Goals evaluated...

As I began the journey in EL3517, I choose to focus on the learning goal of gaining a better understanding of the educational theories and philosophies provided in the class and to apply the best practices to my current ministry as a Director of Youth Ministry at Cokato Evangelical Lutheran Church. Through the course readings, web assignments, blogging and writings, I have learned a great deal about media and technology and the influence it is having over our culture today.

Mary Hess’s book “Engaging Technology in Theological Education” provided a wealth of knowledge in religious education theories and philosophies, including;
• The models of learning (expert vs. knower) pg. 6-7
• A rubric for the six facets of understanding pg. 42-43
• The Dance of Redemption pg. 108
All of these models have helped me gain a better understanding on how to better formulate a plan that allows learning to take place in healthy, constructive and effective learning environments.

Clay Shirky and Michael Wesch provide a wealth of examples on how society has adopted to new technology that is overwhelming our world. People are able to collaborate at little to no cost thanks to technological advances in social media platforms. This new ability to organize and collaborate can be a huge strength for the church and its ministries. How we can utilize these new technologies is a crucial question that our congregations must face. In my own context, this class has allowed me to gain a better understanding of how to utilize these technological tools available to better spread the Good News.

This course has given me the above tools and more that better equip me to reach people in our culture today.

Church supports blogs!!

I have talked before about how EL 3517 has made me aware of the technological and social media advances all around us and the outcomes that those advances are developing. Well once again, this rings true. As I was reading the ELCA SW MN Synod Newsletter for June 29, 2010 - I came across this very interesting article about blogging, so I thought I would share. Enjoy :)

EL3517 Evaluation

Mary Hess’s book, Engaging Technology in Theological Education, opened my eyes to the interplay between religious education and the digital culture that we live in. As a Distributed Learner in the Masters of Divinity Program at Luther Seminary, I take for granted the entrepreneurship of this learning model that I engage in on almost a daily basis. This program will be evaluated and scrutinized for years to come because of its major shift in how theological education is provided. This change is due to the new digital technologies available in our culture. Mary Hess articulates and gives vision that is relevant and pertinent to the changing models of theological education in a technological world.

Clay Shirky’s book, Here comes Everybody, looks at the dramatic revolution in society due to the new behaviors that society has undertaken in utilizing the available technology. I thought this book was very accessible because of all the real-world examples and experiences referenced in it. By gaining this valuable and relevant information on how society is adapting new behaviors in response to the technology that is available to us at no or little cost, I am able to better understand human interaction in a digital world. This book was inspiring in that it showed how powerful and yet how simple digital tools can be utilized and the effect they can have on our communities.

The ‘brick n click’ design of this course was very appealing to me. I really liked the idea of completing a major share of the assignments prior to meeting physically. This gives the student an opportunity to introduce him/herself to the assigned readings and major themes in the course and to start to formulate their ideas and notions involving the course. Then the students are allowed to come together with the instructor and work through the information and assignments together, co-teaching and co-learning in a live environment. After meeting together, the students can go back and re-evaluate their ideas and notions based off of the class processes and utilize all of their learning in their contexts.

In order to flourish in EL 3517, it is important to start with the readings and ideas of the class at least two weeks prior to meeting physically in class. Starting the digestion process of the information presented in the assigned readings and video are important as the books contain a lot of valuable information that must be processed. Also, it is important to realize that EL 3517 is not just about utilizing technology in worship services and theological education. Instead EL 3517 is about how digital technology is opening doors for information to be gathered, processed and shared among people in a timely and low cost fashion.

EL 3517 has shaped my future teaching practices by allowing me to better understand the cultural conceptions that I and the students are bringing with us into the learning environment (whether that be physical or digital). I am now able to better understand the group’s dynamics because of my understanding of how society is adopting new behaviors in response to the new technologies that are available for most people. I am also more aware of my own preconceptions and how I not only co-teach but also co-learn in educational environments. In better understanding the interplay between religious (or any) education and digital culture, I am able to understand the notions that are brought into the learning environment and the behaviors that are in relation to those notions.

Facebook through a different lens

Michael Wesch claims that YouTube has a culture in of itself. I am convinced that Facebook also does. Especially after reading this story.

For Molly and John Connolly, Facebook is more than just a social platform to talk to friends, post pictures and videos and to reconnect with old friends. For Molly and John, Facebook is a place to find a child!

The proud parents state, "In marketing ourselves as adoptive parents, we created a group on Facebook in July of 2009 called, "John and Molly looking to Adopt" and we asked our friends and family to join. Our Facebook group linked to our adoption website, www.johnandmolly.net, as well as to our adoption agency."

I believe this story ties in exactly with what this class has been developing. We come across these amazing stories about how God is active even in the cyberspace of Facebook. God is truly Lord over all.

Baby Bendorf!!

Wednesday morning at 7:56am my wife and I welcomed our first child, Izabella Grace Bendorf!!!

7lbs and 20 in of love and blessings!!

Please keep Izabella in your prayers!!

Praise be to God.

SEX

Now I have your attention. That’s all it took; an easy to read yet hard to understand three letter word. Our culture is infatuated with sex and the desire/lust for it. Everywhere you turn - from magazines to television to the internet - it is center-stage. I do not even have to provide a list of examples, just turn on the TV or make a few clicks with the mouse and my point will be proven. Every form of media sells sex as its marketing strategy. And why not – in our postmodern culture there is one truth – sex sells! The lust for sex has overcome our society so intensely that we have become enslaved to it. We have confused passion for lust. We have turned beauty into sex objects. We have traded in our God-given bodies for an emotional high.

