About

Moving at the Speed of Creativity is Wesley Fryer‘s blog. (That’s me!) I use this site to digitally document my own journey of learning and collaborate with other educators and lifelong learners around the globe. I focus primarily on issues related to engaged learning, web 2.0 technologies, digital storytelling, educational leadership, literacy, blended learning, creativity, appropriate uses of educational technologies, digital citizenship, and educational transformation.

If you’re interested in contacting me about sharing a keynote, presentation or workshop for educators in your area in person or over video, please review my list of recent and upcoming presentations on wiki.wesfryer.com. Use the contact form on my “Speaking” page to inquire about availability. Specific information about my social media consulting services are available. If you want to contact me directly about issues unrelated to speaking engagements, contact details are available.

More info about me is available on my public Google profile page and my personal bio page. My full digital footprint is on claimid.com/wfryer. See my disclosure policy for additional information about my affiliations and stance on advertising on this blog. Please see the attribution guidance page for information if you are quoting or citing my work.

Wesley Fryer

Some technical stuff about my blog: (updated 2/15/2010)

My blog (this website) is powered by an updated version of the free WordPress blogging engine. I currently use a (slightly) modified version of the Lightword theme. In July 2007 I updated my blog theme to use the free Blue Wonder theme, I had previously used a slightly modified version of the “famous Kubrick” theme.  The drop-down menus at the top are a feature of my theme, each is a WordPress “page” rather than post and they are organized under “parent” categories within WordPress.

I’ve used various plug-ins since I started blogging with WordPress, currently…
There are 27 plugins used: 24 active plugins and 3 inactive plugins.

Active WordPress Plugins

  Ads by datafeedr.com 1.0.0
» datafeedr.com (url)
Randomly display any type of advertisement anywhere on your site. Add rotating banner ads, Google Adsense, videos, text links and more to your sidebar, widget areas, posts and pages.

  Akismet 2.5.7
» Automattic (url)
Used by millions, Akismet is quite possibly the best way in the world to protect your blog from comment and trackback spam. It keeps your site protected from spam even while you sleep. To get started: 1) Click the “Activate” link to the left of this description, 2) Sign up for an Akismet API key, and 3) Go to your Akismet configuration page, and save your API key.

  Anti Feed-Scraper Message 0.9.3
» Joen (url)
Helps prevent your RSS feed from being “scraped” (copied and reposted elsewhere), by adding a customizable message with a link to your original post.

  Append Content 1.4
» theandystratton (url)
Append content to your posts/pages, useful for repetitious messaging and calls to action. Apply template to all pages/posts, only to posts, or only to pages.

  Auto Anchor List 1.0
» MindWireMedia (url)
Automatically displays and creates anchor links to H tags in page content.

  Code Markup 1.3
» Bennett McElwee (url)
A filter that displays <code> blocks nicely while still allowing formatting.

  Comment Timeout 2.4.0
» James McKay (url)
Automatically closes comments on blog entries after a user-configurable period of time. It has options which allow you to keep the discussion open for longer on older posts which have had recent comments accepted, or to place a fixed limit on the total number of comments in the discussion. Activate the plugin and go to Options >> Comment Timeout to configure.

  Contact Form 7 3.4
» Takayuki Miyoshi (url)
Just another contact form plugin. Simple but flexible.

  Disqus Comment System 2.74
» Disqus (url)
The Disqus comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by Disqus. Head over to the Comments admin page to set up your DISQUS Comment System.

  Google+ Plugin 1.3.3
» Ve Bailovity (Incsub), raggedrobins (Incsub) (url)
Integrate with Google+ Pages and add the Google +1 button to your site so your visitors can vote to tell the world how great your site is!

  Google Analytics for WordPress 4.3.3
» Joost de Valk (url)
This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics to your WordPress blog, adding lots of features, eg. custom variables and automatic clickout and download tracking.

  Most Commented Widget 2.2
» Nick Momrik (url)
Widget to display posts/pages with the most comments.

  Pagelines Sections 1.0
» PageLines (url)
The PageLines sections container. Needed to extend sections via the store.

  PluginBuddy Mobile 1.1.20
» The PluginBuddy Team (url)
Create custom mobile versions of your site for mobile platforms.

  podPress 8.8.10.17
» Dan Kuykendall (Seek3r) (url)
The podPress plugin gives you everything you need in one easy plugin to use WordPress for Podcasting. Set it up in ‘podPress’->Feed/iTunes Settings. If this plugin works for you, send us a comment.

