Episode 64: Head Held High with Todd Nesloney

In this episode, we were able to chat with our friend Todd Nesloney (@techninjatodd). We wanted to check in with the Tech Ninja to see how his first year as a Principal went, as well as explore topics related to his recent blog post Head Held High.

Todd provides insight into the ups and downs of being a first year Principal. He is very honest in saying that there were as many ups as there were downs, and he learned a lot about leadership. Todd also talked with the PrincipalPLN crew about receiving news on the assessment scores, and how his school didn't make the accountability measures. He also talks extensively about the other indicators that his school did achieve, and how Social Media allowed him to tell the whole story. This is an episode you do not want to miss!

Want to listen to the podcast with Todd right before he became principal? Click here 

Check out #KidsDeserveIt and #PeriscopeOut on Twitter.


Our book, Breaking Out of Isolation: Becoming a Connected School Leader will be released on August 25, 2015. You can order it now on Amazon or from Corwin.

Subscribe on iTunes here

Episode 63: Serving Up High School On a Spoon

To continue on our theme of getting ready for the new school year, we are joined in this podcast by Sarah Johnson to give voice to the secondary level.

In this episode, Sarah talks about her goals for this school year, specifically the beginning of the year. We talked about cultural differences among New Jersey, Michigan and Wisconsin (We learned about Donkey Basketball). Sarah also discusses several technology initiatives such as one-to-one Chromebooks, BYOD, and online classes. At the end of the episode, we brought back the infamous Word Association game. Sarah did a great job of playing and represented Wisconsin!

School Culture Resources:

School Culture Rewired by Todd Whitaker and Steve Gruenert

How to Create a Culture of Achievement by Fischer, Frey and Pumpian

Equity and Diversity Resources:
Paul Gorski - Follow Paul on Twitter for updates and articles on Equity and Diversity
EdChange - This is an excellent resource for schools looking to begin the conversation on Equity and Diversity.



Our book, Breaking Out of Isolation: Becoming a Connected School Leader will be released on August 25, 2015. You can order it now on Amazon or from Corwin.

Subscribe on iTunes here

Episode 62: Back to the Future with Amy Fadeji

No, we didn't just come back from an 80's party or lose our sanity, we did actually dress up in this episode for a reason...

In this episode, Amy Fedeji joins us from California where her school is already back in session to talk about the opening of her school year and help the rest of us think about anything we might be forgetting before our school year starts. We applied our creativity in thinking of "Back to the Future" and for obvious reasons (maybe only to us) had to dress in 80's attire for this! We had several join the discussion to share ideas that you can find here: Todays Meet Discussion transcript

Amy shared great ideas from her staff kick-off, like the unveiling of their theme and the teachers' first activity with iPads.

We announced winners of our book Breaking Out of Isolation (coming out in September) and also shared another contest opportunity to win our book: Tweet with the #principalpln hashtag a back to school tip or your back to school nightmare. We'll announce the lucky winner on our next podcast!

In other news...our book, Breaking Out of Isolation: Becoming a Connected School Leader will be out in September, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon or from Corwin.

Subscribe on iTunes here

Episode 61: Welcoming New Teachers

In this podcast we discuss ideas to welcome new teachers to your school and provide support throughout the year. Live listeners joined us for the conversation in Todays Meet; you can find the transcript here:

TodaysMeet conversation

Just a few of the resources shared in this conversation included:

#NTChat led by Lisa Dabbs

Books:

Standing in the Gap: Empowering New Teachers Through Connected Resources

The 21st Century Mentor’s Handbook

In other news...our book, Breaking Out of Isolation: Becoming a Connected School Leader will be out in September, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon or from Corwin.

Subscribe on iTunes here