Her highly sought after keynotes and professional development programs help educators, parents, and students alike make sense of the digital world we live in today. With digital media now an integral part of our daily lives, Julie makes a strong case for ensuring media literacy is an integral part of our schools and classrooms. She teaches audiences across the country how to access and utilize Web 2.0 tools, and she supports educators in understanding how to embrace and leverage new concepts such as social media rather than fear them. Her confident, engaging, and down-to-earth style ensures the information she shares is highly accessible to all participants and that people leave her workshops inspired to be a part of this digital revolution.

As a professor at both Southern Illinois and Webster University in St. Louis for the past 15 years, Julie specializes in media literacy, advertising analysis, social media, digital literacy, and web 2.0 approaches. Her can’t miss keynotes and workshops will change the way you think about the world we live in today and the significant role you play in it!

Keynotes and Breakout Sessions

18 Things You Should be Doing on Social Media - for high schoolers

Are your students tired of the standard, ineffective and fear-based "online safety" or "cyberbullying" lecture? Give professor and author Julie Smith sixty minutes with your students to change the focus from "preaching" to "coaching". They are going to be online - why not coach them on the effective ways to do so? Professor Smith will cover terms of service, use of data, networking, deep fakes as well as personal branding and self-tracking in a fresh and engaging way.

26 Things Adults Need to Know About Social Media

In this fast, fun and engaging talk, professor and author Julie Smith lists all the things adults don't even know they don't know about the digital world in which their kids/students are living. From terms of service, unwritten rules, app design and current research - Julie will give you practical, relevant information that can help you start a conversation with your child/student - not just about how they use the media, but also how the media use them. In an age where fear sells, this important talk will provide you with a balanced approach to the digital world in the 21st Century.

Media Literacy: The Time is NOW!

With the average American consuming over eleven hours of mass media daily, media literacy has truly become a 21st Century survival skill that can no longer stay trapped in our school libraries.  In this powerful and fun keynote, Julie will explain the concepts and history of media literacy and ultimately inspire you to include it as an integral part of your daily curriculum. Teachers in all disciplines will leave this session not only motivated but with concrete ways, they can incorporate media literacy within their lessons to design wildly engaging experiences for students that spark their critical thinking. With media literacy now an integral part of the Common Core State Standards, the time is NOW for teachers to expose students to this empowering skill that ensures they are able to consume, analyze, critique and evaluate media in a whole new way. Julie will draw you in with her humor, relevant examples, engaging stories and poignant reflections in this call to action for our students to be smart consumers of their daily media diet.

Leveraging AI in the Classroom: Beyond Fear and into Function

The only thing we know for sure about AI is that it's not going anywhere. Webster University professor Julie Smith will provide some historical context of AI as well as tools to increase our productivity, improve our pedagogy, and increase student engagement.  Julie will also share her database of 200+ AI tools, organized by category. Students are using it, so it's time to update our teaching from "content" to "process." Are your students prepared for this latest digital upheaval?  

"Digital Citizenship" is 2015. What do Kids Need for 2024 and Beyond?

*For Adults AND High School Students

Time to go waaaay beyond "Be Nice Online" and help our students with skills required to navigate their digital worlds. Research tells us that students do not respond to fear-based internet presentations. Webster University professor Julie Smith will outline a specific list of 28 things students should be doing online because it's time to move past preaching and pivot to coaching.

Click Here, Comrade: Tools for Verifying Online Information

Misinformation has been around forever - but now it travels at the speed of light. Join author and professor Julie Smith while she demonstrates how to de-bunk viral fakes and shares the tips/tricks she uses to verify online information. From fact-checking search engines to determine if your new Twitter follower is a Russian bot - you will leave with a long list of tools that YOU and your students can use to fight misinformation in this digital age.

Deep Fakes, Shallow Fakes and Googlebombing: Digital Citizenship in 2021

Cyberbullying is so 2015. The digital citizenship landscape needs to now include terms like Deep Fakes, Shallow Fakes, and Googlebombing as well as Artificial Intelligence and Facial Recognition software. With the 2020 election just months away, the time for critical discernment of these new technologies is NOW. Professor and author Julie Smith will walk you through these new technologies as well as how to combat them - which is a 21st Century survival skill that no educator or voter should be without.