From DSC:
One of my sisters shared this piece with me. She is very concerned about our society’s use of technology — whether it relates to our youth’s use of social media or the relentless pressure to be first in all things AI. As she was a teacher (at the middle school level) for 37 years, I greatly appreciate her viewpoints. She keeps me grounded in some of the negatives of technology. It’s important for us to listen to each other.
On 09/29/2025,
in education, Emotion, engagement / engaging students, K-12 related, parents/guardians, relationships, social media, teachers, United States, youth,
by Daniel Christian
20+ Kid Tools for Better Screen Time — from wondertools.substack.com by Jeremy Caplan and Kevin Maguire
Dad-tested apps to spark creativity (mostly free)
I had a fruitful recent conversation about resources for kids with a fellow dad, Kevin Maguire, who writes the great newsletter The New Fatherhood. If you’re a dad looking for great reads and a sense of community, check out Kevin’s newsletter. (Also read Recalculating, by Ignacio Pereyra). Kevin wrote the section below about simplifying screens and shared the tip about muted.io.
The rest of the apps and resources below are ones I’ve enjoyed in recent years with my wife and daughters. From coding with visual blocks to identifying plants on nature walks, these are some of our favorite tools for sparking creativity.
Joy of Missing Out (JOMO) — including a Family section
Take FOMO and flip it on its head. That’s JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out.
At JOMO(campus), we believe digital wellness isn’t just a curriculum—it’s a culture. One rooted in joy, human connection, and intentional living. We equip schools to lead with clarity, care, and courage—helping every member of your community ask: “Who am I becoming in the digital age?”
Our mission is to help school communities create a flourishing campus culture where students are happier, healthier, and more focused — empowering them to make the impact they were born to make.
Our mission is to make digital well-being accessible for every student, fostering resilience and the skills to thrive in a world where digital pressures are ever-present. By teaching digital self-awareness and cultivating joy, we’re committed to supporting students in navigating technology’s challenges with confidence and intentionality.
On 08/28/2025,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, bots, career development, creativity, design, education, graphics, health, multimedia, passions, skills, social learning / networks, social media, student-related, teachers, vocational / trades, workplace, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Artificial Intelligence in Vocational Education — from leonfurze.com by Leon Furze
The vocational education sector is incredibly diverse, covering everything from trades like building and construction, electrical, plumbing and automotive through to allied health, childcare, education, the creative arts and the technology industry. In Canberra, we heard from people representing every corner of the industry, including education, retail, tourism, finance and digital technologies. Every one of these industries is being impacted by the current AI boom.
…
A theme of the day was that whilst the vocational education sector is seen as a slow-moving beast with its own peculiar red tape, it is still possible to respond to emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, and there’s an imperative to do so.
Coming back to GenAI for small business owners, a qualified plumber running their own business, either as a solo operator or as manager of a team, probably doesn’t have many opportunities to keep up to date with the rapid developments of digital technologies. They’re far too busy doing their job.
So vocational education and training can be an initial space to develop some skills and understanding of the technology in a way which can be beneficial for managing that day-to-day job.
And speaking of the trade schools/vocational world…
Social media opens a window to traditional trades for young workers — from washingtonpost.com by Taylor Telford; this is a gifted article
Worker influencers are showing what life is like in fields such as construction, plumbing and manufacturing. Trade schools are trying to make the most of it.
Social media is increasingly becoming a destination for a new generation to learn about skilled trades — at a time when many have grown skeptical about the cost of college and the promise of white-collar jobs. These posts offer authentic insight as workers talk openly about everything from their favorite workwear to safety and payday routines.
The exposure is also changing the game for trade schools and employers in such industries as manufacturing and construction, which have long struggled to attract workers. Now, some are evolving their recruiting tactics by wading into content creation after decades of relying largely on word of mouth.
On 05/13/2025,
in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, creativity, digital video, media/film, social media, society, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
New tools for ultimate character consistency — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather B. Cooper
Plus simple & effective video prompt tips
We have some new tools for character, objects, and scene consistency with Runway and Midjourney.
