Moving at the Speed of Creativity

About

Wesley FryerMoving at the Speed of Creativity is Wesley Fryer‘s blog. (That’s me!) I use this site to digitally document my own journey of learning and collaborate with other educators and lifelong learners around the globe. I focus primarily creative uses of multimedia to help students “show what they know with media,” digital literacy, digital storytelling, digital portfolios, blended learning educational leadership, digital creativity, and digital citizenship. Free email-based subscriptions to my blog posts are available via FeedBlitz.

If you’re interested in contacting me about sharing a keynote, presentation or workshop for educators in your area in person or over video, please review my updated list of keynote presentation topics as well as conference breakout session topics. You can also view a list of recent and upcoming presentations on my digital handouts page. Use the contact form on my “Speaking” page to inquire about availability. If you want to contact me directly about issues unrelated to speaking engagements, contact details are available.

More information about me  and websites I update (my digital footprint) are listed on about.me/wfryer. Links are also available on my public Google profile page and my personal bio page. See my disclosure policy for additional information about my affiliations and stance on advertising on this blog. Please see the attribution guidance page for information if you are quoting or citing my work.

Wesley Fryer

The following tweets were from participants in a full-day iPad workshop I led at Kansas State University on January 15, 2015.

https://twitter.com/amelliott/status/555839161484050432

Some technical stuff about my blog: (updated 3/22/2014)

My blog (this website) is powered by an updated version of the free WordPress blogging engine and a custom theme developed with the Pagelines framework by an Oklahoma City high school student and web/graphic designer, Jackson Fall. In 2010 I used a (slightly) modified version of the Lightword theme. In July 2007 I updated my blog theme to use the free Blue Wonder theme, I had previously used a slightly modified version of the “famous Kubrick” theme.  The drop-down menus at the top are a feature of my theme, each is a WordPress “page” rather than post and they are organized under “parent” categories within WordPress.

I am no longer using the sds_Talkr_Plugin (it appears to be no longer working for some reason) or the WordPress Database Backup. In the past I used my blog host’s pHpMyAdmin to download mySQL backups. I now create redundant WordPress backups using a service from my web host (Site5) and the BackupBuddy plugin from iThemes, saved to a 3rd party site.

A few years ago I started using the free version of Disqus for commenting and to reduce spam. I’ve also used Spam Karma 2 but currently I’m not using it. I had some problems with PodPress in fall 2007 I couldn’t resolve which messed up my Podcast RSS feed, and I eventually switched to using FeedForAll to create that podcast feed. I continue to use Feedburner and in the past provided 4 different feeds related to my blog: My primary feed for all posts, my podcast feed / channel, my blog comments, and a feed for educational technology related posts only. This latter feed was still available through March 22, 2014, but I am  deprecated it by removing it from my blog sidebar several years ago. I installed a Feedburner plugin in March 2014 which (I think) broke links from that final channel. Several years ago I stopped using the feed from my “podcasts” blog category and started using the software program FeedForAll Mac to create my podcast RSS feed.

I love the “widgets” feature of the latest WordPress and have used different text widgets in my sidebar(s) for additional content. I have cut down on the number of external content links included here to improve loading speed for my blog pages, because I realize these are cumbersome for those viewing my blog on slower Internet connections. In the past I used embedded content for the following free services, as of March 2014 these have all been changed (Google Reader, of course, is now offline):

  1. my technorati blog widget
  2. feedburner generated chicklets and feed subscription links
  3. email subscription services from FeedBlitz
  4. live traffic feeds via FEEDJIT
  5. my Google Reader shared items

I no longer use:

  1. my del.icio.us network badge
  2. A customized ShowYourself widget
  3. my upcoming presentations and workshops (next 30 days) shared with RSS Calendar
  4. my recent publicly shared pictures in a Flickr badge
  5. 2 world clocks via clocklink.com

My blog footer includes two important elements:

  1. my Creative Commons license
  2. my ClustrMap showing blog visitor statistics and locations (I pay the annual fee for more detailed stats.)

I provide additional attribution guidance for my blog in a static WordPress page linked at both the top and bottom of every page.

Inspired by a blogger whose thoughts, work and writing style I admire, Dr. Lawrence Lessig, I periodically invite “guest bloggers” to take up the author’s chair here on “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” when I am offline. Please note I do NOT accept unsolicited requests to guest blog. Guest blog posts are all archived within the category “guest blogger.”

If you want to contact me directly, my contact information is available on my personal website.

Comments

31 responses to “About”

  1. Vince Avatar
    Vince

    Hey there,

    This is Vince from SocialRank.

    We’re launching a new Web 2.0 site dedicated to e-learning and we have started indexing your blog posts as part of our
    content filter.

    I’d like to send you an invite to a beta preview. Can you get back to me with your email address.

    Mine is vince@SocialRank.com

    Thanks
    Vince

  2. Andrew Middleton Avatar
    Andrew Middleton

    Wes, you mentioned Lynne Bermark (?) from the Thornburg Center in a recent podcast and some research she has conducted about the speed with which people read images compared to text. Have you got a reference for that? It would be extremely useful to me.
    Many thanks

  3. Wesley Fryer Avatar
    Wesley Fryer

    Certainly Andrew, her site is Harnessing the power of visual literacy! – Dr. Lynell Burmark.

