Culture Corner: Bringing History to Life with Engaging Online Outschool Classes

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Wondering what the Culture Corner Academy is? Or are you interested in finding out what and Outschool Academy is? You’re in the right place!

In this article, we highlight the best features of our podcast on this very topic as well as offer the podcast links for your listening enjoyment. So let’s jump in!

Show Notes

Autumn Williams is a passionate online educator and the innovative mind behind the Culture Corner Academy on Outschool. Known for her dedication to diversity and inclusion, she specializes in teaching African-American history and current events.

As a single mother, she embraced online teaching as a flexible income stream and has since built lasting relationships with her students through her engaging and extended class lengths.

Autumn’s dynamic storytelling approach brings history to life, making her classes a favorite among upper elementary through early high school students.

With the Culture Corner Academy, she seeks to provide project-based learning that dives deeper into cultural themes often overlooked in traditional textbooks. Through her work, Autumn aims to instill pride in her students and inspire them to appreciate history.

David Cole, a seasoned education professional with over 15 years of experience in coaching, curriculum development, and public speaking, brings his wealth of knowledge to “The Global Classroom” podcast.

With a track record of successfully designing over 170 ESL lessons and directing large-scale events like the 2023 Global Teaching Summit, he skillfully interviews online educators, sharing valuable tips, tools, and resources.

David’s passion for fostering collaborative engagement and driving educational success shines through as he inspires online educators to reach their full potential for themselves and their students.

Executive Summary

This episode features Autumn, an online teacher who has revolutionized the way students learn history through her online academy, Culture Corner. Autumn’s courses provide in-depth coverage that goes beyond the cursory exploration typically offered in traditional curricula.

These lessons focus on African-American history and diversity/inclusion. Using dynamic storytelling, multimedia resources, and an engaging teaching style, she brings history to life, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of cultural themes among her students.

Autumn’s venture into online teaching began as a flexible income stream while being a single mom, leading ESL classes. However, her passion for sharing impactful historical narratives led her to establish Culture Corner.

In addition to her innovative teaching methods, Autumn shares advice on online teaching while traveling, including tips on ensuring reliable Wi-Fi, having backup equipment, creating curriculum templates, and offering specialized topics.

Through Culture Corner, Autumn provides a unique, memorable learning experience, making her courses an ideal supplement to traditional education, particularly for parents seeking a more comprehensive view of African-American history for their children.

Topics Covered

• Teaching history online, with a focus on African-American history classes
• Online curriculum and content creation
• Designing engaging virtual classrooms
• Building an online educational business
• Traveling while teaching online (for digital nomad teachers)
• Utilizing teaching tools and platforms for online instruction
• Incorporating multimedia activities in online classes

Listen to Season 1, episode [#8] of The Global Classroom! Listen on iTunes and Spotify, or watch on YouTube.

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Introduction

Learning history in school often involves memorizing dates, names, and events that can feel disconnected from the compelling stories of the past. Autumn is an online teacher who is changing that experience for her students with Culture Corner.

Her academy that delivers engaging project-based African-American history classes. The academy offers year-long African-American history classes for grades 3-8, each exploring history from unique perspectives.

I specialize in diversity and inclusion classes. African American history, African American current events.

autumn Williams

Section 1: Autumn’s Background in Online and In-Person Teaching

Autumn first got into online teaching by leading ESL classes as a flexible way to earn income as a single mom. She taught English in-person for a year while living in Spain.

In 2019, Autumn switched to teaching history online since sharing impactful stories from the past had always been a passion of hers. Now, she specializes in African-American history and diversity/inclusion classes for her personalized online academy.

The goal is to actually make it physical micro school. My son wants to go to high school in person.

Autumn Williams

Section 2: The Culture Corner Academy for Exploring Black History

Autumn created an online academy called Culture Corner with the goal of providing access to Black history curriculum that goes beyond surface-level coverage. Her academy offers year-long African-American history classes spanning third to eighth grades.

Each grade examines history from a different lens and perspective. The courses dive deeper into cultural themes and topics rarely expanded upon in traditional textbooks.

This helps build a stronger multicultural foundation in students rather than just highlighting the same iconic figures every February for Black History Month.

I teach a lot of really hard topics and it’s really important for me for the kids to just feel safe learning those types of things.

Autumn Williams

Section 3: Teaching History in an Engaging, Student-Centered Way

Autumn brings history to life by teaching through dynamic storytelling to captivate students’ interest and imagination. She heavily incorporates visuals, multimedia clips, and uses an enthusiastic tone that pulls students into feeling immersed in the past.

Her longer class lengths also lend themselves well to forming strong connections and trust between her and students – critical elements when covering sensitive topics. Autumn’s passion for making learning fun and impactful shines through her animated approach.

