Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wes Fryer

Category: leadership

  • 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…

  • Tips for Media Literacy and Avoiding Foreign Political Propaganda Influence

    The United States is not only engaged in a new “Tech Cold War” against China and Russia, we are also under information influence attack from foreign as well as domestic adversaries who are aggressively working to build “followers” on Facebook and other social media platforms they can use to exert unconstitutional influence on our political…

  • What Paperless Debate Can Teach Us About the Classroom of the Future

    This weekend I had the privilege and opportunity to fully experience “paperless debate” at the UT Austin Longhorn Classic Debate Tournament, as an adult chaperone for our high school debate team at Casady School. In this post, I’d like to reflect on what these experiences suggest, reveal and invite when it comes to student learning,…

  • Reflections on Postmodern Cultural Conflict

    I’m genuinely confused and troubled by the political polarization we see and experience in different ways in our culture, and I’m trying to better understand these dynamics. There are multiple reasons for the fear, anger, and frustration which individuals and different groups feel today. Some of these factors include the emergence of “identity politics,” changing…

  • Inspired by National Geographic Explorer Andres Ruzo

    This past Wednesday, I had the remarkable good fortune to hear National Geographic Explorer Andres Ruzo (@georuzo) share a fantastic and inspiring presentation at school for all our 6th graders. Andres is the brother of one of our French teachers, and is a geothermal scientist conducting research in the Peruvian Amazon Basin in an area…

  • Make Balance and Intentionality Your Screentime Education Goal

    A lot of adults are very upset there are so many digital screens in so many places today, especially in the hands of teenagers and pre-teens. This frustration and anxiety can manifest itself in multiple ways. In this post, I want to advocate for the idea that our frustration with screens and “screentime challenges” should…

  • Professional Development and Identity

    The best professional development experiences are wonderful because they remind us of who we are: They affirm and support our evolving senses of identity in a complex world filled with mixed messages and lots of noise. In this post, I’d like to reflect briefly on professional development and identity. “The October 2019 #CUDenverLSI Design team…

  • Your Seminary Needs Digital and Media Literacy Instruction

    I am enjoying the opportunity to teach adult Sunday School (again) at our church this year, and utilize Francis Collins‘ (@NIHDirector) book, “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” as our initial course text for our class titled, “Curiosity and Questions: Jesus and Science.” This week in preparing for our lesson and…

  • Your “Normal” is Not Mine

    This past summer, my wife had the opportunity to attend the “Project Zero Conference” at Harvard with nine other teachers from our school. One of the biggest pedagogical themes of the conference was “visible thinking.” This involves thinking strategies that enable teachers as well as students to make their thinking literally visible in the classroom…

  • Don’t Let Toxic Voices Tell You Who You Are

    This is a message of encouragement for anyone out there who is feeling discouraged, especially teachers, by the hurtful and toxic words of someone else who is bringing you down and causing you to question what you’re doing, and maybe even who you are as a professional educator. We all need to maintain our humility…