KQED Launches Misinformation Course Series for Teachers

It’s been a busy summer here at KQED. My team at KQED Teach has been working hard to finalize a new collection of online courses for teachers on misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. The four course series covers critical topics that educators should know about in the age of “fake news.” The courses are: Making Media …

New Exhibit at Cal Academy Explores the Science & Culture of Skin

Spence: You worried about saving your own skin? Sam: Yeah, I am. It covers my body. Ronin (1998) A new exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences “Skin: Loving Armor, Evolving Identity” explores the “beauty and sophistication of this organ through rarely seen scientific specimens, fascinating interactives, and thought-provoking investigations of a challenging subject that’s …

Deepfakes: Can You Spot a Phony Video?

I’m so proud of the work of our Above the Noise team at KQED Education on their new video on deepfakes. Such a complicated and potentially scary topic for our civic discourse.  They do such a great job breaking down what is a deepfake, what makes it so potentially devastating to our public life, and what …

My Tips on Bike Commuting on KQED Radio!

I knew that working at KQED would make me famous! Here’s where it starts. On Tuesday, a story aired on KQED radio about tips for commuting to work by bicycle, in preparation for “Bike to Work Day” coming up soon. I was quoted a couple of times for my tips on riding a folding bike …

Learning Beyond the Test

This blog post by Maarten van Doorn on education really hit home for me today. van Doorn writes about how the educational system has made learning into a specific set of rote actions designed to pass a specific test, in order to get to the “next level” of your education, and eventually your career. He …

Imposter Syndrome and Being an Older Professional

Here’s the bad news about imposter syndrome: it doesn’t get better the older you get. In fact, it can get worse. My first professional job was as a policy analyst on transnational financial institutions for a think tank on Capitol Hill. I was fresh out of college and I had no background in macro-economics. But …

KQED Celebrates Mister Rogers Day 2019!

Working at KQED has lots of awesome perks: getting to work with a talented and dedicated staff, seeing all of the incredible journalism put out by our news teams, supporting our important mission in the Bay Area. We also know how to have fun and celebrate together. On March 20 we celebrated Mister Rogers Day …

Happy 30th, World Wide Web: Let’s Fight to Make It Better

On March 11, 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a computer programmer working at the CERN lab in Geneva, sent to his boss Mike Sendall a proposal for a “world information management system.” He called it the “worldwideweb.” His boss famously called it “‘Vague, but exciting.” Sir Berners-Lee developed much of the backbone of the internet — …