Friday, October 28, 2016

LEAPING INTO 2016

As I start to look across time from inception of the idea of this commentary, we are in an era that began as Web 3.0---an interval when the Internet emerged with social media and the concept of facilitating and networking...moving away from teaching and programmed instruction. This process has led to the evolution of a true environment of on-line learning. Individuals have been growing up in the midst of a media feast, in which the medium is indeed the message. Content is shifting from facts to process.
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NaNoWriMo shut down after AI, content moderation scandals
Thursday, April 3, 2025

Amanda Silberling , TechCrunch , Apr 03, 2025 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) was a fun idea that started as a Yahoo discussion lost. Somewhere along the line it commercialized, forming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit (you might argue that this is non-commercial, but I struggle to understand why i... .. read more..

Watch Global & Local Live TV Online for Free
Thursday, April 3, 2025

Apr 03, 2025 Remember I Crave TV? This is the same. I have no idea how legal it is, so enjoy free Angolan TV while you can. "Watch Free Live TV from Around the World on tv.garden! Stream live news, sports, and entertainment—no subscription needed. Start watching now!" Via Alan Levine . Web:... .. read more..

Protect authors’ livelihoods from the unlicensed use of their work in A...
Thursday, April 3, 2025

Anna Ganley , Change.org , Apr 03, 2025 Referencing an article in the Atlantic that is, naturally, behind a paywall, this petition launched by The Society of Authors demands "that Meta is held to account by the UK government following allegations in the U.S. that authors' works have been use... .. read more..

A culture critic reflects on the limits of language -- and the magic of silence
Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer Hilton Als says we "don't actually have much silence left" in our world. His latest exhibition challenges the way we see art, identity and storytelling. .. read more..

Thyme for some healing soup recipes from around the world
Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Every culture has its own special soup. The belief is that a bowl will make you feel better if you're feeling under the weather, hung over or just in need of a pick-me-up. .. read more..

A civil rights leader's family airs its dirty laundry on Broadway in 'Purpose'
Tuesday, April 1, 2025

"Purpose" by playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, now on Broadway under the direction of longtime actress Phylicia Rashad, explores the generational conflicts in the civil rights movement. .. read more..

6 tales of mystery and mishap — all hitting book stores on April Fools' Day
Tuesday, April 1, 2025

New on the shelves this week: An obit writer writes — and drunkenly publishes — his own obituary. A Hungarian teen stumbles into adulthood. And geriatric sleuth Vera Wong returns. .. read more..

Palestinian soap gets UNESCO recognition as Israel's military operation close...
Tuesday, April 1, 2025

An age-old Palestinian tradition of making soap in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was recognized by UNESCO. A visit to one factory tells you why. .. read more..

Michelle Buteau's winsome 'Survival of the Thickest' is a natural selection
Tuesday, April 1, 2025

The delightful Netflix series Survival of the Thickest is about an up-and-coming stylist whose professional and personal ambitions go sideways when she finds herself newly single. With the help of her best friends, she recalibrates her life and steps outside her comfort zone to varying results. I... .. read more..

As their car started rolling down hill, a stranger rushed in to help
Monday, March 31, 2025

When Terry Hill was four, she and her two young siblings were left in the car by themselves as their father ran into a store. The car started moving and a young man saved their lives. .. read more..

Entire staff at federal agency that funds libraries and museums put on leave
Monday, March 31, 2025

The staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services was placed on administrative leave this morning, following a meeting between IMLS leadership and DOGE staff. .. read more..

Older viewers are turning to YouTube. It's recently led me back to some favor...
Monday, March 31, 2025

Plus, Kevin Bacon plays a bounty hunter in The Bondsman starting Thursday, and a new medical drama premieres on Netflix. .. read more..

'Adolescence' co-creator says 'maybe we're all accountable' for youth violence
Monday, March 31, 2025

The Netflix series follows a 13-year-old accused of murdering a girl from his school. Co-creator and star Stephen Graham says he read about similar crimes and wanted to know: "Why is this happening?" .. read more..

