Introducing the PrincipalCast Podcast

This post is by my friend, and twitter mom….  Jessica Johnson

principal castPodcasts have been a great tool for my personal professional learning, because it’s so easy to download and just listen while I’m getting ready in the morning, cleaning the house, walking the dog or in the car. I share with you several of the podcasts that I listen to on my Podcasts Page. For several years I enjoyed listening to the Practical Principals podcast, was sad that it discontinued and that I couldn’t really find any other podcast with principals that filled that void.

Principal Theresa Stager invited me to help her start a Principals Podcast, which we also invited Principal Dr. Spike Cook in on. Our first live podcast was quite interesting with many tech glitches, so Jeff Bradbury at TeacherCast.net offered to pick us up under his broadcasting network.

You can now find the #PrincipalCast Podcast live every Sunday night at 8:30 PM CST on teachercast.tv. You can join in the discussion on the chat box of that site or tweet using #principalcast in your tweet.

Each week we will be using the following format for our agenda:

  • What’s been happening?
  • Question from the newbie (new principal) or a hot topic for principals.
  • Something awesome
  • Keeping Current
  • Principals to Follow on Twitter

You can find the #Principalcast Podcast at principalcast.net Other ways to follow/connect with the podcast:

  • Email info@principalcast.com
  • Use the hashtag #principalcast on Twitter
  • Follow @PrincipalCast on Twitter

Who is going to be your Sadia?

keynote 2013I was chosen by my school district to deliver the Keynote Address for our Opening Day Extravaganza. My superintendent wanted me to share my insights on innovation. I spent many hours writing, editing my speech, as well as watching TED videos for inspiration.

Ironically, my inspiration did not come from the TED videos… I was inspired by a 10 year old girl who was brave enough to take some risks and think outside the box. We don’t always need the experts to inspire us, we can learn about innovation from our students. So I shared my story about Sadia.

 

Here are the notes from the section on Sadia:

  • I was chosen to give the keynote on innovation, but I want to caution you that I am not the most innovative person in this district. I am probably a middle of the pack.

  • Remember the trailer? Since last year I have made several imovie trailers. I always say it’s the best 4.99 I ever spent on an app

My idea of Innovation

  • Imovie trailers are easy, quick and clean. Simple right?

  • One day my guidance counselor brought her daughter to school. Sadia is 10 years old and is going into 5th grade. She was in my office with her ipad. I asked her what cool apps or cool things she does with her ipad. She showed me a video she had been working on for the last few weeks. My jaw dropped. I begged her to finish it and I told her I wanted to share her video to a bunch of educators. Her mom told me she worked tirelessly on the video over the summer. She finished it the weekend before the Keynote.

  • I was amazed and I think you will be too

Sadia’s idea of Innovation

  • Sadia and the rest of her generation are ready to flourish. And guess what? They don’t need us to teach them everything. They like to figure things out and when they can’t figure it out they turn to …. You guessed it… Social media.. facebook, twitter, instagram, youtube, tumbler, you name it….

  • Sadia is an entrepreneur

  • She has dreams

  • She has ideas

  • She has passion

  • Who is ready to step on those dreams, extinguish the passion, curtail the ideas?

  • Not me… and I am sure not you! That’s why we have to let people take chances. There have been a lot of people in my life that have allowed me to take chances.

How Sadia impacted an entire school’s welcome back video…

Who are you going to learn from this year?

Who is going to be your Sadia?