Multimodal AI = multi-danger — from theneurondaily.com by Grant Harvey
According to a new report from Enkrypt AI, multimodal models have opened the door to sneakier attacks (like Ocean’s Eleven, but with fewer suits and more prompt injections).
Naturally, Enkrypt decided to run a few experiments… and things escalated quickly.
They tested two of Mistral’s newest models—Pixtral-Large and Pixtral-12B, built to handle words and visuals.
What they found? Yikes:
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- The models are 40x more likely to generate dangerous chemical / biological / nuclear info.
- And 60x more likely to produce child sexual exploitation material compared to top models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o or Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
Rise of AI-generated deepfake videos spreads misinformation — from iblnews.org
On 04/25/2025,
in creativity, Emotion, K-12 related, parents/guardians, platforms, psychology, relationships, research, social media, society, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Teens, Social Media and Mental Health — from pewresearch.org by Michelle Faverio, Monica Anderson, and Eugenie Park
Most teens credit social media with feeling more connected to friends. Still, roughly 1 in 5 say social media sites hurt their mental health, and growing shares think they harm people their age
Rising rates of poor mental health among youth have been called a national crisis. While this is often linked to factors like the COVID-19 pandemic or poverty, some officials, like former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, name social media as a major threat to teenagers.
Our latest survey of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 and their parents finds that parents are generally more worried than their children about the mental health of teenagers today.
And while both groups call out social media’s impact on young people’s well-being, parents are more likely to make this connection.1
Still, teens are growing more wary of social media for their peers. Roughly half of teens (48%) say these sites have a mostly negative effect on people their age, up from 32% in 2022. But fewer (14%) think they negatively affect them personally.
On 12/29/2024,
in 21st century, adjunct faculty, adult learning, business, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, curriculum, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, experimentation, faculty/staff, global / globalization, graphics, higher education, ideas, internet, journalism, K-12 related, liberal arts, library / librarians, media/film, Michigan, multimedia, music, new media literacies, online media, parents/guardians, platforms, podcasting, political science, reading, skills, social learning / networks, social media, society, sociology, story, student-related, teachers, technologies for your home, TVs, United States, universities, vendors, writing, youth,
by Daniel Christian
Introducing the 2025 Wonder Media Calendar for tweens, teens, and their families/households. Designed by Sue Ellen Christian and her students in her Global Media Literacy class (in the fall 2024 semester at Western Michigan University), the calendar’s purpose is to help people create a new year filled with skills and smart decisions about their media use. This calendar is part of the ongoing Wonder Media Library.com project that includes videos, lesson plans, games, songs and more. The website is funded by a generous grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, in partnership with Western Michigan University and the Library of Michigan.
On 12/09/2024,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, analytics, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, communities of practice, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, data related items, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, Google, graphics, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, marketing/social marketing, media/film, Microsoft, multimedia, music, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new media literacies, NVIDIA, online media, Open AI, platforms, podcasting, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, programming, skills, social media, strategy, student-related, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, United States, vendors, videoconferencing, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Where to start with AI agents: An introduction for COOs — from fortune.com by Ganesh Ayyar
Picture your enterprise as a living ecosystem, where surging market demand instantly informs staffing decisions, where a new vendor’s onboarding optimizes your emissions metrics, where rising customer engagement reveals product opportunities. Now imagine if your systems could see these connections too! This is the promise of AI agents — an intelligent network that thinks, learns, and works across your entire enterprise.
Today, organizations operate in artificial silos. Tomorrow, they could be fluid and responsive. The transformation has already begun. The question is: will your company lead it?
The journey to agent-enabled operations starts with clarity on business objectives. Leaders should begin by mapping their business’s critical processes. The most pressing opportunities often lie where cross-functional handoffs create friction or where high-value activities are slowed by system fragmentation. These pain points become the natural starting points for your agent deployment strategy.