New articles: Intercultural Competencies; Library workshops; Signature pedago...
Monday, February 17, 2025

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New book: Finding and using information
Sunday, February 16, 2025

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NORDIS: AI Guide for teachers
Saturday, February 15, 2025

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A happy bookish Valentine's day
Friday, February 14, 2025

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Webinar: Browser-based Crawling of News Websites Behind Paywalls
Wednesday, February 12, 2025

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Philippines fact checking
Tuesday, February 11, 2025

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New articles: Data literacy; Academics' information needs; Peer review; Acade...
Monday, February 10, 2025

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The notion of Cognitive Authority
Sunday, February 9, 2025

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Call for proposals: RAILS
Friday, February 7, 2025

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New articles: ChatGPT; Librarian-Faculty mentorship
Thursday, February 6, 2025

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Call for papers: 17th Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries Inter...
Wednesday, February 5, 2025

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Rubbish books allegedly about information literacy - and one real book
Tuesday, February 4, 2025

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Media Literacy research and policy reports commissioned by Google
Monday, February 3, 2025

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Webinar: Artificial Intelligence: Which skills do I need?
Sunday, February 2, 2025

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#NewsLiteracyWeek
Friday, January 31, 2025

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Webinars: Data Literacy
Thursday, January 30, 2025

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AI: accessibility, summarising
Wednesday, January 29, 2025

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Webinars on health disinformation
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

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NFC Sticker Automation
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Here’s a geeky tale for you. We have an old Bluetooth stereo in our car that does not support CarPlay, and it irritatingly connects automatically to my iPhone in the mornings before school when I start the vehicle to warm it up. This evening I successfully configured a NFC sticker (37 cents... .. read more..

Advancing Media and Information Literacy in Mongolia
Monday, January 27, 2025

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Articles: digital literacy training; UK libraries' research agenda
Sunday, January 26, 2025

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Dynamic Audio Waveform Videos
Sunday, January 26, 2025

Have you seen audio podcast “highlight videos” as reels on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or other social media websites which include an audio waveform animation that is synchronized to the podcast? Today I explored a few tools, with help from ChatGPT recommendations, to create my own &... .. read more..

Online event: Promoting Literacy and Critical Thinking in a Convoluted World
Saturday, January 25, 2025

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New articles: Teacher agency; Disciplinary difference; Empathy; Badging
Friday, January 24, 2025

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Webinar: Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity
Thursday, January 23, 2025

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NotebookLM Introduces Me
Thursday, January 23, 2025

Tonight’s Jason Neiffer #edtechSR inspired AI experiment: I asked Google’s NotebookLM AI model to take my bio, resume, vitae, portfolios, etc and create a “deep dive” podcast, sharing an audio introduction of me for a diverse audience. It’s 12.5 minutes long, and surprisingly insightful. I added ... .. read more..

Recording: a conversation on Media and Information Literacy
Wednesday, January 22, 2025

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Karen Blakeman wins Jason Farradane Award
Tuesday, January 21, 2025

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Packet Defender 1.0
Thursday, January 9, 2025

Today was the first day of our spring semester, and I’m teaching middle school web design again. As part of our introductory class, we watched the video, “The Internet: IP Addresses & DNS” from Code.org and then played a Kahoot I made with AI about it, using the video transc... .. read more..

TIP Teachers: Jan 2025
Tuesday, January 7, 2025

This evening I was able to join the monthly evening Zoom meeting of TIP Teachers, which is “Teachers for an Informed Public” in the state of Washington. As usual, a wealth of helpful media literacy resources were shared in the session, and I’ll attempt to highlight several of th... .. read more..

Multi-dimensional Digital Identity
Sunday, January 5, 2025

This is a comment and reflection I shared on this blog post by Allysia Doratti, one of Dean Shareski‘s EC&I 832 graduate students in fall 2024: Mirror, Mirror, On My Feed: Exploring Identity in a Digital World. Hi Allysia- Thanks so much for this thoughtful post and especially for the reflect... .. read more..

AI Created Video Clips
Saturday, December 14, 2024

One of the powerful ways artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can be used by media creators is to identify short clips in longer videos which are potentially engaging for audience members, and then facilitating the process of making those clips into shorter videos that can be shared on social ... .. read more..

Facebook Friend Safety Tips
Monday, December 2, 2024

I’m on Facebook frequently, and I’ve noticed it’s become a REAL MESS because of poor account security and rampant cybercrime. I have multiple relatives and friends now who have lost control over their Facebook accounts. Sometimes these individuals have created another Facebook a... .. read more..

NotebookLM on Project 2025
Thursday, November 28, 2024

At the risk of ruining your Thanksgiving holiday and throwing us further into a “psychological funk” as we approach the political uncertainties of 2025, I’d like to share a brief (and successful) experiment I conducted yesterday using the full PDF of Project 2025 and the artific... .. read more..

