As I mentioned yesterday, the church has opened up the new.lds.org site for everyone.  It really is a great site!

This morning I got a chance to play around with the new site and used the scripture study feature for the first time.  It took me a little while to find my way around and I thought it would be helpful for some folks to have a little intro.  So I made a video up.

Overall I am pleased with the scriptures.  I sent them a bit of feedback.  I’ll post it here.  Feel free to add your thoughts.  Perhaps you have found ways around the problems I was having.

Feedback:

• The biggest problem I have is the method for marking.  It is sometimes hinky to get the highlighting working.  You are supposed to just hover over the verse to make the highlighter open up.  But it doesn’t always work.  I think there should be a “Highlighting Mode” that you can activate when you are highlighting verses that allows you to click and select a part of a verse and then the menu pops up afterward to choose the color, add a note, AND add a tag (tag is not currently one of the options).  T
• Right now after you highlight anything it pops open a menu where you can edit the highlight, add a note, and add tags.  I think that should not automatically pop open even time.  It distracts from the scriptures.  Or at least make an global option for each user where folks can decide if they want it to have that pop open each time.
• I woud love to be able to highlight multiple verses at once (passages)
• When tagging, I would like a way to browse current Tags
• Multiple Versions of the scriptures.  Sometimes you want to just read the BOM and highlight all the places where it mentions a topic.  It would be great to have multiple copies of the scriptures for different times, and purposes.  Maybe you could use tags or folders for this as well if you could set a default tag or folder for when you were marking.  Or filter and show the markings based on the tag as you read (ie. Only show Tags: BOM Christ Reading 2010).

What are your thoughts?

I came across this great video this morning about a networked student.  It really get’s the old juices flowing when thinking about spiritual education as well. 

So how does this all apply in a spiritual setting? I’m glad you asked.   Here are a couple of points off the top of my head.

Distance Education
Notice that this “Student at 21st century high school” only spends 3 days a week in classroom, 2 days online.  This is a great model for increasing interaction.  Technology enables more interactions outside of the classroom.  Meaningful interactions that can build up students.  I think we should certainly encourage as much interaction as possible. 

That doesn’t mean we should spend less time in a physical classroom where that is possible, but rather that we can increase interaction with those that can’t make it to a physical classroom every day of the week.

Personal Learning Network

Students in the 21st century need to be taught how to build up a personal spiritual learning network.  A lot of the work that happens in Sunday School and Seminary/Institute classes are there to teach students how to study the scriptures.  Well, today there is  lot more information out there that they need to learn how to navigate as well.

Social Bookmarking Site

This student goes out and finds relevant sites about their topic and bookmarks them where others can find them.  In the church there is certainly a ton of information out there, just from the church alone… not to mention the millions of personally created sites.  Social bookmarking sites will help students navigate this sea of information in meaningful ways.  As students begin to find the best content (D&C 88:118) and pass that on it will also help put that information to the top of search engines. 

Blogs

Students have the opportunity to not only comment on blog about their “own informed point of view,” but as they create their own blog they think critically and have opportunities to expression opinions to a global audience.

iTunes / Mobile Devices

Students in the 21st audio and video podcasts that support his learning.  In the church that is certainly the case as well with BYU TV, CES video’s, General Conferences, CES Firesides, etc. all available!

Connection with experts – Skype

Students can connect with LDS people all over the world.  If they are having a lesson on missionary work I’m sure some of the folks at A More Good Foundation would be DELIGHTED to do a Skype video interview about using the internet to spread the gospel.   Then there is the added ability to connect with General Authorities, or others that may have a special story to tell that will help the students.  Oh, and think of the global impact as well.  Perhaps connecting with a seminary class in Germany and chatting with them on a regular basis to see how the church is different/same there.

Personal Student Projects

Perhaps my favorite part of this video is where they talk about a student’s work culminates into a project of their own.  Where a student share’s his knowledge with the world through video, voicethread, wiki, etc.  In the case of the church, a student is sharing their testimony with the world.  We all know that often a testimony is gained in the bearing of it.  This is certainly no less the case.

Teacher Role

Teachers teach how to build this network, offer guidance, serve as a modeler, help the students differenciate between good information and propaganda, and help the students organize information.  They teach them to set up network that will help the student navigate their future in the gospel. 

Other Ideas?

These are just a few quick ideas off the top of my head this lovely morning.  What did you get out of the video?  If you are a teacher, how can you apply some of this in your classroom?  It can be on Sunday in church or some other setting where you get to teach. 

Hey… we are all teachers to some extent in our homes… how can you apply this with your kids?!  Mine are just starting to use the internet.  I should show them how to bookmark and share things with others.  And how to search and find good content. It’s never too early!

What is the Teaching Emphasis?

There are several talks that have really been monumental in the teaching of the youth of the church in the past 10 years.  These talks, as well as my personal experience as an early morning seminary teacher, have guided my thoughts about how technology can augment spiritual education.  I would like to first lie out a groundwork for what the teaching emphasis is, and then talk about how that technology can augment that spiritual education.  Here are a list of the talks:

• “We Must Raise our Sights” – Elder Eyring – Book of Mormon Conference, 14 August 2001
• “A Current Teaching Emphasis for the Church Educational System” – Paul V. Johnson – CES Video 2003
• “Raising Expectations” – Elder Eyring – CES Satellite Training Broadcast, August 2004
• “Seek Learning by Faith” – Elder Bednar – Address to CES Religious Educators, February 2006

Additionally, the handbook for CES teachers and leaders “Teaching the Gospel” is a great resource, and perhaps the single most conscise manual for teaching the Gospel ever created!   

In each of these resources there are several principles that are repeated again and again.  It is best summed up from Elder Eyring’s 2001 address. 

“The pure gospel of Jesus Christ must go down into the hearst of the students by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

All spiritual education is about getting the gospel into the hearts of the students.  It is not about horizontal learning where students learn facts, and superficially read scriptures.  It is about vertical learning where the gospel goes deep into the hearts of the students and changes them.  Where they really become converted to the Gospel.

How do we get the gospel in their hearts?

We talk about the role the teacher can play be being prepared, but the real learning can only take place when the learner is ready to learn.  Students can only have the gospel sink in if they can think critically about how the gospel has effected them in their lives, and then the the Holy Ghost can come in and testify to them of the truthfulness of principles of the Gospel.  When opportunities are given for students to critically think about their own lives, they ponder, and then they can exhibit faith and open the door for the Holy Ghost. 

Elder Bednar goes into some great detail about how to effectively ask questions in the classroom that will encourage this type of behavior and I strongly recommend you read that.  But what more can we do?  In almost every talk it is mentioned how the world is changing, and the things we have done in the past are not going to be enough for the youth of today. 

How Technology can Augment the Classroom

More Exposure to the Gospel
Universal access to coarse language and content is flooding the lives of the students outside of seminary and institute.  One of the wonderful things about church education is that students can regularly go to a place where the Holy Ghost resides and remember who they are and what some of their spiritual goals are.  Technology will enable students to more frequently access good content in the sea of immorality that worldly media is pushing on them.  Mobile technology will also facilitate this access.

Getting the Gospel into the Hearts of the Students through Technology
The real power of technology is that it engages students.  They are digital natives that have grown up with technology and many of them use consume it in an increasing variety of ways.  I will talk more about this in my Digital Spiritual Learners segment, but suffice it to say they are very comfortable with technolgy.

This same engagement can be harnessed to get students to think critically both inside and outside of the classroom.  It can engage students on an individual level.  It can help students write their thoughts out.  Because these students are comfortable with technology they also can critically think about their beliefs in new and engaging multimedia music and video.  Things that used to be reserved for the technically elite are now common place to anyone with a computer.  Students become content creators who can eventually disseminate worthy and uplifting material to lift others.

Collaboration and Social Learning
Although conversion to the gospel is a distinctly individual act, there is great power in learning from others.  These same creative activites above are now online, and with that comes a potential worldwide audience.  One of the great powers of missionary work is that as a missionary you have the opportunity to think critically about your beliefs every day. 

Technology can also help harness the power of peer groups.  Many students will go to their friends with questions long before they would approach a teacher and parent.  Peer groups can facilitate getting correct information, as well as encouragement for struggling members of classrooms.  They build one another up and again, have more opportunities to think about what the Gospel means to them.

Conclusion

These is just the tip of the iceberg when we begin to think about how technology can augment spiritual education.  It is all about providing more personal opportunities for students to engage with the gospel.  In future posts I will talk about these technologies in much more detail, but hopefully I have laid out an important guiding principle here. 

Thoughts?  Comments?  Feel free to add/correct/etc below!  After all, that is what the social web is all about!

A while ago Google came out with their own open social network that can be easily embedded on any page.  As a refresher, here is a video. 

Today I was whitelisted to use the google friend connect on my site!  I have installed it and added a members link on the right hand side!  Come join!! 

So how is this useful in the church?

Facebook has shown that connecting people all over the world is powerful and needed.  I like the openness of this new Google connect in that you can develop your own gadgets.  You could potentially connect this with Facebook and other social components to increase collaboration in seminary classes and in wards outside of church and the classroom.

How else can you see this being useful?

I have written several posts pointing back to an article written by Steve Hargadon entitled “Web 2.0 is the Future of Education.” Steven just recently redid that presentation, recorded it and put it online. It is great and deserves the time to watch if you are interested in using technology in Education. You can watch it below. Click the Play button to hear the audio.

Steve Hargadon wrote about the increasing amount of information that is available on the web, and how that information can really become overwhelming!  He gives some stats:

“There are over 100,000 blogs created daily, and MySpace alone has something over 375,000 new users (content creators) every day. I remember how much work I had to go to in my childhood to just find information. Now, we must figure out what information to give our time and attention to when we are engulfed by it. Web 2.0 is the cause of what can only be called a flood of content”

The amount of information created related to church content is just as staggering and can sometimes be overwhelming!  We have scriptures, general conferences, youth conferences, special firesides, ensign articles, music, topical guides, guide to the scriptures, and much much more… just on the main church website.  That doesn’t even begin to include the amount of content created daily by an increasing army of “mormon bloggers” (like me).  Often times we can’t even get our students to wrap their heads around the scriptures and the words of the modern day prophets… the single most important source for information… let alone all the rest of the stuff out there.  So how can they handle all this information?  Steve gives us an answer…

The solution to content overload is to create more content.

Every one of us has had the opportunity to teach a class or prepare a talk.  We have heard, or even said, that we were grateful for the opportunity to teach because we learned so much while preparing.  That is the key for our students as well.  If students will create content (writing, video, audio… anything), they are better able to engage the massive amounts of content available out there.  They learn where to look for what they need.  And then the most important thing happens… it becomes part of them.  This is why we have had students teaching and talking in the classroom so much.  It is often the act of bearing testimony (in what ever form that might take) that allows them to gain a testimony themselves.

What about you… how do you deal with the massive amounts of content out there now?  I use Google Reader as a beginning place and categorize it all.  This allows a quick view of what’s new out there on the websites that are important to me.

How awesome is this? LDSMediaTalk posted an article today about the a Scripture Sudoku puzzle in the New Era this month… guess what scripture it uses? Moses 1:39… awesome.

Technology makes it easy to generate these for all the scripture mastery verses, and although I don’t play Sudoku, I know it is great fun and many, many people do! It could be a good way for some students to learn the scripture mastery verses better! Nicely done!

Wow! MormonTimes posted an AWESOME adaptation of the Screwtape letters this morning about online posting. This would be a GREAT way to teach students how to engage other’s online. It is not your typical do this and don’t do this, but a creative way for students to discuss what to do.

In the perfect class with wireless they would then have 10 minutes to go online and find several articles to post on… or go home and do that. Great job Deseret News!

