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Chip Harbin – Episode 34
Hello, and welcome to Episode 34 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the show I am joined by a really good friend of mine, Chip Harbin. Chip is a former reading teacher, now behavioral dean. Chip is also one of the most personable, funny, and just…
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I Am A Valuable Brand
Ok, so admittedly, that title makes me a little uncomfortable. It’s a strange statement, and gives me the impression of someone with an inflated ego and unhealthy dose of arrogance. But, how am I wrong? Dr. Will’s words on Episode 30 of my show about teachers needing to make their money have been bouncing around…
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Chantal Larivière – Episode 33
Hello, and welcome to Episode 33 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the show I am joined by Chantal Larivière, a 20 year educator out of Ottawa, Canada. Chantal is a phenomenal teacher, and just a generally fun person, and through hearing her on VoicEd, I knew…
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Dr. Lisa [NAME REDACTED] – Episode 32
Hello, and welcome to Episode 32 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the show I am joined by a good friend of mine, and my former boss, Dr. Lisa. She didn’t want her last name included on the show because apparently she is more concerned about…
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I Know Just Enough To Fake It
I am an expert in nothing. Popular advice about building an online presence, a blog, a podcast, or even a twitter account, is to make sure you don’t present yourself as an expert in everything. I have that part down. The problem is, I don’t hit the second part of that advice, which is to…
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Lisa Corbett – Episode 31
Hello, and welcome to Episode 31 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the show I am joined by Lisa Corbett, a mixed 2nd and 3rd grade teacher in Ontario, Canada. Lisa and I met through the Inquiry Based Learning Panel that Sarah Anne Lalonde hosted, as…
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Dr. Will Deyamport – Episode 30
Hello, and welcome to Episode 30 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. When I started this show in May, I didn’t think far enough ahead to plan out my year, figure out what weeks what episodes would release, or consider reaching the end of 2017. Yet, here we are.…
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Rola Tibshirani – Episode 29
Hello, and welcome to Episode 29 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the show I am joined by Rola Tibshirani. Rola is a Grade 6 French Immersion teacher out of Ottawa, Canada. She is a regular on the #ONEdMentors show on VoicEd Radio, and I was…
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VoicEd Gratitude Exchange and Holiday Special
Our VoicEd Family is celebrating the holidays by doing a gift exchange, and we are giving the gift of thanks! No money, no gadgets or gizmos, just a chance to tell another VoicEd creator how great they are. 14 VoicEd Creators signed up for a name exchange, and today, names were assigned. From December 18th…
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Joanna Bull – Episode 28
Hello, and welcome to Episode 28 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the show I am joined by Joanna Bull, a Digital Literacy Resource Teacher out of Ontario, Canada. Joanna and I were together on an Inquiry-Based Learning Panel for Que Sera Sarah?, and I loved…
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Shane Lawrence – Episode 27
Hello, and welcome to Episode 27 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the show I am joined by Shane Lawrence. Shane is a teacher of drama, computers, film study, and film production out of Canada, as well as The Ed Podcast. As you might have guessed…
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Why The Teacher Moral Standard May Be Necessary
A few weeks ago, I learned that a teacher my little brother Travis had as a kid was arrested and charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend. It was a pretty intense case, as the news reported it, including thousands of calls and even putting a GPS tracker on her new boyfriend’s car. The news piece was…
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Admin Balance Panel – Episode 26
Hello, and welcome to Episode 26 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the podcast, I have something a little different. Like I wrote about in my last post on the blog, I had one of my assistant principals ask me about how to provide feedback without…
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Story Speaker – Part 1
On Google Teacher Tribe Podcast last week, I heard about a Google Docs Add-On called Story Speaker. In the description on the show and on the Add-On page, it was said to be for making choose-your-own-adventure style stories that connect with Google Assistant to be read aloud and choices made through voice. I remember the…
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Admin Balance Panel
Tomorrow on VoicEd Radio, I will be hosting a panel discussion on administrator balance with special guests Derek Rhodenizer, Brent Coley, and Mary Vetter. This came about because a couple months ago, Mary came to me and asked “How do I make sure I’m not hurting or upsetting teachers, but also give them the necessary…
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Chris Cluff Bonus Edition Part 2 – Episode 25
Hello, and welcome to Episode 24 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! If you’re listening to this episode on release day, and you live in the US, hope you aren’t out shopping in the craziness that is Black Friday. Just use Amazon.…
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My Time on APlusEdTech Podcast
A couple months ago (yes, I’m behind big time), I was interviewed for the APlusEdTech Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Ashley McBride, who I was lucky enough to just sit down at a table with during ISTE. Ashley asked to talk with me because she wanted to learn more, and share with her audience,…
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Chris Cluff – Episode 24
Hello, and welcome to Episode 24 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week, I am joined on the podcast by Chris Cluff. I first heard about Cluff on VoicEd Radio, and started listening to his podcast Chasing Squirrels. He comes from outside education originally, as a classically trained…
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My “One Thing”
Recently, I had the chance to be on an episode of OnEdMentors on VoicEd Radio. I was joined this particular night by Sarah Anne Lalonde (who you might remember from Episode 17 of Planning Period Podcast) and Stephen Hurley (who will one day not be so busy that he can’t be on my show…). In…
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Noa Daniel – Episode 23
