Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Category: isafety

  • Facebook Friend Safety Tips

    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…

  • Beware of Hurricane Helene Fundraising Scams

    Beware of Hurricane Helene Fundraising Scams

    Today in my middle school web design class, we took some time at the start to “think / pair / share” about the past weekend’s dramatic and even traumatic events caused by Hurricane Helene. Several teachers in our department did not have electricity at their houses for three days, and some students reported electricity outages…

  • Beware of Facebook Event Bad Actors

    Beware of Facebook Event Bad Actors

    Scammers and bad actors are not new. The methods which con artists use to try and trick people into giving away their money or sharing private, personal information continue to evolve, however. It can be valuable to learn about some of these new scam techniques, especially in our increasingly DIGITAL world. In this post, I’d…

  • Password Manager Tips

    In this post I’m going to share some lessons learned recovering an MSecure version 4 password manager, but I’m also going to address more universal issues and best practices when it comes to online security and passwords. Since my mother passed away yesterday, these issues have become more dramatic and immediately relevant for our family.…

  • Media Consumption Boundaries

    What boundaries do you have for media consumption in your life? We’ve heard a lot about “screen time” in the past few years, as both Apple and Google / Android have added built-in tools for tracking screentime. But what comprises your “media consumption” or “media diet” within your weekly screentime? The channels you watch and…

  • The Social Dilemma Documentary and YOUR Social Media Privacy Settings

    If you have not yet watched the new Netflix documentary, “The Social Dilemma,” stop reading this post now and immediately go watch it. Or at least commit to watching it as soon as you have a spare 94 minutes. There’s a good reason it’s poised to be the first documentary to ever be the “#1…

  • An Important Conversation About Internet Trolls, Sharing Personal Information, Sexual Assault, and More

    Yesterday I was able to have a lunch date with one of our kids, and on the drive to and from the restaurant we listened to this extremely important but also distressing podcast. This is from the podcast channel “Reply All,” and the episode is called titled “The Prophet.” So much here is so important…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Thoughts on Content Filtering, Parent Education, and School Laptop Initiatives

    The Oklahoman, our largest Oklahoma City based newspaper by circulation, published a scathing article today about Norman Public Schools’ new MacBook Air and iPad “1 to 1 Learning” initiative. The article is titled, “‘They want them gone’: Norman parents complain of school devices.” In case The Oklahoman puts this article behind their paywall as they…