Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Category: literacy

  • SIFT on Mastodon

    The social media landscape is changing, and we all need better media literacy skills to help us make good choices. In this post, I’ll highlight how the “SIFT” web literacy framework can be helpful as many people start or continue building social connections on Mastodon, a “federated” and open source software platform which is an…

  • Media Dominoes Fall

    In tonight’s EdTech Situation Room webshow and podcast, I shared Storyblocks as my “Geek of the Week.” It is an amazing virtual media library for videographers, storytellers, and Storychasers. The Storyblocks website explains: Unlock access to our library of over a million royalty-free footage, template, music, and photo assets as well as an easy-to-use video…

  • Podcast478: Updates and Classroom Favorites

    In this podcast episode, Dr. Wesley Fryer shares a variety of updates about his current and changing teaching situation, geographic location, academic interests (media literacy!) and recent conferences / presentations. This podcast also includes audio from Wes’ recent video, “15 Things I Love About My Classroom (and teaching situation!)” Check out the podcast show notes…

  • Tags and Hashtag Literacy

    Understanding and using both “tags” (metadata) and hashtags to find, organize, and archive information for later retrieval are essential literacy skills today. These concepts may be poorly understood by many teachers and students, however, and underutilized in school-required research assignments. In this post, I’ll explore both the concepts of tags and hashtags and the skills…

  • Teaching About “Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories” and Web Literacy

    It’s hard to believe, this month we wrapped up the first trimester of our 2021-22 academic year. For the fourth trimester, I’m LOVED the opportunity to teach my 6th graders about web literacy through a unit I call, “Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories.” I started developing this unit 2 years ago with my Chicago colleague Brian…

  • When We Disagree on Facts

    Here’s a vignette from this morning that highlights  the challenging disconnect in “understanding basic facts” which we face today in our society and culture. I went into the VA clinic this morning for a lab blood draw, for my annual check up. I struck up a conversation with the lab technician, and we talked about…

  • Lesson Ideas and Tips for Language Teachers using Scratch, Minecraft and more!

    A few weeks ago, I had a wonderful opportunity to share a Saturday morning Zoom webinar (for me in Oklahoma) with language teachers in the United Kingdom, as part of a webinar series hosted by the Association for Language Learning’s All London Branch. The title of my webinar presentation was, “Lesson Ideas and Tips for…

  • Political Philosophy and Media Literacy Cornerstones

    Propaganda and disinformation can have real, destructive effects in society and government. That is one of many lessons we can draw from the past week in Washington D.C., when we saw large numbers of protesters storm the United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in a riot which resulted in deaths, injuries, as well…

  • Tips for Discussing Conspiracy Theories with Students

    Conspiracy theories are far more than an amusement today. The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania this week released a study finding that a “Belief in Conspiracy Theories Is a Barrier to Controlling Spread of COVID-19.” Folks who profess beliefs in different outlier conspiracy theories today are more likely to reject mask…

  • Reflections on AI, China-U.S. Relations, Education & Innovation

    The rapid improvement of artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning algorithms and systems is one of the most important technological trends to study, discuss, and understand today in 2020. In addition to the adult Sunday School class I’m teaching this year, which is using a book on artificial intelligence as a guiding text (“2084: Artificial…