Author: Wesley Fryer

  • Storychasing Graduation

    This weekend, we traveled to Oklahoma City to celebrate our middle daughter Sarah’s college graduation. In this post, I’d like to share a little bit about my current workflow for using my iPhone to document and share important family events like this. “Storychasing” is a term I’ve been using for years, which refers to using…

  • Storychasing Live Events: A Guide

    In 2023, the digital software, tools, and connective infrastructure at our disposal have opened exciting avenues for documenting and sharing live events. This process, which I’ve called “Storychasing,” is the focus of today’s post. Prompted by a Facebook “friend of a friend” planning a school trip to Europe this summer, I intend to share some…

  • LISTEN Carefully to his Words

    I’ve never previously recommended on my blog that anyone watch an official video from the National Rifle Association / NRA, but I am tonight. Today after school and following an evening school event, I watched the entirety of our 45th President’s recorded address this afternoon at the “NRA-IRL Leadership Forum.” He was the last speaker…

  • Harry Potter Style Live Photo Albums

    Shelly and I love watching our photo memories with our kids and family, as well as now just with our dogs (as “empty nesters”) on our living room television as well as our kitchen Google Nest Hub. I wrote about this a couple weeks ago in the post, “Digital Picture Frames.” This weekend we’ve had…

  • Media Literacy Lessons (April 2023)

    This evening I participated in a wonderful (monthly) webinar hosted by “Teachers for an Informed Public” (@TIPteachers) over Zoom. As participants we shared some experiences we’ve had with ChatGPT as teachers, and it got me thinking about the value of just sharing “here are some of the lessons I’m teaching and facilitating now in my…

  • Digital Picture Frames

    My wife and I derive considerable pleasure these days from watching a variety of old family photos on our living room TV, thanks to the “Ambient Mode” of Google’s Chromecast as well as the screensaver feature of AppleTV. In my mother’s last four months of life, as she faced terminal brain cancer, she also was…

  • Write Less (Smart Brevity)

    I love teaching in a school and innovative department in which we have opportunities to frequently collaborate and learn from other teachers’ lessons and curriculum. This week, James Edge shared the Jim VandeHei’s (@JimVandeHei) TEDx talk from 2022, “The Art of Smart Brevity – Write Less, Say More.” It’s fantastic, and well worth 15 minutes…

  • Transcending Political Polarization

    I’ve been paying for the “Plus” version of ChatGPT for several weeks, but haven’t really used it much. This evening, I experimented with some questions about how we might transcend our presently high levels of political polarization in the United States. ChatGPT 4’s answers are remarkably good. Here’s a transcript of our dialog. I’ve added…

  • Learning About Russia

    The Russian-initiated war in Ukraine is continuing into its second year, and it’s hard to believe not only the harsh and cruel realities of that conflict which are ongoing, but also the dismal prospects for both regional and global peace at this point in human history. (March 2023) It’s a good time for all of…

  • Fred’s Resurrected Interview

    It’s Spring Break for me this week, and I’m working on FINALLY finishing the “Pocket Share Jesus” book I’ve been working on VERY infrequently since 2010. As I was proofreading the “Audio Interviews” chapter today, I realized several audio recordings were missing from the “Family Oral History” page of our “Learning Signs” family learning blog.…