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Packet Defender 1.0
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 transcript. As we learn to create…
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TIP Teachers: Jan 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 them in this post. First of all,…
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Multi-dimensional Digital Identity
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 reflections on digital identity and…
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AI Created Video Clips
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 media. In this post I’ll highlight how…
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Facebook Friend Safety Tips
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 account, creating confusion about “what is the real account?” Some of these people…
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NotebookLM on Project 2025
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 artificial intelligence (AI) model NotebookLM. As you may be aware,…
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ALT Text for Web Accessibility
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 College of Education at Texas Tech…
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Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories
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 misleading conspiracy theories online that we…
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Ending Christian Nationalism
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 ARE INTERESTED IN MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS…
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Remove Background in Adobe Express
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 “Bible Verse…
