I am going to start where no good teacher should start, with a $10 word: epistemology. It refers to a branch of philosophy that explores how we know what we know – something scholars like John Dewey argued is deeply tied to experience, not just information.

This word takes me back to my doctoral graduation when my father-in-law said with good-natured humor, “Well, Ev… there’s a lot of [stuff] you can’t learn from a book.” At the time, I didn’t know what to say, but any teacher worth their salt will tell you: he’s right.

Pre-service teachers – myself included – often lament that they didn’t really learn to teach until the rubber-meets-the-road experience of student teaching or that first job. This is the challenge of teaching pre-service teachers. I’ve been doing it for a handful of years now, and I see a trend – the TikTok way of knowing in education. It’s got me wondering how we adapt our practices based on my experience during my recent final exams with pre-service teachers.

The TikTok Way

For example, I ask my students to make two tangible items to try and circumvent AI. One item is a teacher creed. I hand out “fancy” paper and tell them to create something they might read every teaching day – something to remind them not if, but when teaching gets hard. These are heartfelt, colorful creations. They write things like, I will show up with a good attitude. Even on my worst day, I will be someone’s favorite teacher. I cringe a bit, knowing how more seasoned educators might scoff but that is perhaps why I assign them – to bottle that early hopefulness in a landscape that often doesn’t create it for new teachers.

The second item is to create “One One-Pager to Rule Them All!” Students make non-linear, doodle-style notes throughout the semester, and this final asks them to zoom out and represent everything essential we’ve learned through a map of connections, images, and ideas.

I love this assignment because I can see who is connecting the dots and who is simply regurgitating the text. I sit with each student for five to seven minutes as they “show and tell” the work. As they read their creeds, I am heartened and sometimes even tear up. And in conversation after conversation this semester, I heard the same phrase, almost as a confession mid-conference:
  “I know it’s not research-y, but in a TikTok I saw…”
  “I know it’s not the best source, but I saw a reel that said…”
  “This guy I follow always says…”

Each of these notes expanded or connected my own thinking about course content. Some couldn’t be backed in my mind of research, but others could. So, instead of arguing, I asked questions: Who created that content? What might their motivation be? Why does it matter to you? This kind of questioning reflects what Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle describe as “inquiry as stance” – an orientation where teachers are active investigators of knowledge.

An Epistemological Shift

We are in a shift in epistemology. Future teachers are learning not only through peer-reviewed research or textbooks, but also through short-form video, personality-driven content, and lived teacher experience shared in real time – what media scholars like Henry Jenkins describe as a more participatory culture of knowledge. This is democratizing, the dismantling of the silo that has long held educational research out of reach. But this is also destabilizing.

During my first years of teaching, I cried in my car a lot. If I had had the megaphone of TikTok influencers celebrating how they left education, or even my own content microphone, I’m not sure I would have made it through to my later years of teaching that are still hard but more grounded and fulfilling.

Admittedly, some positions are ones to leave. Yes, at times educator working conditions are not what they should be but how do we help pre-service and early-career teachers move through the baptism-by-fire years while being bombarded by voices – many from people who have left the profession and now narrate it from the outside? Some of the content is helpful. Some of it is not. And all of it is loud.

I wonder if our teacher preparation programs are keeping pace with how knowledge is actually being formed. It leads me to my favorite teacher question, “So what? What do we do now?” How long do we hack away at the plant growing up the wall, and when is it time to embrace the aesthetic of a vine-covered building as something worth studying?

Instead, what if we become weavers of stories? What if we help students craft their own and build connections of knowing? What if we engage lived experience not as secondary to research, but as a complementary form of knowing? When have we had so much access to real-time teacher voices about things that happened to them in the classroom that day?

Just because something is visual, narrative, click-baity, and social doesn’t mean it is missing the mark or doesn’t engage a pedagogical question worth exploring. This TikTok wondering is happening whether we embrace it or not, so what if we see it as a new charge to help future teachers engage these voices critically, rather than pretending they don’t exist?