Create podcasts in minutes — from elevenlabs.io by Eleven Labs
Now anyone can be a podcast producer
Top AI tools for business — from theneuron.ai
This week in AI: 3D from images, video tools, and more — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
From 3D worlds to consistent characters, explore this week’s AI trends
Another busy AI news week, so I organized it into categories:
- Image to 3D
- AI Video
- AI Image Models & Tools
- AI Assistants / LLMs
- AI Creative Workflow: Luma AI Boards
Want to speak Italian? Microsoft AI can make it sound like you do. — this is a gifted article from The Washington Post;
A new AI-powered interpreter is expected to simulate speakers’ voices in different languages during Microsoft Teams meetings.
Artificial intelligence has already proved that it can sound like a human, impersonate individuals and even produce recordings of someone speaking different languages. Now, a new feature from Microsoft will allow video meeting attendees to hear speakers “talk” in a different language with help from AI.
What Is Agentic AI? — from blogs.nvidia.com by Erik Pounds
Agentic AI uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems.
The next frontier of artificial intelligence is agentic AI, which uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems. And it’s set to enhance productivity and operations across industries.
Agentic AI systems ingest vast amounts of data from multiple sources to independently analyze challenges, develop strategies and execute tasks like supply chain optimization, cybersecurity vulnerability analysis and helping doctors with time-consuming tasks.
On 06/03/2024,
in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, communications, creativity, design, emerging technologies, experimentation, graphics, media/film, NVIDIA, productivity / tips and tricks, social media, tools, United States, vendors, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
The state of AI in early 2024: Gen AI adoption spikes and starts to generate value — from mckinsey.com
As generative AI adoption accelerates, survey respondents report measurable benefits and increased mitigation of the risk of inaccuracy. A small group of high performers lead the way.
If 2023 was the year the world discovered generative AI (gen AI), 2024 is the year organizations truly began using—and deriving business value from—this new technology. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey on AI, 65 percent of respondents report that their organizations are regularly using gen AI, nearly double the percentage from our previous survey just ten months ago. Respondents’ expectations for gen AI’s impact remain as high as they were last year, with three-quarters predicting that gen AI will lead to significant or disruptive change in their industries in the years ahead.
Organizations are already seeing material benefits from gen AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps in the business units deploying the technology. The survey also provides insights into the kinds of risks presented by gen AI—most notably, inaccuracy—as well as the emerging practices of top performers to mitigate those challenges and capture value.
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What’s the future of AI? — from mckinsey.com
AI is here to stay. To outcompete in the future, organizations and individuals alike need to get familiar fast. This series of McKinsey Explainers dives deep into the seven technologies that are already shaping the years to come.
We’re in the midst of a revolution. Just as steam power, mechanized engines, and coal supply chains transformed the world in the 18th century, AI technology is currently changing the face of work, our economies, and society as we know it. We don’t know exactly what the future will look like. But we do know that these seven technologies will play a big role.
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?ANNOUNCING SHOWRUNNER?
We believe the future is a mix of game & movie.
Simulations powering 1000s of Truman Shows populated by interactive AI characters.
?Welcome to Sim Francisco & Showrunner!?
SOUND ON!
Link to Signup in Bio pic.twitter.com/yptMocqOfW
— The Simulation (@fablesimulation) May 30, 2024
Generate an e-book in minutes with groqbook — from heatherbcooper.substack.com by Heather Cooper
Plus new Canva workflow tools, Perplexity Pages, and more
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The new Canva
Canva announced “a whole new Canva” to improve workplace collaborative creation and a revamped platform to simplify its tools for anyone to use.
At Canva Create, several AI features were announced that enhance the design and content creation process:
- Magic Design: Upload an image and select a style to get a curated selection of personalized templates.
- Magic Write: An AI-powered copywriting assistant that can generate written content from a text prompt, useful for presentations and website copy.
- Magic Eraser: This feature can remove unwanted objects or backgrounds from images.
- Magic Edit: Users can swap an object with something else entirely using generative AI.
- Beat Sync: Automatically matches video footage to a soundtrack of your choice.
- Translate: Automatically translates text in designs to over 100 different languages.
Tools are the next big thing in AI — from link.wired.com by Will Knight
Things might get more interesting in business settings as AI companies start deploying so-called “AI agents,” which can take action by operating other software on a computer or via the internet.
Anthropic, a competitor to OpenAI, announced a major new product today that attempts to prove the thesis that tool use is needed for AI’s next leap in usefulness.