History. And I think it’s a little disheartening to maybe when we hear, like, a specific narrative all the time and then when we kind of reteach ourselves and it’s kind of like a sense of disappointment

autumn WIlliams

Section 4: Tips for Online Teaching While Traveling

As a full-time traveler who teaches online, Autumn has accumulated wisdom around the logistics:

• Thoroughly vet accommodations’ WiFi speeds and reliability before booking
• Have back-up equipment on-hand like chargers, headphones, and even an extra laptop
• Create templates for curriculum materials and slides to save design time
• Offer specialized, niche topics that stand out rather than something readily available

Conclusion

Autumn delivers a truly unique, engaging online history program through her Culture Corner Academy. From exploring lesser known stories to difficult cultural topics, students come away with a memorable learning experience that sticks with them.

Any parent looking to supplement their child’s education can find an ideal solution through her selection of virtual African-American history classes.

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Key Takeaways & Timestamps

1:03 – Autumn specializes in diversity/inclusion, African-American history current events classes

2:29 – Started teaching ESL online as a flexible income stream as a single mom

5:27 – Builds lasting student relationships with longer class lengths

6:20 – Caters to upper elementary through early high school students

8:17 – Teaches history through dynamic storytelling that feels like gossip

12:17 – Typically based in Virginia but travels full time outside of summers

14:57 – Recently niched down her content area more to stand out

17:42 – Culture Corner Academy aims to provide African-American history project-based classes year-round

18:47 – Classes dive deeper into cultural themes rarely covered in traditional textbooks

23:28 – Wants kids to have pride rather than disappointment in US history

25:08 – Enjoyment teaching specialized niche history topics with her own curriculum

29:09 – Created 48 lessons for her new 3-8 grade American history course series

31:48 – Relies on platforms like Canva and Genial for teaching tools

34:29 – Key tips for online teaching while traveling full-time

43:52 – Academy allows hiring other teachers to scale classes

Transcript

00:00
David Cole
All right. Hello, everybody, and welcome today’s session. Today we’re going to be talking with Autumn. Autumn is dedicated to spreading cultural awareness, diversity around the world through intercultural learning. So he’s got a very unique take on teaching. She works with Outschool, and let’s give her a chance to introduce herself. So. Hello, Autumn. How are you today?

00:41
Autumn
Good, how are you?

00:43
David Cole
Doing? Great.

00:45
Autumn
Thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

00:49
David Cole
This is going to be a fun conversation.

01:03
Autumn
Well, hello. My name is Autumn. I am a virtual online history teacher. I specialize in diversity and inclusion classes. African American history, African American current events. I teach, I guess, individually on outschool, and I also teach through an academy that I created on outschool as well. We also offer classes off of outschool as well through our website. And I’ve been teaching history since maybe 2019. I did ESL online for a couple of years. Pandemic hit some political stuff in Asia. I’m sure you remember that and kind of hit the fan for me personally. So I kind of know I don’t want to stop teaching, but I want to teach something that really enjoy, which has always been history. So here I am, and I love it more than ever.

02:02
David Cole
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. So you said you got your start teaching. Was it teaching in the classroom first, or did you start with online stuff?

02:13
Autumn
No, I actually started with online because I was a single mom and really expensive in the US. And I just was looking for some extra money. I’ve always loved kids, and I taught on various ESL sites. VIP.

02:29
David Cole
Kid.

02:29
Autumn
Go. Go, kid. I think I did magic ears for a little bit. I really liked them, but the times were super hard for me. But I love the flexibility. I love the fact and I was so inspired by teachers who did it full time, and they had all this flexibility and all this time with their kids. And I’ve taught in person in Spain. I did that last year for a year, where I taught English in Spain for a year. So those are kind of my two, I guess you could say my two fortes.

03:02
David Cole
Yeah, I got my start with VIP Kid as well. It was great while it lasted, I have to admit. It was better when I traveled to Asia. And I know that you’ve done some traveling yourself and changing up time zones. How does that work with your teaching so hard?

03:18
Autumn
But I think sticking hometown my home time zone, which is Eastern because I’m from Washington, DC. Definitely helps a lot because I have my schedule done that way. A lot of my students now are US. Based. I do have a lot of international kids, except they’re more based in Australia, so I can kind of work it out in different ends of the spectrum. But really just kind of keeping it eastern really helps me. So if I have students maybe who are in different time zones, I just always try to keep it as Eastern as possible because it helps me not be all over the place where I’m teaching continuously.

04:02
David Cole
Yeah, that could be a headache trying to figure out this time zone, that time zone, the other time zone, and get your schedule just right. And I love talking to teachers who made that break from China because there are a lot of students, yes, you can teach in China, but there’s a lot of students all around the world. How do you find your students? How do you retain them? What’s your strategy?