Here are some ideas I’m playing with. I’m curious what you might add.

Ed Content Fridays. Students bring in content that connects with the week’s readings and learning from their own scrolling. Discuss it in a Spider-Web format that employs elements of a librarian CRAAP test to help students develop habits of mind around credibility and content creator motivation.

Use a C3WP writing strategy that engages reels and posts to kick off class. Start with what students know as a free write and then bring in content to have them expand their arguments and defend thoughts with research from our shared text.  If students bring it in, they find it interesting, and we can require a citation connection to the course text or researchers.

Like/Share/Subscribe. Share strong online content that sings from reputable sources with students. Syllabi and course hubs can be places to curate rich content collaboratively.

Have students create their own content. CapCut on a desktop or Edits on a phone are surprisingly easy plug-and-play tools to make short form videos, and we can up the academic requirements with or without student posting. Thoughtful content can grow out of our rich history of educational research, bringing rich, thoughtful voices in among the pervasive ranting. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be about the work of educational reform and that a good rant doesn’t have its place, but this new way of knowing and sharing knowledge is sitting in our desks waiting for us to light the fire.

Yes, my step-dad is right, there is so much we can’t learn from a book, but maybe there is still so much we can learn from our own students in their own ways of knowing, even if we don’t fully understand them ourselves. What if our ways of knowing weave together, creating something beautiful?

To speed up Google Chrome, enable Memory Saver in Performance settings, close high-RAM background tasks using Chrome’s built-in Task Manager, remove unused browser extensions, and ensure the browser is updated to the latest version. Clearing accumulated browsing data and configuring standard page preloading will also restore rapid page load speeds without requiring third-party utility software.

Quick Take: Essential Chrome Optimization Steps

When Google Chrome becomes sluggish, high memory consumption from unoptimized background tabs and bloat from legacy extensions are usually the primary culprits. According to global desktop browser market share data from Statcounter, Chrome continues to dominate desktop web browsing globally, making system resource efficiency a primary concern for millions of users.

To get Chrome running smoothly again without losing your saved preferences or browsing history, focus on six core interventions:

• Turn on Memory Saver: Automatically frees RAM from inactive background tabs.
• Kill heavy processes: Use Chrome’s Task Manager (Shift + Esc) to identify and close memory-hogging tabs.
• Prune extensions: Audit chrome://extensions and disable tools you do not actively use.
• Adjust preloading and graphics: Enable standard preloading and toggle hardware acceleration based on your GPU capability.
• Clear cache and reset settings: Remove corrupted temporary site data that slows down page rendering.
• Restart and update: Apply pending security patches and clear browser heap memory through a clean restart.

Prerequisites for Optimizing Chrome

Before modifying browser configurations, verify that your system meets the basic operational conditions listed below:

Step-by-Step Chrome Speed Optimization Guide

Follow these steps sequentially to isolate performance bottlenecks and reconfigure Chrome for optimal speed.

Step 1: Enable Built-in Performance Modes (Memory Saver & Energy Saver)

Chrome includes automated resource controls designed specifically to prevent inactive tabs from hoarding system RAM. You can manage these settings by enabling Chrome’s built-in Memory Saver and Energy Saver features to reduce RAM consumption on inactive tabs.

1. Open Chrome and click the three vertical dots (Menu) in the top-right corner.
2. Select Settings and click Performance from the left-hand navigation sidebar.
3. Toggle Memory Saver to the On position.
4. (Optional) If you frequently work with specific web applications that must remain active in the background (such as webmail or audio players), click Add next to “Always keep these sites active” and enter their domain names.
5. On laptop devices, toggle Energy Saver on to limit background visual effects and high frame rates when running on battery power.

Expected Outcome: Inactive tabs discard their held memory while preserving their title and tab state. When you click back onto a sleeping tab, Chrome reloads the page seamlessly.

Step 2: Identify and Terminate Resource-Hungry Tabs with Chrome Task Manager

A single misbehaving web page or background script can cause system-wide slowdowns. For additional background task management, follow Google’s official Chrome performance documentation to identify processes hogging system memory.