Hello, and welcome to Episode 23 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host Brad Shreffler. This week on the podcast, I am joined by the tremendously talented and brilliant Noa Daniel. I have been on shows a few times with Noa, most the panel show OnEdMentors on VoicEd Radio, and she never…
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It’s About Time We Upset Some People
The admin team at my school (principal, assistant principal, and coaches/instructional support) are doing a book study of Rick Wormelli’s Fair Isn’t Always Equal. We’re going through two chapters a month, and each month have a meeting facilitated by a different pair of participants to review the chapters in some way. In our most recent…
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Kasey Bell – Episode 22
Hello, and welcome to episode 22 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host Brad Shreffler. This week on the podcast, I talk to Kasey Bell of ShakeUpLearning.com and the Google Teacher Tribe Podcast. I’ve been listening to her show with Matt Miller, and I love their energy and excitement about the Google Suite,…
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NaNoWriMo Update
As I talked about in my recent post Why Teachers Should NaNoWriMo, I am embarking on the NaNoWriMo journey, and some of it will be taking place here on my blog, so I want to give an update on the kinds of posts you’ll see over the next month. For NaNoWriMo this year, I am…
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Flipped PD Update – Not All Good News
When I started out on this endeavor, I had the best of intentions. I was full of energy and excitement. Even when the first online session wasn’t as attended as I would have liked, I figured, “Hey, it happens. They’ll get it next time.” And they did, as I explained in this blog post. After the…
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Mike Arnold – Episode 21
Hello, and welcome to episode 21 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host Brad Shreffler. This week on the podcast, I talk to Mike Arnold. Mike reached out to me on twitter in response to a tweet I posted saying I was looking for guests, and especially college professors and math teachers, because he…
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Why Teachers Should NaNoWriMo
There is only a week or so left in October, and that means National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner. NaNoWriMo is an annual challenge for people to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days (November 1st through 30th). It comes out to 1,667 words per day of pace. The general idea…
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Chuck Poole – Episode 20
Hello, and welcome to Episode 20 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. Wow, episode 20. That feels like a big deal to me, and I have a special announcement to celebrate it, but I’m going to save that for the end of the episode. This week on the podcast,…
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Derek Rhodenizer – Episode 19
Hello, and welcome to Episode 19 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week on the podcast I am thrilled to have Derek Rhodenizer. Derek is a Director of Academics at an independent school in Ontario, but I know him from his work on VoicEd Radio. He runs the…
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Ashley McBride – Episode 18
Hello, and welcome to Episode 18 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week, I speak with Ashley McBride, an Instructional Technology Facilitator out of North Carolina. Ashley and I met randomly at ISTE during a session for EdTech Coaches, and we quickly bonded over the fact that we…
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Las Vegas Thoughts – Change We Can Make
58 people are dead in another of a myriad of senseless attacks on innocent people. And like every other time this has happened, we are all in an uproar. Gun control 2nd Amendment Freedoms Democrats Republicans Prayer Action It just goes on, and on. In circles. Sure, we want change. Most people (I would argue)…
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Being a Parent at Open House
Last week, I attended my son’s Kindergarten Open House. For the first time in my career, I sat in the room while a teacher talked about her class. It was a surreal experience for me. For one thing, there wasn’t a lot I didn’t know. Systems that teachers use to monitor grades, test the students,…
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Sarah Anne Lalonde – Episode 17
Hello, and welcome to Episode 17 of the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom. I’m your host, Brad Shreffler. This week, I talk with Sarah Anne Lalonde, a teaching candidate out of Canada and fellow podcaster. I met Sarah in her role as the Community Manager for VoicEd Radio, and in the last few months, I…
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Beth Scanlon – Episode 16
Hello, and welcome to Episode 16 of the Planning Period Podcast, the #EdBreakroom, I’m your host Brad Shreffler. In this week’s episode, I talk to Beth Scanlon, reading, literacy and technology coach at a nearby school to me in Central Florida, as well as one of the founders of our local EdCamp conference, EdCampOrange. Beth…
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Automated Google Appointment Calendar Follow-Up Emails
Do you use Google Appointment Slots and wish you could have an automated thank you message with a survey link included each day? Well, you can! A couple years ago at #ISTE, one of the EdTech Coaches mentioned using the Google Appointment Calendar feature in Google Apps for Ed. It’s really easy to setup and…
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Brent Coley – Episode 15
Hello, and welcome to the Planning Period Podcast, your #EdBreakroom, I’m your host Brad Shreffler. This week, I chat with Brent Coley, elementary principal in Southern California, and host of the Teacher Tales podcast. As all my guests do, Brent answers my three questions, and the conversation goes off from there. In this episode, we…
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Tami Jimenez from Time To Teach – Episode 14
This week on the Planning Period Podcast, I talk with Tami Jimenez. Tami is the host of the “Time to Teach” podcast and pre-first teacher out of Mexico. We met through a Facebook group for educators who podcast that she started, and through her I’ve made a lot of great connections. I’m also a fan…
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Flipped PD Update
It has been a week, and it is time for a Flipped PD update. When I last wrote about this, only 4 people had finished the online learning component. After a follow-up email the next day from myself and another from my principal, and given the extra two days to account for procrastination, at the…
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High School Football Fan – A Troll or a Patriot?