04:27
Autumn
So I’m a big believer in the fact that there’s somebody for everybody, right? There’s a teaching style for everybody. And I think outschool is a great resource and platform for the fact that you can really, one, try different teachers, but it kind of gives you more of a flexibility to try teachers out, I guess you can say. A lot of my students are regulars. A lot of outschool teachers that I talk to, they always have influx of new students coming in constantly all the time, kind of switching out. It’s a little different for me. I get a big influx kind of like in the beginning of the year because I set my classes on a year long or semester long schedule. Really get that influx of new often. But my goal is to really just make a lasting impression and I really build relationships with them having longer classes.

05:27
Autumn
So ultimately we form that relationship, that trust, that safe space. I teach a lot of really hard topics and it’s really important for me for the kids to just feel safe learning those types of things. And in my opinion, once they really feel safe enough to learn those things in a great environment with somebody they know is there for them if they need to talk about certain things, just has a lasting impression. So a lot of my students I’ve had for literally years, and I’ve just grown with them and I get a lot of referrals. So that’s kind of more where my student base comes in. And a lot of my private classes are from when I taught in person in Spain. So things like that don’t do too much marketing.

06:13
David Cole
What’s the age range for your students then? Because you said your concept is a little high.

06:20
Autumn
Yeah, when I started, I don’t know, I think initially a lot of I don’t know, at least for me, I was kind of nervous about the older kids and when I first started out school, because I loved the little kids on VIP kid and ESL, so I kind of just stuck with that. But then as I started teaching more because I like teaching like the hard stuff, I like teaching stuff that they wouldn’t learn in school. So unfortunately, that usually means that I’m teaching stuff that’s probably not age appropriate for the students that I used to teach. But I really enjoy the older kids now, so I do have a range of classes, but for the most part, they’re centered around, like, upper elementary, middle school, early high school.

07:08
David Cole
So a little bit about your teaching specialties. So where did you learn to teach this way? Did you just kind of grow into it?

07:20
Autumn
Yeah, actually, I kind of just really act like myself. I’m like a big talker in general, and if I talk, I like to always reference different stories. And growing up, I was not a big fan of school, but history always left a lasting impression on me, and I noticed that the reason I retained it so well was because it was kind of like it was like a story. It’s like, really good gossip. Right? So I love documentaries, I love visuals. I love when the person teaching you this information is really animated and into it where it really feels like you’re just engulfed in this story, where you can see it happening all around you. And I love films and movies and learning through that. So I think it just kind of came through just basically how I retain information the best.

08:17
David Cole
Excellent. Yeah. History was always one of my favorites growing up as well, because you’re right, it is like it’s a story and you can follow it, and then you can dive deeper yourself if you need to, because your teachers can only show you so much.

08:32
Autumn
Yes, exactly. Which I think is even I think it’s more fun. Right? It’s like uncovering different secrets and scavenger hunt. Like, I’ve always learned this in school. Well, you start thinking about it. Well, what happened to them after that? Why was she even there in the first place? So it’s just really fun.

08:51
David Cole
Definitely. Now, what do you like the most about online teaching?

08:58
Autumn
I love the flexibility. I travel full time too, so I love the fact that I can take my kids with me. A lot of my really big regulars, they love the fact that I travel full time because every time they talk to me, they’re like, Where are you? Where are you now? Where are you now? If I tell them I’m leaving, they like to get a virtual tour of the surroundings. I’ll show them pictures. So I think that’s, like, the biggest plus. Also, when I was a single mom, corporate America was just not for me. There was no flexibility. I had both my kids. I just always felt like I had to pick between working or being a mom. It was just always really hard. So I love the fact that, one, I love what I do, and two, I can just take it with me wherever.

09:49
Autumn
So that’s huge, in my opinion.

09:53
David Cole
Yeah. I love traveling and teaching so many different places. And yes, you can share that with your students as well. Where’s the coolest place that you’ve taught from?

10:05
Autumn
Let’s see. I’d want to say coolest place I’ve taught from. Usually it wasn’t by choice. I always tried to be home or like, in my Airbnb and set up. But as you know, traveling full time, it doesn’t always end up that way. I’ve taught in taxis before. I’ve airports on trains and charter buses.

10:35
David Cole
Wow. Interesting ones.

10:38
Autumn
Yeah. I’ll teach wherever I am. Type of teacher, for sure.

10:47
David Cole
I get it. Traveling full time, sometimes you got to be a little flexible. You never know. You try to schedule it. You try to say, I’m going to be home for that. I try to do everything on the computer, but we travel with an iPad just in case we got the SIM card. Just in case.

11:07
Autumn
Yeah, exactly. So it’s all about preparation. When you’re a traveling teacher, they need to have a reality show on it because I think some people would be quite entertained by what we go through.

11:20
David Cole
That would be a really interesting reality show, actually. Amazing Race with teachers. With online teachers or something.

11:28
Autumn
Yeah, literally.

11:32
David Cole
Are you home based somewhere right now, or are you just traveling full time right now?

11:38
Autumn
So I’m originally from Northern Virginia area. Washington, DC area. So that’s like our home base. We usually stay there from June to late fall, so we really do all of our traveling, like, past the holidays into spring. Kind of just depends. We’re kind of flexible. But summertime is my kids time with their other side of their family, so I kind of go with them. And we get to enjoy all the American food again and all that good stuff. Really? Like a long summer. We’re usually back in the States.

12:17
David Cole
Absolutely. So what advice would you give to someone who’s looking to get into this lifestyle? Teaching, online, traveling, the whole thing.

12:31
Autumn
You just got to rip the Band Aid off and be really brave. I’ve gone everywhere by myself, and when I look back on it, even myself, I’m the one that did it. I get a sense of nervousness and anxiety, like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe I went that far alone with my kids. But it’s normal to be completely nervous. It’s normal to think it’s crazy, because it is, but it’s a good crazy and just kind of forcing yourself, right? Just putting yourself out there, really just taking that leap, and you just will not regret it. But it definitely takes you forcing yourself, and I’m sure you can agree to that. Anything that’s like, out of the norm initially, it’s scary, and that’s completely normal. So I think just really jumping, ripping the Band Aid off, getting it over with, and then it’s just smooth sailing for the most part.

13:28
David Cole
I totally understand how that whole process goes now. How was it starting with outschool, like application process? Were you nervous? Did you have a mentor? How’s that all go.

13:44
Autumn
I did not have a mentor, but I did it with a friend who also taught on VIP kids. So were kind of in the same realm know, stuff hit the fan. We’re like, you know, we’ve heard a lot of teachers having success on here. Let’s give it a shot. So we kind of just did it together. We didn’t have any issues with the application. It seemed pretty straightforward. I think it was really hard just kind of getting your rhythm and not kind of falling into the trap of trying to follow what other teachers do, especially if maybe they’re like an influencer or they’re kind of telling you about their success, depending on what you teach, the way they teach, or the type of classes they offer, or the frequency that they offer them. It might just not work good for your niche. It might not work good for the types of classes that you want to do.

14:37
Autumn
So I think just being really aware of one, what you want to teach really niching down, because Outschool does have tons and tons of teachers now, but if you’re specific enough, you’ll be successful, in my opinion. So just really niching down picking what.

14:57
David Cole
You guys want, you’ve got a niche, that’s for sure. Your niche is a little bit different and very fine tuned, so that’s really good. It’s just like with anything you do is really important.

15:13
Autumn
Oh, 100%.

15:23
David Cole
Looks like we lost you here, Autumn.

15:30
Autumn
I just noticed that I just wasn’t sometimes you just feel like there’s something missing. I wasn’t different enough. That’s what I was getting at. You do research about your competition. You’re kind of seeing what everybody’s offering, and I’m looking online, I’m like, okay, there’s twelve classes on rows of parks. The only difference between mine and theirs is maybe we make a bus, or it just wasn’t different enough. And that’s really where I niche down. I’m like, well, what do I really like? That’s super different than everything else. And it’s like it’s the hard stuff, right? It’s the stuff that maybe people are not comfortable teaching their kids. You have a huge knowledge in that. And I actually just recently niched down maybe like, just a year ago. So ever since I did that, it’s been a lot better, and I actually enjoy it a lot more.

16:23
David Cole
It’s really important to enjoy what you do. I totally agree. So since we’re on that contest of you niching down, tell me more about this Culture Corner Academy.

16:37
Autumn
Okay. Culture Corner Academy is an academy online academy. The goal is to actually make it physical micro school. My son wants to go to high school in person, so we have plans to kind of settle down back in my hometown. So the goal is to kind offer it physically in my hometown. But the idea of Culture Corner is that I wanted to give kids access to black history. All the you know, not just in February, not birthday, just, you know, typical school. I was in the public school. Know, we always just learned about the same things every year in a different way. And the goal is to just make it year long class, basically, and access to a class. So I have a few that were more semester long, but my new series, I guess you could say I’m offering classes for third to eigth grade African American History for the full year.

17:42
Autumn
And they’re each different, which is really also unique, so they can move up with the program, and they each examine Black History from different perspectives while also learning about the bigger picture. So they’ll still learn about things that they would probably learn about in school, except we’re basically diving a lot deeper. For example, my third grade class, which already has four students, I’m super excited. I’m expecting this one to be a big one. They are going to be learning about African American culture, but they’re going to be learning about the references and where that culture has kind of come from and grown and what parts have even come from West African cultures and how that has developed in the United States into the African American culture that we see today. So that’s a really unique class that they would definitely not learn about in, you know, a lot of the things that they’ll learn, they might even just notice it in real life during certain, maybe holidays, maybe if they meet new friends, things like that.

18:47
Autumn
And my promo is actually a 250 coupon off of that class, so I will give you the coupon.

18:54
David Cole
Awesome. I might actually put my kid in that class. That sounds awesome. I like the idea because I grew up in the south and Virginia, and well, American history was taught not necessarily accurately, and I didn’t at the time. So we had to learn as we grew older, we had to do our own deep dive to find out, oh, what really happened type situation. And so what you’re doing having this available to kids at a younger age sounds amazing to me. No matter what the school is doing, if the parents want the kid to have that kind of knowledge, they can showcase your type of lesson, which is amazing.

19:38
Autumn
Exactly. And I think that a lot of what they learn in school also has a lot of, I guess you could say African American history intertwined in all of those different stages of American history. I mean, you really could really teach them right next to each other. But I’m sure with time and the narratives changed over the years, so it’s just definitely a unique opportunity to be able to do that. And yeah, I definitely agree with you on the learning. Kind of like we had to relearn history. I don’t know about you, but I kind of felt like, well, why did.

20:15
David Cole
They tell me that I’ve had so many conversations with friends and family after the fact because I moved to Central America after that, to Chicago and stuff, and I learned that it wasn’t called Lee Jackson King Day for everybody else in the world. Only in Virginia. Only in Virginia. Thankfully, they corrected that nowadays and everything. But still, when I learned that was one thing, I was like, what else was different? What else should I relearn type situation.

20:52
Autumn
Yeah, sorry. And I think when we learn that way, we definitely have, like, a perspective on certain things. In my opinion, it’s good just to know the good, the bad, the ugly, because that’s what it is, right? History. And I think it’s a little disheartening to maybe when we hear, like, a specific narrative all the time and then when we kind of reteach ourselves and it’s kind of like a sense of disappointment, maybe. And I always feel like if I just learned the original way, I wouldn’t feel that because I don’t want to feel a disappointment in my country or about my country’s history. I just want to be proud of it because I know it. So I think it’s kind of trying to kind of heal from that. It’s definitely kind of like a trauma, in my opinion.

21:45
David Cole
Yeah, totally. There’s the good, the bad, the ugly. You take it all in and figure out what the truth is. I love that. And that seems to be what your type of curriculum is focused on. How did you decide to make this type of a curriculum based on histories?

22:06
Autumn
Really, to be honest, because it’s just something I think I would want. And a lot of it well, I guess it kind of stemmed from there was a lot of controversy about AP African American history course. And it kind of got me thinking because that’s I guess a higher level course, right, for seniors, juniors. And I’m kind of like, well, to me, that was really cool that maybe kids can be offered something year round like that. And it just kind of got me thinking, like, well, that’d be really cool if all kids could all ages could have some type of access to that, because I think a lot of that curriculum is a lot of information. And to be honest, I think it could have really been split up throughout the grades because it is a lot of information. So I think maybe slowly learning it and all the time would just kind of help to create, give our kids just a more multicultural historical foundation.

23:05
Autumn
And I think it would be really cool if people could offer this of all types of histories. I would love for my kids to do something that I’m doing on, like, asian American history, eurocentric American history, indigenous history. I would I would absolutely love it because US. History is so much more than the narrative that were given as kids.

23:28
David Cole
Unfortunately, in school, they only have so much time that they can focus on things. And I get that. So, yeah, you don’t get to go into your Chinese American history and how all that played into where they are now, or Jewish American history or Irish American history and all the horrors and the good stuff came through it all or came of it.

23:53
Autumn
I love that. And they also had to deal with oppression. And I just think it’s so important that kids kind of see all aspects of it. I always wish I was more versatile, but unfortunately, I’m not. But I think it would be really.

24:11
David Cole
Cool to offer you do you? You do your specialty.

24:19
Autumn
Exactly. And I do think it’s up and coming. I’ve even seen on outschool, more specific group based history. So I do think it’s a new wave, which is really exciting.

24:31
David Cole
I think that’s one of the benefits of online education and allowing it to be an extracurricular or something for students. Because parents can say, okay, I want my student or my child to experience this or learn about this. So let’s find this course. And it’s not that expensive, so my kid can have this little thing on the weekends or whatever it might be. So it’s really cool.

24:57
Autumn
Yes, exactly. Love it.

25:00
David Cole
In your opinion, what are the best things about teaching online with your own custom made materials and curriculum?

25:08
Autumn
Just no rules. You can go off grid, and it’s more student based, in my opinion, when you use your own curriculum. Right. Because at least a lot of my kids, especially history, they want to know more. Well, kind of like what you said, what happened there? Maybe we don’t have enough time to go there, but because we’re using our own curriculum, right, we can kind of veer off whenever we want and so on and so forth. So I think just having more control over your classroom ultimately, and then what your kids are learning, I think that’s huge. Especially when you kind of have to follow curriculum, especially if it’s very watched, I guess, or measured. Right. I mean, you really don’t have time. You really can’t veer off. And to me, it’s a disadvantage to the students because there’s definitely other aspects of learning other than what’s being measured on a test.

26:07
David Cole
Yeah, there’s several different ways people have taught. You taught from some of the online schools. They monitor you. They give you the material of your own. Now you’ve done your own material, that type of thing. And even in Spain, you said you’ve taught in person courses and stuff like that. So what would you say are the benefits to each or the disadvantages to each?

26:32
Autumn
I think the disadvantage for using your own is that it’s a lot of work behind it. Right? I mean, it’s a lot of extra research. You can’t just grab the worksheet from the ebook and print it out. You got to make your worksheet, which also is probably more geared to what you already know your students have retained. So it’s just kind of like extra steps, I think, in person, specifically in really you can’t really control the material that you’re teaching. For example, the material and the curriculum I used in Spain was so obviously, you know, I speak American English. There are a few words and a few phrases that they say completely different than I do naturally. One example was and all my kids got this wrong on the test, so I had to go and explain, like, I don’t say it like that. I told them that’s how you say it.

27:34
Autumn
In British English, they say, I’m going to have a shower. But in American English, I think we say, we’re going to take a shower. That’s completely different. So everybody got that wrong, and I definitely had to explain myself, but not my fault. So I think that’s the harder part is you really have to be and really follow the guidelines. So I definitely like using my own curriculum.

28:00
David Cole
I totally agree. You mentioned that the disadvantage to making your own is taking time and taking research. How long does it take you to make a lesson?

28:14
Autumn
So long, to be honest. I mean, it’s so long. I want to say, this series I did, I completed, it’s probably taken me like ten months so far. And I do it really just in my free time because I teach like nine to five, so I teach throughout the day. So I really just work on it on the weekends when my kids are sleeping. I mean, constantly. If I’m working on it’s, usually three hour periods, and then I’ll give myself a break. But it’s long. But the benefit is once you finish it, then it’s a good resource, especially if you have everything organized. That’s also a tip I would give somebody when you’re making it, just go really slow right. And have it organized, so that way when you teach it again, it’s a lot easier and more worth your time.

29:09
David Cole
I agree. Making lessons is time consuming. And how many lessons are in your series right now?

29:17
Autumn
Right now they’re meeting twice a week for twelve weeks each semester. So 48, maybe.

29:30
David Cole
Well, good. That’s a lot of lessons.

29:32
Autumn
It took you grades three to eight, so I mean, it’s taken me forever.

29:40
David Cole
Yeah.

29:41
Autumn
And then I’m offering a flex version of it. So the self paced version is on the platform that I told you about earlier, so that I have to kind of put that in there. So it takes a long time. That part is not done yet.

29:58
David Cole
I get it. Well, what tips do you have for creating custom program for teaching? If somebody wants to get into this and try to do something that they’re.

30:10
Autumn
Knowledgeable about, I think just really coming up with a template, I guess you could say, and just being able to just change the different fields. I used to not do that, and it used to take me a lot longer because a lot of my time was taken, like reorganizing stuff and putting it in places. So now I just have different templates, especially in my planner, and then I can just kind of copy paste, or just fill in the blanks where I need to, especially like my slides. I also think I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from students where they like the fact that my slides look the same when I use slides, and the information is different, so it’s not too much going on at one time. So I think kind of just picking a template, sticking with it, and then changing as needed.

31:08
David Cole
Totally agree with that. Yeah. Templates are good whether you make your own, whether you get something from somebody else, modify it to make it your own, but you want it to be able to work for you. And it also saves you time. It’s not necessarily cookie cutter, but it does save you time because you have all these different slides you can play with and work with.

31:28
Autumn
Yeah, and canva is great for that. Yeah, I personally use canva.

31:32
David Cole
I use canva for tons of images, some of the slide stuff, but Gina Lee, we start with PowerPoint and I mean yeah. So there’s so many different tools out there for people. What are your favorite tools besides canva?