Branching Shortcut by Operating System:

• Windows & ChromeOS: Press Shift + Esc while inside Chrome.
• macOS: Click Window in the top system menu bar and select Task Manager (or click Menu > More Tools > Task Manager).

1. Inside the Task Manager window, click the Memory footprint column header to sort all active processes from highest to lowest consumption.
2. Locate individual tabs or background processes consuming excessive RAM or CPU cycles (e.g., over 500 MB for a single static tab).
3. Click on the offending process and select End Process at the bottom right.

Expected Outcome: The high-resource process terminates immediately, releasing RAM back to the operating system and stopping CPU thermal throttling.

Step 3: Audit, Disable, and Uninstall Unnecessary Extensions

Browser extensions run persistent background scripts that inspect network traffic, modify page DOM trees, and consume memory. Only install extensions from the official Chrome Web Store extensions catalog and audit permissions regularly.

1. Type chrome://extensions into the address bar and press Enter.
2. Review every installed extension. Toggle off the switch for any extension you do not use daily.
3. For extensions you no longer need, click the Remove button.
4. If you suffer from frequent form submission crashes, avoid relying on outdated third-party form helpers; rely on Chrome’s built-in Autofill or maintained password managers instead to avoid script conflicts.

Expected Outcome: Lower baseline memory consumption upon browser launch and reduced latency when loading complex web pages. Learn more about essential Chrome extensions for productivity that maintain low system overhead.

Step 4: Configure Page Preloading and Hardware Acceleration

Chrome can predict which links you are likely to click and preload web assets in advance, speeding up navigation across frequently visited sites.

1. Navigate to chrome://settings/performance.
2. Scroll to Preload pages and select Standard preloading. (Avoid Extended preloading if you are on a metered connection or limited RAM).
3. Next, navigate to chrome://settings/system in the left menu.
4. Verify that Use graphics acceleration when available is toggled On if you have a dedicated or modern integrated GPU. If you experience screen flickering or video playback lag, toggle this setting Off and restart Chrome.

Expected Outcome: Instantaneous page transitions for internal links and smoother rendering of video content. You can also configure advanced Chrome flags like chrome://flags/#smooth-scrolling if default page scrolling feels jumpy.

Step 5: Clear Cached Data and Reset Corrupted Browser Settings

Over months of use, corrupted web cache, stale cookies, and misconfigured permissions can degrade browser responsiveness.

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Delete (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + Delete (Mac) to open the Clear browsing data menu.
2. Select the Advanced tab and set the time range to All time.
3. Check Cached images and files and Cookies and other site data. Click Clear data.
4. If browser behavior remains erratic, navigate to chrome://settings/reset and click Restore settings to their original defaults.

Expected Outcome: Elimination of stale browser cache states and misconfigured flag overrides. Review our full guide to clear your browser cache and cookies safely without losing critical saved passwords.

Step 6: Update Chrome and Perform Routine Restarts

Chrome continuously updates its V8 JavaScript engine and memory allocation routines. However, background updates only take effect when the browser restarts completely.

1. Type chrome://settings/help into your address bar and press Enter.
2. Chrome will automatically check for pending updates and download them.
3. When prompted, click Relaunch to apply the update.
4. Get into the habit of closing and re-opening Chrome at least once a week rather than leaving it running indefinitely during system sleep cycles.

Expected Outcome: Patched memory leaks, updated security definitions, and a fresh browser heap memory state.

How to Verify Chrome Performance Improvements

To confirm that your optimization efforts yielded tangible performance gains, perform the following verification checks:

1. Check Baseline Memory Usage: Open Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) or macOS Activity Monitor. Compare overall system RAM usage before and after enabling Memory Saver with 10–15 tabs open. You should observe a 30% to 40% reduction in total memory allocated to Chrome processes.
2. Inspect Individual Tab States: Hover your mouse cursor over an inactive tab. The hover preview card should indicate that the tab is “Inactive” or sleeping, confirming that Memory Saver is functioning.
3. Test Script Execution Speed: Load heavy web applications (like Google Sheets or web design tools). Notice whether page interaction and input latency are crisp and responsive.

