Category: creativity
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Minecraft MakeCode Javascript Workaround
We’re wrapping up our Coding Mars / Minecraft Mars unit in my middle school computer programming class. It’s one of my favorite units. Students have been programming “agents” (which function like “robots” in Minecraft Education) to mine resources, farm, and build structures in a Mars-themed world. It’s hands-on, it’s creative, and it’s been particularly exciting…
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Lead4Change Summit Reflections
I’m writing this from downtown Nashville, where I just wrapped up Day 1 of the Lead4Change Teacher Summit at the beautiful Hotel Noelle and VentureX Co-working space. It’s mid-April, the weather is gorgeous, and I’m feeling energized, seen, and hopeful. I want you to know why! In addition to sharing this blog post with details…
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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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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…
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Interactive Fiction Database and CYOA Video Stories
I grew up in the 1980s and loved reading “Choose Your Own Adventure” (CYOA) stories. From time to time, as an advocate of “Playing with Media” and “Show What You Know with Media” pedagogy and learning, I’ve created my own CYOA stories and helped others create them too. Today I learned about the “Interactive Fiction…
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Google Sites Comment Magic
For a long time, I’ve wanted a simple way for my students – in this case, my adult Sunday School class participants—to share comments directly on a webpage I’ve made with Google Sites. Google Sites doesn’t include a built-in commenting system in its “new” version which debuted in 2021. Commercial commenting widgets like Elfsight can…
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Creating YouTube Shorts with Descript.com
I recently created and published a series of shorts for YouTube (videos less than 60 seconds long, all formatted with a portrait (9 x 16) rather than landscape aspect ratio from the 8 minute video of my speech at the No Kings rally, in Charlotte, North Carolina, on June 14, 2025. In this post, I…
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Vibe Coding with AI
Today I facilitated the webinar “Vibe Coding with AI” for the MediaEd Club of the Media Education Lab. I mainly shared stories of two of my recent vibe coding projects, “Packet Defender 2.0” and my “DIY Federated Reader.” Both of those projects are shared on my GitHub. Check out the recorded session video and session…
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Packet Defender 2.0
Back in January of 2025 I used ChatGPT to “vibe code” a project I named “Packet Defender.” This project was and is my attempt to use HTML and JavaScript to create a simple, text-based and web-based game to help my middle school web design students learn some of the basic terms and concepts about how…