31:48
Autumn
I love I learned about it working in Spain because it’s a big program over here that they use to teach. And there was a template on there that actually inspired my platform. Did you ever see the Halloween one where they knock on the different doors and answer questions? So that template actually inspired me to make, I guess you could say, like, certain classes. I have like, a holiday class on there. That’s really cool. Oh, I could show you guys that one. That one’s really cool. I’m actually super proud of that one. But that’s like my favorite platform ever. I love it.

32:40
David Cole
It’s so easy to use and they’ve been adding so many features lately that I love now that you can do reveal and hide it again. Now they first had the reveal I didn’t know that. Reveal. But now, just recently, I think in the last couple of weeks, I noticed I can click a button to say it’ll, hide it again afterwards, so that’s even cooler.

33:01
Autumn
See, that’s what I need. I love that. I love it.

33:07
David Cole
So, before we get into seeing some of your stuff, what tips do you have for teaching online while traveling?

33:18
Autumn
Internet. Internet. Internet. Internet. I would say, do not be shy about asking for Internet speeds. I’m very serious about that, especially with private hosts. I always ask for a screenshot, always 100%, and I’m pretty adamant that I always review. And I like everything to be as I’m told. And if it’s not as fast. That’s fine. I’ll just find somewhere else. But Internet is a big one because that’s like one your whole business, everything. You can’t do anything without Internet. I always do get SIM cards for backup, but as you know, depending on where you are, it just depends. Sometimes it might just not be a good backup. So a good computer. I would also say backup chargers. I don’t know if this has happened to you, but my chargers have not worked or the computer shut off and then, you know, stuck. If I’m in a remote area, I can’t just go run to Walmart and go get another charger.

34:29
David Cole
And usually I have a oh, okay. Well, thankfully, I travel with my wife and my son, and we all have computers now, so if something happens to mine, I’ll just flip over to one of theirs because that’s perfect.

34:46
Autumn
I’ve actually thought because we’re going to do Asia next year, I’ve played around with the idea of maybe getting an extra one just to have like a backup, but it makes me nervous because you never know. Sometimes I’ve dropped my backpack before. I don’t know if my computer broke. So there’s just too many what ifs and you’re too far to really replace it either in a timely fashion or you’re going to pay tons of money. In Europe, the Apple products are so much more expensive here. My charger broke and I had to pay I think it was like €120 for a new one. And I looked on Amazon and there’s a generic one that I could have got for like $20. So stuff like that. Definitely backup charger, backup computer stuff, backup headphones, if you can, even if they’re like the buds. But yeah, Internet and equipment.

35:43
David Cole
Internet, yes. Very cool. All right, so let’s take a look at some of your stuff. Let’s show people what it looks like and how they can use it.

35:55
Autumn
Okay, let’s see. Hold on. I did get it to work. So this is the platform for all of the flex classes. So any flex class that they oh, hold on. Here we go. Oh, can you see it now?

36:22
David Cole
Yeah, there we go.

36:24
Autumn
Okay, so this is the platform that they would use for any flex class with me. So the only difference would be what the specific class is. This is a book study that I’m doing this year. And then the kids just enter and basically they’re in like a virtual school. I call it justice high. So they come in. This is supposed to be like my office. And then they click here for any just kind of like, guess you could say housekeeping rules about how to work out school platforms, what to expect, things like that. And then they’re in the virtual school. And basically I give them this link and they have access to every single lesson in the entire class so they can work at their complete own pace. And I purposely don’t give them a map to the school because they like to explore on their own.

37:24
Autumn
So, for example, this would be like week one, and then you have all of your tasks that you would do every day. The book studies are a little bit longer because they use journal entries, but I encourage them to start from one and go to the last number. I also love to use padlet. That’s also a resource I like to use. And they do padlet every week where they do like, a check in. It might just have, like, a warm up video, but every assignment that they would do is in these numbers, their journal affection. They’ll have their extension activity and information on where they can post their, I guess you could say, their lessons. But it’s a whole school. So you go through each door.

38:12
David Cole
I love your design. This is a really cool way of doing it.

38:17
Autumn
Yeah, they have a whole school. Week four go back and I just have them kind of play around. And each classroom looks different too, which I really think is fun. But I’m not done. This is the coolest part. I’m telling you, I’m super proud about this thing. As you see, there’s lockers. Pick a locker. And then they can decorate their own locker. And then they can drag and drop. And then I have them basically screenshot their final product in the outschool classroom so they can kind of talk to each other like, oh, yours looks cool, mine looks cool. So all they have to do is screenshot to save their design and then they can keep decorating it as much as they want.

39:09
David Cole
That’s awesome.

