Titan Talk: Teacher Led Bi-Monthly Podcast

Titan Talk is a podcast co-hosted by SMUSD social studies teachers Mr. Peter Paccone and Mr. Andrew Gayl. Mr. Paccone and Mr. Gayl are both teachers at the high school. Mr. José Caire and Ms. Robbin Rae McCulloch have also hosted Titan Talk as guests hosts. Because Mr. Paccone is the main host, he writes the scripts and edits the audios as well. He says that this idea popped in his head last year, during the summer, as he took a bike ride along the beach.

When asked, Mr.Paccone explains what Titan Talks is, he says, “Titan Talk is a bi-monthly teacher hosted podcast, interview formatted teacher podcast. We interview two kinds of educators. Those who have a story worth sharing and those have something of value to say regarding teaching, testing, and learning.” The podcast is hosted every other month and it focuses on the lives of teachers, or even students, that have stories worth sharing. Previous teachers that have been interviewed are: Mr. Patrick Stopford from HMS, Mrs. Gail Denham from Carver, Mr. Scott Barton from SMHS, along with some high school teachers outside of SMHS. Teachers that have been interviewed don’t just come from SMUSD schools. Many are experts in the field of education. Past interviews have also included nationally acclaimed Project Based Learning (PBL) experts Dr. Daniel Ching, Dr. Michael Mcdowell, and Mr. Bob Lenz.

Mr. Paccone says that the favorite interview he has done is the Trevor Packer interview, “He had so much of value to offer all AP teachers. So many changes he described with many more on the horizon.” The guests of Titan Talk are all so passionate about sharing stories. Even the hosts are passionate to hear them. Paccone also explains that his favorite process of creating these interviews is the editing. “Though each podcast takes me about four hours to edit, I like being able to use the editing tools to make everyone sound so much better.”

As this podcast grows, students have also started to become a part of it as well. There have been students interviewing students as well and teachers interviewing educators. As of now, there have been about ten recorded interviews, and three of these interviews have been students. This successful podcast launched in February of 2020 and Titan Talk interviews have been booked for the rest of the year. The podcast is available on Spotify, Lipsyn, Google Play and will soon be available to listen  on iTunes. If you would like to be interviewed, please contact either Mr. Paccone at [email protected] or Mr. Gayl at [email protected].

You can also click the link below to listen to the podcasts on Spotify: