I was just finishing up the Ensign for this month (before the month is through) and came across this section about people using technology to serve more.

Using a Web-based telephone program, the missionaries, who can be located anywhere in the world as long as they have broadband Internet access, respond to as many as 10,000 inquiries per month. Patrons’ questions span many topics, including family history research, indexing, and submitting names to the temple.

Though her eyesight is poor, Sister Taylor—now a supervisor over six fellow missionaries—can increase the font size on her computer enough to read patrons’ e-mails and respond to their questions.

Service missionaries are given extensive online training they can complete at home. They also have access to a team of individuals to help them with their questions and provide individual training and help. Once they’ve finished the training, they have access to a database that includes some 4,000 articles they can refer to for answers to patrons’ questions.

Sister Taylor didn’t learn how to operate a computer until she was 66 years old, but she says it is a beneficial, useful skill. “Your age doesn’t matter,” she said. “You’re not too old to learn how to use [a computer].”

The article goes on to to relate who can serve is this capacity.  This is great stuff.  This is the type of thing that makes me think that the Lord has certainly inspired the internet to proclaim the gospel, redeem the dead, and perfect the saints!

I read a great article this morning in the January Ensign entitled “Unplugged.”  This is a story about a family that ended up without TV for a month and realized the toll it was taking in their ability to complete things. 

I suddenly seemed to have the time to do projects I had put off for years because I thought I was too busy. Had television really robbed me of these important activities?

As I began to add the hours in my head, I realized the price I had paid. The television stayed off during the daytime hours, but it usually remained on the rest of the night. At four hours a day for six days a week, we watched 24 hours of television each week. At the age of 54, I had spent almost eight years of my life watching television. Eight years!

I personally hardly ever watch TV anymore (too much to blog about), but what about other technology (like blogs ).  But the principle is sound… technology can both enable us, but Satan is also good at using it to distract us as well.  As an old friend of mine used to say “Vigilance, constant vigilance.”  (Thanks Wyett)

So, I’m sure that many of those who read this blog already heard that Pres. Hinckley passed away last night.  For me this is the third prophet I can remember passing away.  I was six when President Benson was called to be the prophet.  He led the church for most of my young years (almost 10 years), Then President Hunter led for a the first couple of my high school years. 

It was, however, President Hinckley who was prophet for most of high school.  It was he who issued me a call to serve the wonderful people of Germany for two years.  It was he who led this church when I got home from my mission.  It was he who my wife and I listened to in our early years of marriage for guidance and inspiration from the Lord.  And it was he who we listened tas we began having children and all these past years.

How grateful I am for a man that was willing to literally give his life in service to the Lord.  He is such an amazing example of optimism in a deteriorating world.  And to me, a man who kept his covenants, no matter what.  Giving his all to God and the building of his kingdom on the earth.

It just bring a smile to my face to think about him reunited with his beloved wife again.  He lived a great life with her and it was clear to everyone in the church how much he loved her and missed her after she was gone.  In my mind, he will always be remember for famously saying he can’t ever remember having a disagreement with his wife.

In the MTC they have pictures of all the prophets in the context of what service they provided to the world and the church during their earthly ministries.  I have no doubt that one of the things the President Hinckley will be remembered for his focus on the family and focus on temple work.  Soon after he became prophet we received the Proclamation On The Family.  Then in ‘99 was the push to have 100 temples by 2000 and the introduction of the mini temple.  Our temple here in Raleigh is one of those mini temples.  Were it not for his outside the box thinking, we would still be driving 4 1/2 hours to the Washington D.C. Temple. 

From the tech side, we lose a great proponent of technology.  I believe it was he who led the charge to create video temple sessions.  I believe it was also he who started all these video campaigns we see on TV now a days.  Under his direction I’m sure the church tech guys have grown many many fold.  The church website alone has come a long way. :)  I just looked and it was while he was prophet that we first got a church website…

Thank you President for all you taught me and will continue to teach me.  You have left a legacy that has affected millions.  God be with you till we meet again President Hinckley. :) 

Several months ago I got a computer for my kids.  I am techie and I want them to have the skills they need for the future, but protect them from some of the terrible stuff out there.  After much research I came across this GREAT firefox extension called Glubble.  At the time I liked the idea, but it was still in beta and was difficult to navigate… well, today they released a new version and it is AWESOME!  (Note, I am writing from the perspective of father of small children).

Overview from their webpage:

Glubble is a free tool for the Mozilla Firefox Internet browser. It
permits each member of the family to have their own custom environment,
so that when kids use it they only see the very best parts of the
Internet based on selections made by their parents or supplied by
Glubble’s editorial staff.

Glubble enhances Firefox to
make sure kids can’t see the whole World Wild Web instead they can only
see family friendly parts of the web, its like their own little world
on the web. We call it their Glubble World.

