Mobile+Devices+and+Ministry+-+Cell+Phone+Podcasting

Assignment #3 **Mobile Devices and Ministry - Cell Phone Podcasting, Voicemail, Conferencing and Mobile Notes** Expected time to complete the written part of this assignment: 15 minutes. Please allow extra time for reading chapter 3 in Toys to Tools.

Religious education and ministry have not kept up with the educational technology options that you will find used in other subject areas. However, what we do have are best practices in these areas that can be easily adapted to fit your situation. There are many projects in chapter 3 that could be easily adapted to use in your parish. Take time to read through chapter 3 (Pages 23-70). Find one project that you would like to adapt to fit your audience and ministry.

Once you have found a best practice that you want to adapt, very simply describe what you are planning to do in the table below.

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 * YOUR NAME ||  || NAME OF PROJECT, PAGE NUMBER, AUDIENCE ||
 * EXAMPLE ||  || I am adapting the Murmur Project, Page 24, for HS youth. I will create a learning plan where you go over the project, assist them in how to do a good interview, determine who will create the web site, where you will upload the podcast files and more... ||
 * Sheila ||  || Currently I work only with adults and do not work in a parish. Therefore I have not bought the book and do not use a smart phone yet for my ministry.. However, if I ever return to work with teenagers or children, I would definitely consider buying the book and using some of its techniques. WIth the college students I teach, the new CANVAS INSTRUCTURE LMS (Learning Management System) they will begin to use the end of this month (May 2012) allows much more interaction with social media than the old system. Students can set their preferences for notifications--Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Delicious, cell phone, etc., and they are excited about possibilities of using their smart phones as a learning tool. ||
 * Lorraine ||  || When I looked at the //From Toys to Tools// website like ones suggested for polling and thought about how they could be used in a parish catechetical program by the catechists. The catechist could use polls as a way to review material that had been taught in a unit, and make it more enjoyable for the students. They could either answer the polls, which is basically a multiple choice question, individually or as a small group to stimulate collaboration and dialogue. I also think the students would be more engaged and perhaps remember more because of the experience. ||
 * Paul ||  || The Toys to Tools website is a great resource of info and ideas. One thing that occurred to me while I was visiting there was using either gText or KiKutext to send a discussion topic question to a class ahead of time. When the class meets they could discuss what reflections were generated for them by the discussion topic. Particularly with KiKutext, a follow up comment could be posted and archived. I like the idea that parents can be part of the communication by status reports. I think parents must be involved in the loop, especially those with students under 18. In those cases, any text to a student should really be copied to parents automatically to keep things open and appropriate. ||
 * Madeleine ||  || I purchased Toys to Tools . . . from Amazon.com for my iPad and am finding it quite interesting. I never before had considered using the dreaded cell phone as a teaching tool, but now my little gray cells are considering different possibilities. For example I just finished teaching an online course at New Mexico State University, and one of the things that I found handicapping was the inability to talk to my class as a whole, as I do in my face-to-face classroom, and receive instant feedback from anyone wishing to comment. Conferencing using FreeConferencePro might be the remedy. I checked it out on the Internet, and it still exists, at least for now. According to the author, all students in a class could call in at the same time, for free, and participate in a conference with me and with one another. To keep chaos at bay, I would be able to use a muting tool or end a user's participation if I so chose. In addition, FreeConferencePro allows recording of the conference, so it can be made public. This is particularly interesting to me because as a recording it is a permanent record of what was said and agreed to. ||
 * Joanna ||  || Just checking in. I have to get the book and read the chapter. ||
 * Joanna ||  || There are some aspects of this course that have been more mindboggling than others, and this is certainly one of them just because of the vocabulary and my lack of a smart phone! However, the project that I would like to adapt to fit my audience and ministry is the "Poetry Slam Podcast." One idea is that instead of reading their own poetry, every Monday-Tuesday lectors could proclaim their assigned reading for the following weekend. I would select the best examples from these and by Thursday organize them on playlists for the first and second readings. These would then be published on the to-be Liturgical Ministers Wiki page blog via Blogger. (Clergy could do the same with the Gospel.) Another idea would be to ask for a capella recordings of songs for others to use for learning and rehearsal purposes, especially those planning to be a part of the music ensemble for upcoming diocesan liturgies - as long as there would not be a copyright enfringement. ||

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