It’s the Friday Night Lights time of year, and among many of the “other duties as assigned” for me is being at the games to monitor students. I have the distinct honor of standing on the track and spending 3+ hours staring up at the student section of our stadium to make sure they’re not…
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Planning Period Round Table – Episode 13
On Wednesday, August 30th, VoicEd Radio did a 15 hour long, live radiothon. As a member of the VoicEd family, I was invited to join in, and I jumped at the chance. For an hour, I went live with some of my previous guests. I was joined by my dad, Bob Shreffler (Episode 10), Kristen…
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Flipped PD – Day 1
Today it started. This morning, I tweeted out my nervousness, because when I got to work, I published the first Flipped PD course and sent an email to the staff explaining the process. Today, I release my first Flipped PD session to my staff. I’m nervous…will they do it? Will they like it? If not,…
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Vicki Davis, The Cool Cat Teacher – Episode 12
Welcome to Episode 12 of the Planning Period Podcast, the break-room of education podcasts. In this week’s episode, I talk to the one and only Vicki Davis, known online everywhere as the Cool Cat Teacher. She is an avid blogger, a massively connected educator, a podcaster, a classroom teacher, and a technology coordinator for a…
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Sprint #1MillionProject
The digital divide is a real thing. Many students do not have internet access at home, and many do. It is easy, especially for anyone reading this blog, listening to my podcast, or working walking down the street in most areas, to forget that there are still families out there that don’t have internet access.…
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Mandy Taylor – Episode 11
Hello, and welcome to Episode 11 of the Planning Period Podcast. I am so glad to be back with you guys every week again! This week, kids were back in school in my district, and it has been more than a little hectic, but things have been expanding on the podcast front too. The response…
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My Dad, Bob Shreffler – Episode 10
I’m thinking about Episode 10 as the start of Season 2, or maybe Season 1.5. Either way, I have had a blast making the first 9 episodes of this show, but I think my best stuff is definitely ahead of me. With that in mind, I thought that the best way to start out the…
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The Connected Educator Back-to-School Blues
Most teachers lament returning to work. While parents are ready for their little darlings to stop harassing them every hour of every day about going to the pool or theme parks or bowling or anything but sitting on the couch so we can work, teachers have the opposite. Our summer break is over, we have…
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Lamenting the Loss of Audio
After Jennie Magiera talked so passionately during her ISTE Keynote about telling our students’ stories, and our true stories, I decided that I would make it my mission this year to do exactly that. I would wipe away all pretense from my blog, remove the glossy coating, and just be real. In the effort of…
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Evan Jones and Other Students – Episode 9
My summer break is over. In just a few days, I will be back to school again, with two weeks of work to be done before students show up at our school for the 2017-2018 school year. My summer has been full of professional development opportunities, conferences, amazing conversations with other educators, meeting new people,…
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Flipped PD and The Future of this Blog
My summer is over. Let’s all lement that for a moment. Ok, moment is over. Time to talk about the future. Listeners of the podcast have probably already heard that I am obsessed with changing the PD model at my school. As I transition from Digital Coach to Curriculum Resource Teacher (in charge of all…
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Allison Keskimaki – Episode 8
Hello, and welcome to Episode 8 of the Planning Period Podcast. Thank you all for joining me so far, and to all my new listeners this week, hey! On this week’s episode, I interview Allison Keskimaki (and don’t worry, I’ll butcher that even worse in the episode). She is the Technology Integration Specialist for the…
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Toby Hurst – #ISTE17 – Episode 7
This is a special episode this week, as I just spent the last 5 days or so in San Antonio, Texas for ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education annual conference. This is Mecca for EdTech, and I have been lucky enough to attend 3 years now. My guest for this week’s episode is…
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