Troubleshooting Common Chrome Performance Issues

Chrome Still Uses High Memory After Enabling Memory Saver

If Chrome continues to consume excessive RAM despite enabling native performance features, background extensions or pinned tabs are usually bypassing tab sleep rules. Pinned tabs, pages playing background audio, or sites with active web socket connections (like live messaging apps) are automatically excluded from memory deactivation.

Fix: Open chrome://extensions, temporary disable all non-essential extensions, and check if memory drops. Unpin non-critical tabs and review your “Always keep these sites active” list under chrome://settings/performance to ensure unnecessary domains were not added accidentally. For deeper diagnostics, read our guide on how to troubleshoot high Chrome RAM usage.

Web Pages Render Slowly or Video Playback Stutters

Slow page rendering or choppy video playback (especially on high-resolution streams) often points to GPU hardware acceleration conflicts or outdated graphics drivers.

Fix: Go to chrome://settings/system, toggle Use graphics acceleration when available to the opposite setting, and click Relaunch. Additionally, type chrome://gpu into the address bar to verify whether hardware acceleration features are marked as “Hardware accelerated” or “Software only.” Update your system’s graphics drivers if hardware acceleration is failing.

Unwanted Pop-ups, Search Hijacking, or Malware Symptoms Persist

Starting in Chrome version 111, Google retired the standalone Chrome Cleanup Tool previously found under browser settings. Users can no longer run a native “Clean Up Computer” scan directly inside Chrome.

Fix: Ensure Google Safe Browsing is configured to Enhanced protection by visiting chrome://settings/security. If malicious search redirects or persistent pop-ups remain, review your modern browser security settings and run a thorough malware scan using dedicated OS-level malware scanners like Malwarebytes or Microsoft Defender. If needed, consult our guide on standalone malware removal tools.

Where This Approach Has Limits

Optimizing software settings can only reclaim available hardware capacity; it cannot overcome physical hardware bottlenecks. If your machine has 4 GB of RAM and is running modern web applications alongside an operating system that requires 3 GB on its own, Chrome will inevitably slow down regardless of setting tweaks.

Additionally, while preloading pages speeds up navigation, it increases background data usage, which can be undesirable on metered mobile hotspots. Finally, disabling hardware acceleration resolves rendering glitches on older GPUs but offloads graphics tasks to the CPU, which may elevate CPU temperatures and reduce battery life on laptops.

Key Takeaways

• Built-in features like Memory Saver automatically suspend inactive tabs, reducing RAM footprint by up to 40%.
• Use Shift + Esc (Chrome Task Manager) to pinpoint and close specific high-resource tabs instead of restarting the whole browser.
• Google’s legacy “Clean Up Computer” feature was permanently removed in Chrome 111; use Enhanced Safe Browsing and standalone antivirus tools for malware detection.
• Regularly prune unnecessary browser extensions, as they run continuous background scripts that degrade performance.
• Restarting Chrome weekly is mandatory to apply pending security updates and purge browser heap memory leaks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Over the years I have been to many hacker camps and done a lot of very cool things, but BornHack 2026 brought me something entirely new: Radio. By which I don’t mean radio in terms of amateur radio, LoRa, or whatever, but Radio. Broadcast radio, because the camp had a special event FM radio station for the first time. And because in a previous life I spent an inordinate amount of time in my university’s student radio station and have the Radio Voice to prove it, I was totally there for it.

For a hacker camp, one of the special things about BornHack Radio was unexpected, that it was entirely analogue. No online streams, the only broadcast was over the air, 5 watts ERP from a vertical antenna stuck on a mast at the highest point of the Hylkedam scout camp site. I don’t know whether any of the residents of the isle of Funen listened, or what they made of it, but it certainly reached as far as the two closest towns.