ALT Text for Web Accessibility
Thursday, November 21, 2024

In the semester web design course I teach for middle school students, I share a series of videos and activities in a lesson series on web accessibility. I first became aware of the importance of web accessibility when I served as the first “Director of Distance Learning” for the Colle... .. read more..

Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories
Monday, November 11, 2024

Hello, Providence Day parents and others who may be watching this video. This is Dr. Wes Fryer. Today is November 11, 2024, and this week we’re starting our “Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories” unit. This is an engaging, exciting, and highly relevant topic today because there are many wild and mislea... .. read more..

Ending Christian Nationalism
Thursday, October 24, 2024

These are my notes from Amanda Tyler’s presentation about her book, “How to End Christian Nationalism” on October 22, 2024, at First Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was a conversation facilitated by Jennifer Roberts, former mayor of Charlotte. MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. IF YOU... .. read more..

Remove Background in Adobe Express
Sunday, October 13, 2024

I LOVE creating and sharing InfoPics. My favorite iOS app for creating InfoPIcs has (for years now) been Adobe Express for iOS. The app has updated in many ways, but it still retains its core features and UI for quickly adding readable, contrasting text to an image. This morning as I created a &#... .. read more..

Scratch Coding Resources
Wednesday, October 9, 2024

I received an email earlier this year from a teacher in South Africa who is interested in starting a school and including coding in the curriculum. I finally responded to that message (yikes!) asking for links to CODING RESOURCES I use and have shared, including resources for using Scratch coding... .. read more..

Beware of Hurricane Helene Fundraising Scams
Monday, September 30, 2024

Today in my middle school web design class, we took some time at the start to “think / pair / share” about the past weekend’s dramatic and even traumatic events caused by Hurricane Helene. Several teachers in our department did not have electricity at their houses for three days... .. read more..

POWs and NotebookLM
Friday, September 20, 2024

In December of 1991 as a senior at the US Air Force Academy, I wrote “American POWs in Southeast Asia and the Violation of a National Ethic” as my final research paper in my “History of Military Thought” class taught by visiting Colorado College professor, Dennis Showalter... .. read more..

Boeing 737 Max Whistleblowers
Thursday, August 29, 2024

I started a Wakelet collection of video and article links on “Boeing 737 Max Whistleblowers.” Those links are embedded at the bottom of this post. I highly recommend watching the Netflix documentary, “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.” The merger of Boeing with McDonnell Douglas was ... .. read more..

Priceless Media Hostages
Tuesday, August 27, 2024

This evening I looked through an old box of media tapes and CDs which managed to survive our 1000+ mile move from Oklahoma to North Carolina two years ago. There are some priceless artifacts here. Basically all the Digital 8 and MiniDV video tapes which I recorded of our kids and family growing u... .. read more..

Preparing for “Peer War” with China
Sunday, August 25, 2024

It is important for us, as citizens of the United States and our planet, to know of the growing hostilities which continue to build between China and the United States, and the likelihood of a “peer war” including both kinetic and cyber operations which could negatively impact all aspects of our ... .. read more..

Enchanted Christmas Chapel Memories
Friday, August 9, 2024

I love listening to Christmas music year round. This is my favorite instrumental Christmas music playlist on Spotify: “Back in the day” this was a Pandora playlist called, “Peaceful Holidays.” Those were the years (starting in 2015) when I was the Director of Technology at Casady School in OKC. L... .. read more..

Favorite Digital Utilities
Thursday, August 8, 2024

What are the websites, web services, and software applications you use regularly and can’t imagine doing without? I call these my “favorite digital utilities,” and today I created a specific webpage for them on my curriculum / lesson sharing website which is built with Google Si... .. read more..

Remembering Emergency Remote Learning (April 2020)
Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Were you teaching during the COVID-19 lock downs in April and May 2020? My wife and I were. This week a colleague asked me to find some photos we took at the time of Shelly teaching her third graders at Casady School online from our house in The Village in Oklahoma City, and I found […] .. read more..

Dehumunization is Wrong
Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Dehumanizing other human beings: Denying the essential humanity of other people, is ethically wrong and immoral at a basic level. It is also dangerous, because people who view other human beings as sub-human or “inhuman” are capable of horrific atrocities. The Universal Declaration of Human Right... .. read more..

