David Berner talks with Thomas Riddle at his first ever ISTE, author of Imagineering Education and assistant director at Roper Mountain Science Center in Greenville, South Carolina. Thomas is featured in the Timeless Heroes documentary and spent the days before the conference at Disney World with his sons, which sets up the whole conversation perfectly.

His book asks one question: what if we designed schools the way Disney designs theme parks? Thomas breaks it down into four pillars, story, space, experience, and people, and explains why a tool or a beautiful building only matters as much as the person using it. He also gets into why transformation has to start with the educator before it can reach a single student, using the same logic as putting your own oxygen mask on first.

They geek out over using pop culture to teach, from Star  ...