The other unexpected feature of the station was that it had no music licensing. Personally I viewed this as an asset, because it forced the programming to be hacker-focused rather than suit the musical tastes of whichever people are enthusiastic enough to be DJs. I sincerely hope they don’t get a music licence at future events, speech-only gives it a special quality.

The studio for an analogue station like this one can be surprisingly simple, in that it’s a mixing desk to bring all the different microphones and other inputs together and set the levels, and not a lot else. the whole thing was in a Coleman shelter on the main drag through the camp, so as studios go it could have been quieter. Programming varied from talk shows through interview shows, a live feed from the speaker tent — is this the first ever Hacker Jeopardy broadcast? — and a beautifully done robotic numbers station which I suspect may also have been part of one of the on-camp games.

I brought two shows to the airwaves, both recorded, the first of which was a BornHack take on the Hackaday Podcast format, and the second a half-hour roving interview show. I believe I may be the first person ever to live-commentate a pixelflood screen in the style of Formula One coverage.

The thing that struck me most in my first foray into radio journalism was how straightforward it was. Wander the camp with microphone (complete with fluffy windshield and 3D-printed Hackaday cube), drop the results into Audacity, and a remarkably straightforward editing process compared to video. Last time I did this it involved 1/4″ tape and a razor blade.

So that was BornHack Radio, a new experience at a hacker camp both for those of us who ventured forth on the airwaves, and I hope also for the listeners. A format in which the live shows disappeared into the aether rather than having an online afterlife gave the whole thing a freedom rarely found in 2026. I really hope this isn’t the last time I break out the fluffy microphone at a hacker camp.

Thanks to [⁨Morel Sourvalley⁩] for the images.

Fans of the original DOOM never asked for a pair of shiny golden floppy disks in 2026. Fanattik went ahead and made them anyway. These officially licensed replicas celebrate the two 3½-inch disks that carried the DOOM v1.2 shareware release.

That version, released in early 1994, let you to play the first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead, to evaluate if the whole game was worth the money before opting to buy. The new set comes as two non-working dummy disks coated in imitation gold plating. They measure 89 by 89 millimeters and are placed in a box with the original artwork printed directly on it. A simple display stand is included so the disks can stand upright on a shelf.

Tiny Arcade Atari 2600 Mini Console 3.5” Playable Retro TV & Controller with 10 Classic Games Including…

• REAL PLAYABLE RETRO GAMING EXPERIENCE: Enjoy authentic gameplay on a mini Atari 2600 console featuring a working joystick and TV screen. Includes…
• 10 BUILT-IN CLASSIC VIDEO GAMES: Preloaded with iconic Atari titles, this mini arcade system delivers hours of entertainment without downloads or…
• PORTABLE MINI ARCADE CONSOLE: Compact 3.5” size makes it easy to take anywhere—great for travel, desks, or small spaces. A fun handheld gaming…

You can purchase one of the 5,000 numbered sets being produced, however the disks are primarily for decoration, with no moving mechanisms, metal sliders, or write-protect notches. They have no data on them. The purpose of this item is solely for display. If you wish to play the original shareware version, there is still a free download available that has been around for a long time.

Fanattik began taking pre-orders in August 2026, and GameStop lists it for $29.99 in the United States, while it is available straight from Fanatik for £19.99 in the United Kingdom. In Malaysia, it appears that it will cost roughly RM94 before shipment. You can probably tell by now that the company has a history of releasing comparable retro-style items, having previously done CD-ROM reproductions of Resident Evil and World of Warcraft, so a DOOM set is not surprising.

To put things in perspective, the full version of DOOM back then required four floppy disks to carry all three episodes, as CD-ROM versions weren’t available until much later. The golden floppies practically preserve the shareware version indefinitely, so you don’t need to dig out an old drive to play it. For anyone who still proudly displays their old PC boxes, the limited run and individual numbering ensures the future, since once you have one of the 5,000 sets, there will be no more available.

If you’re done giving Sony money every month, cancelling PlayStation Plus is easy.

How to cancel your PlayStation Plus subscription

What happens after you cancel

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