Category: isafety

  • Spot the Bot: Notes and Takeaways

    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…

  • AI Bots and AI Personas

    AI Bots and AI Personas

    We have not only entered “The Age of AI,” we have entered the Age of “AI Bots” and “AI Personas.” There is not (yet) an English WikiPedia article for “AI persona,” but this is the definition Gemini AI provided to me this evening: An AI persona is a carefully crafted digital profile with a specific…

  • Zoom AI Meeting Summary

    Zoom AI Meeting Summary

    Today I facilitated another monthly Zoom webinar for the MediaEd Club of the Media Education Lab, and I was both pleased and amazed to receive an AI-powered “Meeting Summary” (directly from Zoom) following the recorded videoconference. I’m including an edited version of it below, and adding hyperlinks to referenced resources. Here’s the archived recording (47…

  • 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…