Remembering TxTIP in Floydada and Post, Texas (2004-05)
Friday, July 12, 2024

Once upon a time in the late 1990s, there was a teacher in Lubbock, Texas, who had a dream. He dreamed that all the students in our schools could have their own personal computers to access information, communicate with others, and complete both assignments and projects required for classes at sc... .. read more..

Oral History Workshops (July 2024)
Tuesday, July 9, 2024

 I’m sharing a 2 part, free oral history workshop series for the Mint Hill Historical Society this coming Saturday, July 13 and the next Saturday, July 20. These will each be an hour and a half long, from 9 to 10:30am, and held in “The Barn” at the Historical Society: 4311 HILLS... .. read more..

Host an Astronomy Night
Wednesday, June 26, 2024

These are my notes from the SPACE 2024 presentation, “How to Host an Astronomy Night: Astronomy in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms” by Peter Tlusty (Mr. T) NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador / Richmond Astronomical Society Member. Links about Peter: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ambassadors/... .. read more..

Plants in Space
Wednesday, June 26, 2024

These are my notes from the SPACE 2024 presentation, “Planting Other Worlds” by Melissa Sleeper and Lisa Dupuy. The session description is: Tired of the same old plant growth lessons? Help spark student interest in agriculture using Space as the hook. When humans go to settle the Moon and Mars, t... .. read more..

Communists and Conspiracies
Saturday, June 8, 2024

One thing that has surprised and even confused me in recent months has been the assertion that our U.S. schools and mainstream, progressive political parties / leadership circles are “filled with  communists.” This “fringe argument” has sadly become more mainstream. It is instructive as well as s... .. read more..

AI and Cheating
Thursday, May 30, 2024

One of the most common concerns many teachers and parents have today regarding generative AI / artificial intelligence tools is that students are using and will use them “to cheat.” While students have used and will continue to use a variety of tools and strategies to cheat during exa... .. read more..

I Am Healed
Monday, April 29, 2024

I am healed, I know who I am, and I know the work God has called me to do. This is a big deal. I have spent the past three decades as a largely broken and wounded human being. I have been a person who was seeking healing, and finding healing, but just taking baby […] .. read more..

Visualizing Off-Planet Habitats
Friday, April 12, 2024

My middle school computer programming students are continuing to work on our “Coding Mars” unit, in which they are using Minecraft MakeCode to simulate the 3D printing of structures and habitats which Icon of Austin, Texas, is under contract with NASA to do first on the moon / the lun... .. read more..

SIFTing our Sources
Tuesday, April 2, 2024

So many things have been going well in my media literacy, computer programming and engineering middle school courses this semester I should be blogging about our classroom learning every day! In this post I’d like to briefly reflect and share about an InfoPics lesson we are doing today as p... .. read more..

Internet Radio Dreams
Saturday, March 30, 2024

This morning I’m dreaming of Internet Radio: My OWN Internet radio station patterned after the amazing example of ds106 Radio. Let me explain. In December 2012, I published the 3 minute photo story, “Live Internet Radio Broadcasting from a Bus.” In it, I shared “a story ab... .. read more..

War Over TikTok
Friday, March 8, 2024

The article caught my eye this morning: “US lawmakers vote 50-0 to force sale of TikTok despite angry calls from users” (ArsTechnica, 7 Mar 2024.). It highlights a proposed bill in the US House of Representatives which would require the Chinese government to entirely DIVEST (sell off)... .. read more..

Trust Me Documentary
Tuesday, March 5, 2024

This evening I attended “most” of the March 2024 meeting of “TIP Teachers,” which is “Teachers for an Informed Public.” I’ve been a participant of TIP Teachers for over a year now, although I’m in North Carolina and the majority of the educators inv... .. read more..

Teaching the Conspiracies
Sunday, January 28, 2024

This week on January 31, 2024, I’m excited to start facilitating a six week online course for educators titled, “Teaching the Conspiracies.” This “anytime learning course” is offered as part of the 2024 MediaED Institute by the Media Education Lab, with whom I’... .. read more..

Understanding Rising Populism, Warfare and Authoritarianism
Sunday, January 28, 2024

We should not only be teaching “traditional courses” like history and social studies in our U.S. schools today, we should be explicitly studying warfare and the multitude of ways nation states as well as non-state actors wage war with each other across at least five dimensions: In ext... .. read more..