  4. Nicole Avatar
    Nicole

    Are you accepting advertising on your site speedofcreativity.org?

    Thank you,

    Nicole
    Marketing Manager
    ZTMC, INC.

  5. Wesley Fryer Avatar
    Wesley Fryer

    No Nicole, I do not accept advertising.

  6. glenn simonsen Avatar
    glenn simonsen

    Hello Mr. Fryer,

    I listened to your Podcast30 on digital storytelling in the schools which I downloaded at Internet Archive. I’d be interested in getting your response to a podcast I made with a 14 yr/old Somali boy in which he tells stories from Africa. http://www.archive.org/details/HowToKillaLion

    In any case, thanks for your work and willingness to share it at archive.org.

    Glenn

  7. Wesley Fryer Avatar
    Wesley Fryer

    Glenn: This is an amazing story by Mohamed Hassan Ahmed Hallane! Thank you so much for sharing it. I am glad you found some of my work on the Internet Archive. When I started podcasting I was publishing all my podcasts to the Internet Archive, but I had trouble with the CCPublisher application. I also learned the bandwidth usage for my podcast was not too large, so I started hosting my files on my own server. I need to give the Internet Archive and CCPublisher another try.

    What is the website address for your podcast? I’d like to hear more. Sounds like you are doing some great work. Again, thanks for sharing this.

  8. glenn simonsen Avatar
    glenn simonsen

    Thank you, Wesley, for the encourgement.

    I don’t have my own website and am grateful for your information here on how you’ve done yours. I’m not too tech-savvy and it does look intimidating. FYI, you don’t have to use CCPublisher anymore to upload at archive.org and it’s loads easier. I have a conglomeration of audio files posted there which can be found by searching “glenn simonsen”. They include podcasts; original music; ESL units specifically for KiRundi, Farsi, Maay-Maay, and Karen languages; poetry; folk music from places like Congo, Burma, Burundi; and readings from the New Testament in addition to some uncatagorizable files.

    Here’s another example: http://www.archive.org/details/GlennSimonsenRadioTinnitusvol1VoicesfromPascagoula
    That was my first podcast and I based it on interviews I did with people who lost their homes in Mississippi during Katrina.

    I’m working now at a pizza place and wish I could publish some (cheezy!)stories from there, but I kind of need to keep my job. There’s not much traffic to my stuff at internetarchive and I wish I knew what more to do with it. I appreciate your inspiring example. glenn

  9. Marino Ceccotti Avatar
    Marino Ceccotti

    Hello,

    I do not know if you’re aware of it, but the HTML code of your home page bears hundreds of invisible links to “medication” related websites. Look at the bottom of the code page. May be your site has been hijacked.

    Regards,

    Marino

  10. gail desautels Avatar
    gail desautels

    Wes – haven’t I bumped into you somewhere???? This blog is a goldmine – thank you for sharing – I love your handouts, and they are very timely! Yes, everyday brings a multitude of gifts ….. the most recent one today brought me here from Box of Tricks …. amazing how we can go around the world in a millisecond!!!!

  11. Christine Davis Avatar
    Christine Davis

    Mr. Fryer,

    I read your blog many times per week and listen to your podcasts as well. I am an Art & Digital Media teacher in a Middle School in Pennsylvania. With digital media being so accessible (and popular) among our teens, I thought it would be helpful to put together a list of copyright-friendly resources for audio, video, photo and screencast content. Please visit the wiki I’ve developed for this purpose, feel free to JOIN the space and add your own favorite links.

    The address is http://digitalmediaresources.wikispaces.com

    Thank you for your inspiring ideas!

    Chris Davis

  12. Jack Avatar
    Jack

    Hi Wesley,

    I found your blog at the Edublog Award 2008 nominee list. Congrats! I am working on a community service project @ MIT university. We want to get kids to make videos about SAT vocabulary and create a free and more fun way to prep for the big test. You can view some sample videos at the website we’re using http://www.BrainyFlix.com.

    To encourage participation, we are going to run a contest and give out a small cash prize to the video that receives the most number of votes from viewers. We’ll start accepting video submissions on January 1, 2009.

    I was wondering if you would be willing to write a short post about our charity event. The more videos we receive, the more helpful we think we can be!

    Please let me know. If you have any hangups about doing so, I’d love the chance to address them. I can be reached at jack.yu.is@gmail.com.

    Thank you and have a happy new year!
    Jack

  13. TExES study guide Avatar
    TExES study guide

    I read your blog. It is really informative and helpful. Thanks for this kind of blog.

  14. Anna Avatar
    Anna

    Wow! I can’t believe I hadn’t stumbled upon your blog before! Terrific resource. I work on a number of ed tech projects throughout the Middle East. I will most certainly share your link with my colleagues, students, Twitter friends, etc. Thanks for the 2008 shout out to http://www.Curriki.org and http://www.FreeReading.net. Having working on both initiatives, it is so nice to see your support and thoughts around open education resources! Thanks and bravo! Anna

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