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Spot the Bot: Notes and Takeaways
This week I virtually attended an excellent “Lunch & Learn webinar” hosted by the Center for North Carolina Politics and Public Service at Catawba College, titled “Spot the Bot: How to spot fake accounts and sort fact from fiction in social media.” The presenter was Torry Crass, former Chief Information Security Officer for the state…
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Sketchnote to AI InfoGraphic
Today was one of my favorite lessons in my middle school media literacy class: We started our “Froot Loop Conspiracies” unit about the Moon Landing Hoax, Lateral Reading, and using the SIFT web literacy framework to vet and verify online information and sources. Today’s introductory lesson involved watching the first two of three videos, and…
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Vibe Coding a Mythological Creature Spinner
This school year, I’m unable to use SpinTheWheel.io, a random animal selector I’d been using for one of my favorite middle school creature-design projects. Last spring when I was asked to start teaching two sections of AP Computer Science Principles in February, I co-created this lesson with my colleague Todd Johnson, who took over one…
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A Powerful Story
In my 55 years of life on our planet and 32 years as a professional educator and teacher, I’ve shared a lot of stories and more than a few presentations. This evening, I believe I shared one of the most important and powerful stories I’ve ever personally connected with. But like we often do as…
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Normalize Your Video Audio with Auphonic (and QuickTime Player)
One of the most common problems I see in student and creator videos alike is inconsistent audio. You shoot a clip facing the camera, then turn around to capture something else — and suddenly the audio levels are completely different. The result is a video that sounds unprofessional, even when the content is great. The…
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Digital Defense Against the Dark Arts
My spouse and I are big Lord of the Rings as well as Harry Potter fans. We love the books and we love the movies. Over Christmas break I started re-reading the Harry Potter book series… This evening we finished watching (AGAIN) the sixth film in the series, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.”…
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SIFT with WikiPedia and AI: Killings in Minnesota
The national and international events of the past several weeks have been positively dizzying and even disorienting. As I write this on January 27, 2026, we (as a nation) are recovering from the shock of two killings by federal law enforcement officials (ICE and CBP) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Incredibly, even though both shootings / killings…
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Nature, Screens and Healing
My New Year’s Day morning meditation podcast supplement today was: “Best Of: How Spending Time In Nature Helps Our Health” by #NPR1A. This podcast episode from NPR’s Studio 1A features an interview with Marc Berman, the author of “Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being.” In the…
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Vivaldi Web Browser
Sometimes my social media feeds in Flipboard on my iPad bring serendipitous links to my attention, and that was the case early yesterday morning with this video from South Iceland from the Vivaldi web browser team. I have not visited Iceland yet, but my buddy and podcasting partner, Jason Neiffer, has, and he’s raved about…
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Scratch Animation Reverse Engineering
A teacher friend in Oklahoma sent me the following video clip, which I converted to an animated GIF via Adobe. Her question to me was, “How did the student code this in Scratch?” Apparently the student did NOT save the project, so the actual code is not available for inspection and analysis. This is a…