  Quick Page/Post Redirect Plugin 5.0.3
» Don Fischer (url)
Redirect Pages, Posts or Custom Post Types to another location quickly (for internal or external URLs). Includes individual post/page options, redirects for Custom Post types, non-existant 301 Quick Redirects (helpful for sites converted to WordPress), New Window functionality, and rel=nofollow functionality.

  Really Simple CAPTCHA 1.5
» Takayuki Miyoshi (url)
Really Simple CAPTCHA is a CAPTCHA module intended to be called from other plugins. It is originally created for my Contact Form 7 plugin.

  Search Meter 2.9
» Bennett McElwee (url)
Keeps track of what your visitors are searching for. After you have activated this plugin, you can check the Search Meter section in the Dashboard to see what your visitors are searching for on your blog.

  Simple Trackback Validation 2.1
» Michael Woehrer (url)
Eliminates spam trackbacks by (1) checking if the IP address of the trackback sender is equal to the IP address of the webserver the trackback URL is referring to and (2) by retrieving the web page located at the URL used in the trackback and checking if the page contains a link to your blog.

  Subscribe To Comments 2.1.2
» Mark Jaquith (url)
Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess

  This Day 1.4
» Dagon Design (url)
Lists posts that were created on this day in previous years

  WP-PluginsUsed 1.50
» Lester 'GaMerZ' Chan (url)
Display WordPress plugins that you currently have (both active and inactive) onto a post/page.

  WPaudio 3.1
» Todd Iceton (url)
Play mp3s and podcasts in your posts by converting links and tags into a simple, customizable audio player.

  WP Greet Box 6.4.0
» Thaya Kareeson (url)
Show a different message to your visitor depending on which site they are coming from. For example, you can ask Digg visitors to Digg your post, Google visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed, and more! Best of all, this plugin is compatible with various WordPress cache plugins.

Inactive WordPress Plugins

  Bootstrap Icons 1.0
» PageLines (url)
A free plugin with the open sourced icons from Bootstrap as shortcodes for PageLines

  CommentLuv 2.92.7
» Andy Bailey (url)
Reward your readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment. Encourage a community and discover new posts.

  Sexy Snips 1.3.6
» Bearded Avenger (url)
Making “How do I center my logo?” type questions a thing of the past.

The dynamic lists above were created with WP-PluginsUsed.

I am no longer using the sds_Talkr_Plugin (it appears to be no longer working for some reason) or the WordPress Database Backup. Instead I use my blog host’s pHpMyAdmin to download mySQL backups.

This configuration is presently working well to keep comment spam out, from time to time I’ve also used Spam Karma 2 but currently I’m not using it. I had some problems with PodPress in fall 2007 I couldn’t resolve which messed up my Podcast RSS feed, and I eventually switched to using FeedForAll to create that podcast feed. I continue to use Feedburner for 4 different feeds related to my blog: My primary feed for all posts, my podcast feed / channel, my blog comments, and a feed for educational technology related posts only. This latter feed is still available but I am basically deprecating it as it’s no longer linked from my blog sidebar.

I love the “widgets” feature of the latest WordPress and have used different text widgets in my left and right sidebars for additional content. I have cut down on the number of external content links included here to improve loading speed for my blog pages, because I realize these are cumbersome for those viewing my blog on slower Internet connections. Currently I use embedded content for the following free services:

1. my technorati blog widget
2. feedburner generated chicklets and feed subscription links
3. email subscription services from FeedBlitz
4. live traffic feeds via FEEDJIT
5. my Google Reader shared items

I no longer use:

1. my del.icio.us network badge
2. A customized ShowYourself widget
3. my upcoming presentations and workshops (next 30 days) shared with RSS Calendar
4. my recent publicly shared pictures in a Flickr badge
5. 2 world clocks via clocklink.com

My blog footer includes two important elements:

1. my Creative Commons license
2. my ClustrMap showing blog visitor statistics and locations (I pay the annual fee for more detailed stats.)

I provide additional attribution guidance for my blog in a static WordPress page linked at both the top and bottom of every page.

In addition to blogging here regularly, and periodically on other blogs listed on claimid.com/wfryer.

Inspired by a blogger whose thoughts, work and writing style I admire, Dr. Lawrence Lessig, I periodically invite “guest bloggers” to take up the author’s chair here on “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” when I am offline. This is a fun way to infuse my blog with new ideas, share the fairly visible author’s chair which is this blog with others whose ideas I respect, and keep the content here dynamic for visitors and subscribers. Those guest blog posts are all archived within the category “guest blogger.”

If you want to contact me directly, my contact information (including my current Skype status) is available on my personal website.