“Aravaipa” by Photographer Andrea Koesters — from booooooom.com
Satisfying photos for perfectionists – thread ?
1. Crescent Moon bridge by Yier Wang pic.twitter.com/bnnJ57zW3U
— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) April 10, 2024
Researchers Uncover Hundreds of New Marine Species in the Underwater Mountain Ecosystems of the Pacific Ocean — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert and Co.
The beauty of spring around the world – a thread ?
1. A desert bloom in Utah by Emily Dickey pic.twitter.com/jaltpej1S9
— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) April 12, 2024
On 03/29/2024,
in collaboration, curriculum, digital storytelling, digital video, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, Learning Experience Design, multimedia, participation, pedagogy, play, productivity / tips and tricks, real-world assignments, skills, social media, storytelling, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, youth,
by Daniel Christian
3 Steps for Creating Video Projects With Elementary Students — from edutopia.org by Bill Manchester
A straightforward plan for facilitating multimedia projects helps ensure collaborative learning and a fun classroom experience.
Having elementary students make their own videos instead of consuming content made by someone else sounds like a highly engaging educational experience. But if you’ve ever tried to get 25 third graders to use a video editing software platform that they’ve never seen before, it can get really frustrating really fast. It’s easy for the lesson to become entirely centered around how to use the software without any subject-area content learning.
Through years of trial and error with K–6 students, I’ve developed three guiding concepts for elementary video projects so that teachers and students have a good experience.
Supporting Students As They Work Independently — from by Marcus Luther and The Broken Copier
4 tools that have helped me improve “independent work time”
Movement-Based Games That Help Students With Spelling — from edutopia.org by Jocelyn Greene
Games that combine spelling with physical activity can make it easier for young students to learn new words.
Like actors, students are often tasked with memorization. Although education has evolved to incorporate project-based learning and guided play, there’s no getting around the necessity of knowing the multiplication tables, capital cities, and correct spelling.
The following are movement-based games that build students’ abilities to retain spelling words specifically. Ideally, these exercises support them academically as well as socially. Research shows that learning through play promotes listening, focus, empathy, and self-awareness—benefits that build students’ social and emotional learning skills.
Quizlet Survey Reveals Students Crave Life Skills Education — from prnewswire.com by Quizlet; via GSV
The survey’s key findings included:
- Financial and life skills uncertainty: One-third of recent graduates don’t believe they have or are unsure they have the financial and core life skills needed to succeed in the world.
- Appetite for non-academic courses: 68% of recent graduates think non-academically focused courses in formal education settings would better prepare students for the real world. This belief is especially strong among respondents that attended public schools and colleges (71%).
- Automotive maintenance skills are stalled: More than any other skill, nearly one in five recent graduates say they are the least confident in handling automotive maintenance, such as changing a tire or their oil. This is followed by financial planning (17%), insurance (12%), minor home repairs (11%), cooking (11%), cleaning (8%) and organizing (8%).
- Financial planning woes: A majority (79%) of recent graduates said financial planning overwhelms them the most – and of all the life skills highlighted in the survey, 29% of respondents said it negatively impacts their mental health.
- Social media as a learning tool: Social media is helping fill the skills gap, with 33% of recent graduates turning to it for life skills knowledge.
From DSC:
Our son would agree with many of these findings. He would like to have learned things like how to do/file his taxes, learn more about healthcare insurance, and similar real-world/highly-applicable types of knowledge. Those involved with K12 curriculum decisions, please take a serious look at this feedback and make the necessary changes/additions.
How Can Educators Build Support Systems for Students Eyeing Technician Jobs? — from gettingsmart.com by Dr. Parminder Jassal
Key Points
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Integrating technical skills into the high school curriculum can inspire and prepare students for diverse roles. This approach is key to fostering equity and inclusivity in the job market.
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By forging partnerships with community colleges and technical schools, high schools can democratize access to education and ensure students from all backgrounds have equal opportunities for success in technical fields.
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High schools can expand career possibilities by providing apprenticeships as viable and lucrative alternatives to traditional four-year degrees.