Category: MediaLit

  • 6 Things to Do

    6 Things to Do

    In today’s fast-paced world, it feels almost impossible to tune into any news—whether it’s from broadcast television or social media—without feeling overwhelmed. As of early February 2025, the sheer volume and intensity of current events have many people feeling either elated or deeply troubled. Regardless of where we fall on the political spectrum, navigating this…

  • Dynamic Audio Waveform Videos

    Dynamic Audio Waveform Videos

    Have you seen audio podcast “highlight videos” as reels on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or other social media websites which include an audio waveform animation that is synchronized to the podcast? Today I explored a few tools, with help from ChatGPT recommendations, to create my own “dynamic audio waveform video.” Here is the 12 minute video…

  • NotebookLM Introduces Me

    NotebookLM Introduces Me

    Tonight’s Jason Neiffer #edtechSR inspired AI experiment: I asked Google’s NotebookLM AI model to take my bio, resume, vitae, portfolios, etc and create a “deep dive” podcast, sharing an audio introduction of me for a diverse audience. It’s 12.5 minutes long, and surprisingly insightful. I added it to my “About” page and posted it to…

  • TIP Teachers: Jan 2025

    TIP Teachers: Jan 2025

    This evening I was able to join the monthly evening Zoom meeting of TIP Teachers, which is “Teachers for an Informed Public” in the state of Washington. As usual, a wealth of helpful media literacy resources were shared in the session, and I’ll attempt to highlight several of them in this post. First of all,…

  • Multi-dimensional Digital Identity

    Multi-dimensional Digital Identity

    This is a comment and reflection I shared on this blog post by Allysia Doratti, one of Dean Shareski‘s EC&I 832 graduate students in fall 2024: Mirror, Mirror, On My Feed: Exploring Identity in a Digital World. Hi Allysia- Thanks so much for this thoughtful post and especially for the reflections on digital identity and…

  • 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…

  • ALT Text for Web Accessibility

    ALT Text for Web Accessibility

    In the semester web design course I teach for middle school students, I share a series of videos and activities in a lesson series on web accessibility. I first became aware of the importance of web accessibility when I served as the first “Director of Distance Learning” for the College of Education at Texas Tech…

  • Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories

    Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories

    Hello, Providence Day parents and others who may be watching this video. This is Dr. Wes Fryer. Today is November 11, 2024, and this week we’re starting our “Froot Loop Conspiracy Theories” unit. This is an engaging, exciting, and highly relevant topic today because there are many wild and misleading conspiracy theories online that we…

  • Remove Background in Adobe Express

    Remove Background in Adobe Express

    I LOVE creating and sharing InfoPics. My favorite iOS app for creating InfoPIcs has (for years now) been Adobe Express for iOS. The app has updated in many ways, but it still retains its core features and UI for quickly adding readable, contrasting text to an image. This morning as I created a “Bible Verse…

  • Scratch Coding Resources

    Scratch Coding Resources

    I received an email earlier this year from a teacher in South Africa who is interested in starting a school and including coding in the curriculum. I finally responded to that message (yikes!) asking for links to CODING RESOURCES I use and have shared, including resources for using Scratch coding from MIT. These are the…