Recent years have seen an explosion of church related content, especially on LDS.org.  The amount of information available there is both amazing and overwhelming.  This information is dwarfed by the user generated contented I talked about yesterday.  Steve Hargadon gives us some statistics.  He says:

“There are over 100,000 blogs created daily, and MySpace alone has something over 375,000 new users (content creators) every day. I remember how much work I had to go to in my childhood to just find information. Now, we must figure out what information to give our time and attention to when we are engulfed by it. Web 2.0 is the cause of what can only be called a flood of content.”

The same is absolutely true of church content.  It used to be that we had specific books published to help us write talks… now we google it.  Of those 100,000 blogs created daily, hundreds of them have to do with the church.

An interesting bit of information… Guess what the top key word search that gets people to this site… “lds spiritual thought.”  Although this site has few spiritual thought posts, I have hundreds of people coming here each month to find one.

There are two possible conclusions from this.  One… people are too lazy to come up with their own spiritual thought… or two… the church website is just too overwhelming for people to know where to start with it.  I personally fall in the second cateogry… unless I am working on a blog post… then I have a purpose and I am looking for something specific.  It works great!

Steve goes on to give us an answer with how to deal with all this content…

“I will also say that on a personal level, when people ask me the answer to content overload, I tell them (counter-intuitively) that it is to produce more content. Because it is in the act of our becoming a creator that our relationship with content changes, and we become more engaged and more capable at the same time.”

He is absolutely right… students that create their own content know how to engage with the content and know how to manage it.

Gradually over the past 5 years the web and web published has changed dramatically.  It used to be that you had to be a super techie to publish anything on the web… now a days anyone can publish… anything… anywhere.  With tools like blogs, wiki’s, podcasts, video/photo sharing sites, social networks, and hundreds of software sites, anyone can write on the web now.

I envision a classroom that has many assignments online that leverage the power of the internet and the tools mentioned above.  Compared to a traditional classroom with several papers and students passively listening to a teacher talk, I have created a list of four benefits to publishing content online.  I will incorporate some of the paradigms from Steve Hargadon’s “Web 2.0 is the future of Education” into my list.

1. Motivation – When students publish on the web they are publishing to a global audience.  Typically they will spend more time pondering and thinking about what they are going to say.  The work they do then becomes part of them.  They go from passive learning to passionate learning.  They have to think deeply about what they believe and that brings the gospel deeper into their hearts.

2. Potential Projects – When technology and the web come into view the potential for projects becomes much larger.  Students are not limited to a paper, but can interpret the assigment in what ever medium best suits them.  That may be writing (my best medium), or it may be music, video, some sort of social experiment, or something totally different.  It opens the doors of creativity and also allows students to express themselves how they best learn.

3. Feedback and Participation – Traditional writing only has one, or at most a few people that will read the work, so the feedback is limited to that small circle.  In most cases those people also think and act like those writing so their feedback will not vary.  With a global audience the feedback is much more diverse.  Students will also have the opportunity to defend their work.  The work they do not only is a presentation, but it become participative as they continue to talk about it, and defend it in some cases.

4. Engagement - Most of all projects that use the technology that students are familiar with engages them.  They don’t check out, or turn their minds off when they come to class… they are excited and will often spend hours and hours outside of school working ont these projects because they are what is exciting to them.  The more time they spend working on these projects and thinking about them, again… the deeper it get’s into their souls and helps them determine who they are and what they believe!

Over the past year I have seen several good examples of teachers who are already giving their students assignments like this.  In 2002, Seth Adam Smith created a YouTube video about the prophet Joseph Smith for a Church History Project at the BYU Summer Navoo Program.  Since then he has made over 90 other video’s and continues today.  Here is one of his more recent one’s.

Another video I found that I really like is this “BackPack and Brick’s” video about repentance. I honestly don’t know the background to this one, but I have emailed the user to find out. I suspect it was an assigment… if not, it would have been a great one.

I also came across this funny video that was the winner of an Institute Academy Awards activity that was certainly thought up by the digital natives that are so comfortable and excited by this type of technology.

Although these examples only have to do with video, students can also blog, compose, write software, or a myriad of other things that they know about, but I’m not familiar with. They are, after all, the experts in this field. Let them do their work and see what they can come up with!