Technically Trying

 In my previous post   I talked about how to create strong passwords so you don't need to worry about losing personal information to someone you don't know. I also referenced using a password manager and tagged an old post I had written last school year. In this post, I'll be talking again about password managers, what they are, and how they will help you have less stress when trying to coordinate all of your current files and accounts. Once you've created those long strong passwords, you need to keep them in a place that is secure. Back in the day, it used to be a notebook, maybe you were lucky enough to find an old school journal with a lock and heart-shaped key and you would keep your passwords in there. But I hate to tell you, thats just not secure enough. So take the key off your necklace and lets transfer those passwords to a more secure, and encrypted, password manager on your personal device. A password manager is simply an app that uses one single password to a...

 I get it. Remembering a ton of passwords for all the required online programs and digital devices is overwhelming. You enter a password to get into your phone, you enter a password to get into your email, you enter a password to turn on your computer, you enter a password to sit down and watch netflix, you enter a password to check your bank account, and on and on and on. Passwords are not going away any time soon. So you will have to live with them and learn to use them in a safe and secure way in order to keep your personal information safe. Back in the day, it used to be so easy to use a single word as a password since there weren't any rules regarding length or using numbers or symbols. All you needed was a word you could remember like "toaster" or "yellow". Now, when you enter that password, the program tells you its weak and requires you to add a number, a symbol, a capital letter, and possibly the footprint of your first born. I'm joking! Kind of. Us...

 Last year I wrote this post about holiday shopping and I feel it still stands the test of time today! Be safe this holiday shopping season! Holiday Shopping and New Gadget Safety Keep safe and don't stress!

 Sometimes teachers like to do what is called a "bell ringer" or "seat work" when they begin the class. Sometimes its the "warmup" activity of the day. (or the hour) They come up with different things to show their kids a fun fact, make them answer a question, have a thought provoking conversation, or finish a quick game or activity. This helps them start the class on the right foot. Well I found a really cool activity for teachers to use that takes a lot of the guess work and thought out of creating those first things every day! EdTomorrow First Five! https://www.edtomorrow.com/today/ This website has grade level appropriate games, memes, thoughtful writing prompts or questions that can help get their minds focused, relaxed, and ready to learn. Today is Halloween, so they had a themed post for the day: Those are just for the "secondary" level. They have two other grade levels: The teacher can pick which one fits their students best and then pick...

 I've talked about AI before and its been something that I feel, as a parent, needs to be discussed openly almost as much as pornography if you are going to protect your kids from harm. ( PYE's Ten before Ten ) I truly believe that AI has a lot of good and help in the world. But I also know that, as we have seen in news articles, AI can hurt.  I use AI a lot in my job: research, problem solving, and creating emails when I just don't have the right words to explain my point of view. But with the ever growing "AI as a therapist/friend/confidant" generation of development, its becoming more and more dangerous to use AI when you are not fully aware that this is not a human . I'm speaking mostly about our children and their interactions with AI. Children don't need to be using AI. Especially unsupervised. They do not need an AI companion, they do not need to have a therapy session with ChatGPT, they need to learn to talk with humans, interact face to face, and ...

 As technology grows in our world and we become more immersed in the every day tasks that require said technology, we are faced with a dilemma right down to the very core of our human nature: Is this natural? Is this human? Is this right? I was recently made aware of an issue where robots are being created to birth children. Human children. These robots are being designed to actually carry the fertilized egg the full ten months of gestation and have a fully formed human to be given to new parents.  This brings up a new question that is directly related to our deeply rooted faith: Is this God at work? And I think the answer here is "no".  Technology can be a lot of things! Technology helped us create better paper for stories to be written on, better vehicles for safety, better medicines for healing, better entertainment for fireworks, and better convenience for every day life. But at what point do we stop and say "no thats too far"? At what point do we, as the human ...

 Google recently released access to their AI tools for all ages and its as if none of them have kids of their own! Releasing a powerful tool like that for all age users inside an educational setting is another way for students to find content they don't need to see or learn behaviors they don't need to learn. I'm not against AI. I use it constantly. I am always looking up things that I don't quite know, or using the conversational style researching to figure out problems I am working through with my job. Sometimes its nice to type in a query that is going through my head in one fashion and asking it to word it more clearly for another search I need to make. AI is a great tool in my toolbelt and I can see how it becomes an every day habit. However, our kids brains aren't developed! Their pre-frontal cortex hasn't finished growing and introducing them to a tool as powerful as AI that can speak back to you in a conversational manner can cause some serious problems!...