: Equity vs. Equality 7 min

Self-Care for Educators: Squad Goals 7 min

The Mindful Kind: Pick 2 episodes to listen to that apply to where you are right now

Let’s K12 Better: Let’s Talk About Empowering Digital Leaders 46 min

Simon Sinek: The One With Brene Brown 53 min

Brene Brown: Masterpieces and Messes with Jason Reynolds 78 min *optional, Atlas of the Heart: A Sisters Book Club, Part 1 of 3 57 min 

Cult of Pedagogy: Goal Setting for Teachers 23 min, 6 EdTech Tools to Try in 2022 42 min

Truth for Teachers: Small Changes for Reduced Workload 20 min

Brave New Teaching: The Key to Classroom Management + 20 Favorite Strategies 41 min

The Shake Up Learning Show with Kasey Bell: Tips and Tools to Improve Parent-Teacher Communication 33 min

Easy EdTech Podcast with Monica Burns: Tech Savvy Teens 26 min

The Edugals Podcast: Descriptive Student Feedback 29 min

The House of #Edtech: The Canva Classroom, Increase Student Engagement 39 min 

Modern Classroom Project: Self Pacing in Secondary Education 58 min

522+ min total

Use: bit.ly/podcastsforpdform22 to complete after each podcast you listen to

I should get at least 21 reflection form submissions from teachers by November 18.

*Other podcasts to consider for the future: EduProtocols, Sharon Says So, EB Academics, Jen Hatmaker, SEL Five, Google Teacher Podcast, Sounds Good with Branden Harvey, Backhanded Optimism with Adam J. Kurtz, Happier by Gretchen Rubin, Daily Breath with Deepak Chopra, Dear Sugars, Good Life Project Podcast, The Daily, The Science of Happiness, Making Space with Hoda Kotb, That’s So Retrograde, Todd Nesloney.

Let’s BeReal.

There’s a new social networking app that a lot of kids are using and it’s called BeReal. So what is it and how can you use it in your library?

BeReal is an app that is available for download across platforms that “show your friends who you really are, for once," by removing filters and opportunities to stage, over-think, or edit photos. Take a look at the rules of BeReal below. *You must have notifications on for this to be successful. Many teens and tweens are over Instagram thanks to the new platform that has ads and suggested accounts all throughout your feed. Maybe BeReal is the next photo sharing app for teens.

The app notifies users at a random time throughout the day that it's "time to Be Real." A two-minute timer starts when the user opens the app, giving them a limited amount of time to take a picture of whatever they're doing at that moment. Be aware! The photo will take a picture of what’s in front of you, as well as a selfie to keep everything 100% authentic to make sure you’re really where you are, doing what you’re doing at the time the notification goes off and that you’re looking exactly how you normally look—no filters!

When you sign up it’s going to almost immediately ask you to take your first BeReal photo. Get ready! You have 2 minutes to complete this activity.

Throughout the day BeReal will send you a notification to post your BeReal photos. You have 2 minutes to complete this, but if you don’t, you can still post your photos. It will just be late and friends will get a notification if you post late, which I’m not the biggest fan of TBH. Be aware: you can only delete your post once a day after you've posted it on your feed. While you can retake your BeReal as many times as you like during the two-minute countdown, once you've pressed "post," you can only delete and retake it once. Don’t try and create content on your own—you won’t be able to. The point of this app isn’t to capture the perfect picture any time you want, but to BE REAL and take a photo in real time of what’s happening in your daily life.

In other social media apps you can react to posts of your friends. It works the same with BeReal, but you can actually selfie the emoji yourself. When I went to heart-eyes emoji a friend’s post it asked me to take a selfie of what I think that emoji looks like on a human. It saves it so I can continue to use my version of the heart-eyes emoji on anyone’s post. These are called “realmojis”. Like with other social media apps you can comment on others’ posts as well as react. You can create a comment under your post after you take your photo so that it explains what you’re doing, where you are, etc.

Like the app 1 Second Everyday, BeReal creates a digital scrapbook of all your posts. I like that feature so I can have a memory photo roll to look back on. This app is also not a big time waster. You can click on Discover and view others’ posts, but basically how it works is you wait for your notification, take your selfie/photo within a 2 minute time frame and move on with your life.

What I like about this for student use is that it shows them what’s real about social media and what’s fake. So much of IG is posed, filtered, edited, etc. Many students believe what they see and think that all these celebrities and influencers live their lives like their posts. This app forces all users to show what their everyday life looks like without getting that “perfect shot”. I plan to use this app when I teach digital citizenship this year.

How I plan to use it in the library:

With everything happening in the library community with book challenges, I believe that a lot of it stems from ignorance about our profession. Many people don’t know all it takes to become a librarian and what we do on a day-to-day basis (and no, it’s not sit and read! I wish!) With this app I’ll be able to take real time photos of what I’m doing in my library whether it be inventory, weeding, shelving, processing, curating, research, teaching lessons, working with library aides, clubs, PD, meetings, hallway duty, creating displays, etc. The list is endless for what we do everyday in the library and how detailed our job is, as well as how much training goes into what it takes to be a knowledgable and proficient librarian. Many don’t know how we choose books and if we create an “open door policy” so to speak, it gives the public a look into our lives in the library. Perhaps we can reach more citizens if we show what a day in the life of a librarian looks like. As my friend and fellow school librarian, Amanda Jones, says, “It’s not bragging; it’s advocacy.”

One last note: this app is still new-ish and is working out the bugs. Be patient as they continue to roll out updates to fix all the kinks with any new app.

Let’s BeReal this year and have some fun in the library! https://bere.al/thenextgenlibrarian

*Thanks to The Insider and NPR for help with some of the features.