Cool things for kids:

• Interface - Easy to navigate (even for kids that can’t read)
• Glubble’s - Preapproved content that is awesome - There are a lot of great sites out there, and Glubble has done the hard work in finding it for you.
• Favorites - Kids can easily add small picture thumbnails.
• New Content - If kids want to see something that is not on there, they can request it with a click of a button and a parent/helper will be notified and decide if they want to allow them to see it.
• Personalized Homepage
• Lots of pictures to find things… very nice.

Cool things for Parents/Helpers:

• Reporting on where the kids have last been… on any browser.  I can be signed in at work and see where my kids are have been last on the home computer.  Nice!
• Easily add new webpages.
• Create your own Family Glubbles - I created one for all of our extended family’s blogs.
• A Family Wall - This is a place to post notes to the kids that they will see when they sign in.
• Normal Browser in admin mode. 

I’m sure you can tell, but I am excited about this new browser.  It is so much better now and fast.  What do you think? 

As you have seen, I like YouTube video’s, There are a lot of great video’s out there and YouTube had a strict policy about content.  Well, some of these video’s would be useful and powerful in the classroom for either getting the attention of students, or allowing them to even create their own content. 

As an example, SethAdamSmith created a YouTube video for a BYU class a couple of years ago.  It turned out so well, that now he has over a hundred (116 at the time I wrote this) great uplifting video’s on YouTube.  To me, this is joining the internet conversation, as Elder Ballard encouraged us to do.  This is not allowing others to define who we are online, but allowing others to feel the Spirit so they can decide for themselves based on real information.  Here are a just a couple of his video’s!

As a side note, I read another article this morning posted by Michael Wesch from Kansas State University.  He posted notes from a presentation he just did about why we should use YouTube in the classroom.  Although focused on the school system, I think it would be useful for church teachers looking to use YouTube videos in the classroom as well.  Topics he covers:

• Legality of using YouTube video’s
• Why we use them
• Tips for finding good video’s
• Ways to Download them locally
• Tools for Remixing them
• Ways to incorporate them into our teaching

So, what do you think?  I know we obviously need to be careful about any content we bring into the classroom, but we have used outside books, and comics for years, why not the media of today as well?

Libby Evans, here on the UNC campus, has started sending out little tips to a instructional listserv I am a part of.  The first one was great so I thought I would pass it on here!

During a PowerPoint presentation, you can press the letter B at anypoint and the screen will go blank.

This is really effective if you want your class or other audience tofocus on you or on a discussion. As long as there’s something showingon the screen, people’s attention will be drawn to it.

I once used this during a conference presentation for a seminar-styleaudience. The effect was visually amazing. Every pair of eyes in theroom moved from looking at the screen to looking at me. I wasactually demonstrating the use of “B” during a discussion of effectivePowerPoint use, and everyone in the room recognized what had happened.Very powerful. Try it when you want attention focused away from thescreen and onto something else.

Oh, yes… how do you bring the screen back to your presentation? Justpress B again. 

Oh this is funny… I’m glad we don’t have confessions in our church. Sometimes advancements in technology aren’t the best. Just because something is more productive doesn’t mean you should adopt it in the church. Enjoy!

LDS Living had a great article about the use if iPod’s, both for education and within the church. I have had an iPod for about a year and use it almost exclusively for great LDS talks, podcasts, and other great stuff.

That reminds me… I have never posted about another great service, ScriptureCast.net. With this service you can create your own podcast schedules for the scriptures or conference! Awesome. It is ReadTheScriptures. for iPod’s. You can also use it to just get updates in iTunes every day if you don’t have an iPod.

So there was been a lot of talk in the media lately about live blogging… CoverItLive seems to be a big player in this field.

What about the idea of LiveBlogging a church meeting? Or perhaps Stake Conference. This could allow us to reach people that are further away. I’m pretty sure there is an audio feed in the family-history library (at least in our building) where there is internet connection.

What do you think?

So as I mentioned in an earlier post, I had to give a talk a couple of weeks ago in church.  Like any true techie, I wrote my talk in OneNote and took my tabletPC.  I was going to print it out… I really was, but I had to go to meetings at 6AM and knew I would have an hour to finish up my talk after my meetings before church. 

(The bishopric snickered when I got up to talk and put my tablet on the pulpit… they know by now that I am a bit of a geek, but they love me for it. )

Anway, it was a bit weird to page down, but the tablet made it at least seem normal.  Then I came across this teleprompter program.  You could potentially use this to keep you at a good speed.  I didn’t try it offline… but the idea is cool.  I am constantly talking too fast when I get nervous.  This could be nice…

… …

Okay, no one is probably ever going to use this, but perhaps… just perhaps this might be of use to someone.