39:10
Autumn
Let’s see. I think they’re hold on, I know there’s one more feature. Okay, so this is Library. So we’re the side jaguars. So you’ll see a couple references. Okay, hold on. Here we go. Oh, that’s what it is. Think this way. See, I don’t even know how to get through my own thing. So cafeteria, which I love, this is week eight. So they have the Jaguar symbol little school pride. This is also a little fun interactive activity. They can click here and then they can screenshot their own lunch. You know, that’ll be like activity for the week where I’ll tell them to do their own lunch trays and then they can drag and drop and make their own lunch trays. And I think I have one more feature that’s unique from this. Oh, see, look. And I don’t even have a back button to show you guys.

40:20
Autumn
Darn. I just noticed that I need to add that.

40:25
David Cole
Yeah, I know. I go through some of my lessons sometimes like, oh, somebody had a back button, or My Darn might really help. Sometimes you forget the little things sometimes.

40:38
Autumn
Yeah, it’s like a little well, my students get really they’re like, Peter Adam, I can’t get out of the room. Like okay. It’s okay. Just restart it’s like an escape room. Yeah, kind of. And the last feature is they can go to the gym, so I switch that out every week. They can go to the gym, and then they’ll have a link to a game, like through Gimkit or blicket or like a fun game that I find online. Here we go. They can go to the gym, and then they can play the game of the week. So hit that. And then they’ll go to whatever game they’re doing for the week.

41:29
David Cole
Very cool. I can see all the canva images and stuff. It’s really nice.

41:35
Autumn
Oh, yep. And canva is so easy. You just make it in canva, put it in and just put the buttons.

41:43
David Cole
Yeah. Have you ever used Ed puzzle or anything for some of the different types of learning?

41:50
Autumn
I did. I used to do them for my Flex classes, but I don’t know, I just found it so kind of boring. I felt bad for the kids. It’s like they were just kind of listening, and to me, it’s interactive. But I felt like from the kids perspective, it probably wasn’t super exciting.

42:10
David Cole
I guess it really depends on the video that you’re able to find and use, because some history videos can be very boring. Some people find a way to make them very interesting. Yeah.

42:22
Autumn
I might just do some more training on that one, but the ones I did, I’m like, oh, it just feels like they’re kind of dry.

42:31
David Cole
Well, do you have a special promotion? You mentioned it earlier that you might have something today.

42:38
Autumn
Yes. So I have 250 off of any of the new series classes on Cultural Corner. So the full year black history classes, third grade through Eigth grade, they’re retailed at 450. So literally good chunk off. So 250 off of those classes, and they’re registered in semester. So we’re going to have fall semester and spring semester. But I expect it to be huge. I have a lot of interest in them already. I have three commitments four commitments for third grade. I have three commitments for Eigth grade already and sporadic ones for the other grade. So I think it’ll be a big hit because they don’t start till September.

43:29
David Cole
For those that are interested, we’ll have that link down below.

43:37
Autumn
Have fun with us.

43:42
David Cole
I kind of find a final note there. I was kind of curious. So you are a teacher on outschool, but you also created an academy for outschool. What’s the difference?

43:52
Autumn
So the academy the pro for an academy is you’re ultimately a business. Well, yes, you have to be a business to have an organization. But I’m able to hire teachers to basically teach my classes on that specific profile. So any classes that I have on that profile, I can hire qualified teachers, and then they can teach those classes in my place. It’s a huge pro because I’m kind of booked up with a lot of my personal classes, especially because I have a lot of regulars now and a lot of the popular times, I might be teaching six kids that really want to do this class at twelve, and I have a class at twelve. I can just have one of my teachers teach it while I’m already teaching. That’s nice.

44:46
David Cole
That is really nice. Yeah. So you’re basically building your own business with an academy and expanding it, so that’s really neat.

44:55
Autumn
Yes. And again, that’s like the plus, because I guess it stinks when maybe you have a really popular class or you have a really nice class on your personal page because you’re the one stuck teaching it unless you bring it over, but it takes away all your reviews and all your saves. So in my opinion, it’s just kind of better to leave it there. So I’m trying to transition maybe a little bit more to the academy, but we’ll see.

45:28
David Cole
Well, you definitely have an interesting story from start to your transition to where you are right now, traveling, teaching, exploring the world. Just sounds like a really cool life.

45:44
Autumn
Yeah, I love it. I love it.

45:48
David Cole
Well, thank you for taking some time to talk to us to inspire some new people out here, and hopefully we can get more people access to some of your history lessons since you’ve done all the work that then we have a chance to experience it as well. So that’s awesome.

46:05
Autumn
Yes, I would love to have you guys.

46:09
David Cole
All right, well, thank you very much, and I’m sure we’ll be in touch, and some of these viewers will be in touch with you soon too, I’m sure.

46:17
Autumn
Oh, yes, I hope so. I’m always here.

46:22
David Cole
All right, well, take care for today and we will see you online.

46:27
Autumn
Okay, sounds good. Bye.