Beware of Facebook Event Bad Actors
Sunday, January 28, 2024

Scammers and bad actors are not new. The methods which con artists use to try and trick people into giving away their money or sharing private, personal information continue to evolve, however. It can be valuable to learn about some of these new scam techniques, especially in our increasingly DIG... .. read more..

Social Media Text Prepper
Sunday, January 28, 2024

It is now possible to use generative AI / artificial intelligence platforms, like ChatGPT 4, to create simple to relatively complex web applications without knowing the precise syntax of programming languages. By formulating detailed prompts for the AI chatbot, it is possible to create code in va... .. read more..

Full Text RSS Feeds from Mastodon
Sunday, January 28, 2024

Prepare for a “geekier than normal” post: I want to share about a custom GPT I’m trying to build that will extract article link titles, website sources, article dates, and article hyperlinks from a Mastodon account’s RSS feed, and specifically an RSS feed which includes a ... .. read more..

Engaging with the Duke Polarization Lab
Sunday, January 28, 2024

This morning I submitted the “Get Involved Form” shared by the Polarization Lab at Duke University. This two minute video (shared in November 2019) from the Duke University Department of Political Science provides a concise overview of the Lab’s focus and mission. The “Mis... .. read more..

AI Bionic Blogging
Saturday, November 25, 2023

New tools can provide new opportunities to not only “enhance efficiency,” but (in some cases) “transformatively empower” users to do things which were previously impossible. In the case of artificial intelligence / AI technologies, the combination of speech to text, automa... .. read more..

Reflections on Hernan Cortes, the Aztecs, and Mars Colonization
Saturday, November 25, 2023

Today in this blog post (and original video as well as audio podcast) I want to discuss a podcast episode titled, “The Fall of the Aztecs: The Adventure Begins (Part 1)” on “The Rest is History,” by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. I’m excited to share a... .. read more..

Meet Me on Mastodon (My “Dear John Letter” to Twitter)
Tuesday, November 21, 2023

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one group of digital communicators to discontinue use of the secure user IDs and passwords which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the the right and responsibility to affiliate with others ... .. read more..

Generative AI and Media Tips (Oct 2023)
Sunday, October 22, 2023

One of the advantages of sharing ideas and links on your own website, like this WordPress website I’ve maintained since 2005, is that social media and technology companies are less able to restrict the links you can share. In June of 2023, both Facebook and Instagram started blocking access... .. read more..

Ep 482: Moderating Livestreams with Cool Kicks – An Interview with 7th ...
Tuesday, October 10, 2023

This podcast episode features an interview with 7th grader "G," who serves as a volunteer "Livestream moderator" for the website and store "Cook Kicks," based in Los Angeles, California: https://shopcoolkicks.com/ In the interview, "G" shares the backstory of how he become a moderator for Cool Ki... .. read more..

Reflections on PD Hackathon 2023
Saturday, September 9, 2023

Today I’ve had an opportunity to participate, facilitate, and volunteer as a judge in our fall 2023 Hackathon at our school, Providence Day School of Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the second time I’ve been able to be part of the Hackathon, and in this post I’d like to refle... .. read more..

Daily Dedication, Check-In Question, and Selfie-Bingo
Wednesday, August 30, 2023

One of the things I love about teaching at an independent school is the opportunity to have “advisory time.” At my North Carolina school, I’m a seventh grade advisor again this year, and we have an hour after lunch for advisory every third school day. Today was our third advisor... .. read more..

Space Club Dreams
Sunday, August 27, 2023

Shelly Fryer and I have a “slow hunch” that we should start a SPACE CLUB at school. Shelly and I are both “space geeks” and love sharing “all things space” with our students. My class “Wonder Links” frequently include videos and websites about space and space exploration. This past week, we watch... .. read more..

Stephen Wolfram on Computational Thinking
Monday, August 7, 2023

These are my reflections and takeaways from a captivating 40-minute fireside chat with Stephen Wolfram, shared on August 4, 2023 during the AI x Education Conference streamed via Zoom. Stephen is the “CEO of the software company Wolfram Research where he works as chief designer of... .. read more..

Extending the Silence
Monday, October 1, 2018

Giving students several seconds to think after asking a question—and up to two minutes for some questions—improves their learning. .. read more..

Socratic Seminars in World Language Classes
Monday, October 1, 2018

Six tips for using the powerful discussion model with students who are still acquiring the target language. .. read more..

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