Category: workshops

  • Reflections on Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy (Part 1)

    This week I am attending a 4 1/2 day robotics workshop at Carnegie Mellon University, learning how to teach middle school robotics with the “Lego Spike Prime” robot platform. This is based on the Scratch programming language from MIT, which I love and have been using for over 10 years. In this podcast reflection (from…

  • 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…

  • Lesson Cast: Sharing a Class Recording with Minimal Steps

    This past summer as we prepared for the challenges and uncertainies of the COVID-19 dominated 2020-21 academic school year, our head of school asked me to work on an educational technology challenge. How could our teachers best share face-to-face / in-person lesson recordings with students who either chose or were required to learn at home…

  • Media Literacy Conversations About Conspiracies and Culture Wars

    The past two months I’ve been working on a media literacy project with fellow educator and colleague Brian Turnbaugh (@wegotwits) which we have titled, “Conspiracies and Culture Wars.” Tuesday Brian and I shared a 60 minute virtual workshop together about this project and its topics at the Summer Institute on Digital Literacy, and last week…

  • Podcast473: Brainstorming About “Conspiracies and Culture Wars” with Brian Turnbaugh and Wesley Fryer

    This podcast is a recording of a conversation between Brian Turnbaugh (@wegotwits) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussing a proposed workshop at the virtual version of the Summer Institute on Digital Literacy, coming to a screen near you July 19-24, 2020. The proposed title is, “Conspiracies and Culture Wars,” and the Google Doc of resources we…

  • Thinking about Educational Technology Support for Fall 2020

    Today I attended a virtual webinar presented by Mike Gwaltney (@MikeGwaltney) for ISM (Independent School Management – @isminc) titled, “How to Create an Academic Technology Plan for the 2020–21 School Year.” Here are a few of my takeaways and reflections on the information and advice Mike shared. First of all, Mike’s recommendation that schools plan…

  • Recent Virtual Workshops by Wes (March – April 2020)

    The move to “remote learning” at our school in late-March 2020 has corresponded with an uptick in the number of online workshops and webinars I’ve offered for teachers, mainly for faculty at our school as part of my “day job,” but also a few evening and weekend virtual presentations. All of the workshops I’ve led…

  • Zoom 101 for Small Group Leaders

    Today I shared a 61 minute online workshop for Sunday school and small group leaders at our church on how to use the videoconferencing platform Zoom to host virtual meetings. I’ve posted the recorded audio from the workshop to my “Class with Dr. Fryer” Anchor podcast channel, and you can watch the recorded video version…

  • Sharing Audio From Videos During a Videoconference

    If you’re finding yourself teaching and learning in videoconferences these days (and with the COVID-19 pandemic closing schools worldwide and moving many schools online, like ours, that’s most of us in education) it can be very helpful to be able to play live video WITH NATIVE / line feed audio from YouTube or other sites…

  • Protecting Yourself and Your Family Online (March 2020)

    This past Thursday evening, on March 26, 2020, I shared a free online webinar titled, “Protecting Yourself and Your Family Online.” A recorded video of this 63 minute presentation is available on YouTube, and linked from the VIDEOS page of DesignCreateShare.com. The webinar description was: As we live more of our lives online via Internet-powered…