The church needs to take a stand and fight this moral decay of society and misuse of God’s plan for us. Why does the church need to lead this fight? Because we know and have the ability to point others to the answer that unlocks the chains – Jesus Christ! In Youth Group the other night I mistakenly read the word organism, calling it an orgasm, in talking about the church. You can imagine the shock and laughter by everyone. But, from that point on, I had everyone’s undivided attention. Sex captivates our culture.

Pastor Ed Young at Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas is confronting this culture dilemma. Through sermons (including one in 2008 called “Seven Days of Sex”), to books to bible study series (Leaving Lust Vegas), Pastor Young is opening God’s Word and making a stand on sex and culture. By gaining a biblical understanding of sex/lust/temptation, we can be released of our chains and free to experience all that God has in store for us as sexual beings made in God’s image.

Church...welcome to today

How do we do church in today's society? The traditional formats and stuctures of what we know as church are no longer dominating the scene. However we define church - anywhere from a physical structure to the called, gathered, centered and sent people of God - we must be open to the realization that church doesn't happen on Sunday mornings in a brick building anymore.

Take a look at below and ask yourself..."Is this church?"




or

LifeChurch.TV

or




What do you resonate with? What feelings and emotions does each "church" evoke for you?
We serve a big God. A God that reveals himself in ways that are beyond what our limited minds can comprehend. Just because something does not give us comfort or ideal feelings, does not mean that God is not at work in that context. God has never been a God of comfort, but a God that transforms lives. Look outside your context...don't miss an opportunity to see where God's moving.

Context Matters

There is no doubt we are experiencing a revolution in our culture, enabled by the social media and technological tools available to us all. We are all producers and co-producers of almost anything we can imagine. Production and imagination has become blurred to a point of confusion. What is real? What is surreal? What is truth?


I was reading David Housholder's Journal article The Open-Source Church, found on his blog. Find it (with comments) here - David Housholder's Blog

What does this have to do with the church?

I have heard of a media-driven culture, but what about a media-driven church. Is the church being driven into the social media cultures on the web? If so, is this God’s will. I mean look at the missional arena that is out there. What better way to join in the conversation than to join in the dialogue where the culture is at. Ultimately, how can we engage the culture, but not be of the culture? Is this even possible?

Points number six and eight in Housholder’s article must be taken within the context that Housholder is writing in. Just like there is not one blanket Christian Education curriculum that works across the globe and across time; social media tools will not work in every environment and every community. We need to listen, look, and ask ourselves - what is God doing here? Where is God calling and leading his Church here, in this place?

These are some serious questions that arise when we look at the social media phenomena that our culture is drowning in. I don’t believe in a media-driven church, I believe in a God-driven church (enter also Jesus-driven and Holy Spirit-driven church where applicable in your context). Note Here: God is driving the Church – not media, not culture, not technology – the Church was built by God, enabled by God and being carried by God into every culture in every context for his Glory.

YouTube has a Culture?

Michael Wesch’s presentation at the Library of Congress on June 23rd, 2008 called An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube was very profound, detailed and inspiring. To get a glimpse of what Michael Wesch* calls “a celebration of new forms of empowerment…community…global connections and a celebration of new and unimaginable possibilities” (Wesch, 4:40) watch his presentation on YouTube below.





It appears that a webcam, computer screen, website and internet connection have formulated a new culture that has changed the world. But it is more than just the hardware and software capabilities. As Clay Shirky would agree, the YouTube culture revolution wasn’t formed because of technological advances, but because of the new behaviors and expressions of human society. Human actions and reactions create movements and changes that in turn affect human culture and society.

Although technology did not formulate this new culture, it does play a key role in the YouTube culture revolution that is effecting and changing our global culture. The web allows people to be linked all over the world, turning ones computer screen into a global hotspot. YouTube and software innovations have created “user-generated alternatives that are able to move videos around the web” (Wesch, 9:40) The integrated and interconnected mediascape of Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Digg, MySpace, YouTube and other sites have given people a platform for self-expression and creativity. But even “at the center of this mediascape is us” (Wesch, 11:45). As Wesch states, “media mediates human relationships” (Wesch, 12:00).

This online culture that is forming on YouTube is taking on many different characteristics and values. There is a hyper self-awareness that is felt as one vlogs and experiences the “context collapse” (Wesch, 22:35) of speaking into a webcam. There is a felt anonymity plus physical distance plus rare and ephemeral dialogue when watching videos that allow a freedom to experience humanity without social anxiety yet also enables hatred as public performance (Wesch 29:03). There are deep connections being felt without constraints. People have used the YouTube culture as an avenue for coping and escaping the everyday pressures of life. Ultimately, this online culture has allowed for the self-production of oneself in whatever fashion, form or image that one views oneself, or at minimal how one wants others to view oneself.

So what does all this mean? “This is really a story about new forms of expression and new forms of community and new forms of identity emerging” (Wesch, 1:46). YouTube and the online mediascape has become a platform for you and me. A platform that we have utilized to create a global revolution of how we express ourselves, how we interact and how we view ourselves and the community we are involved with.

*Michael Wesch. Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology. Kansas State University. http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/

Engaging Technology in Theological Education by Mary E. Hess

If I could synthesize Mary Hess’s (checkout her webpage) book, Engaging Technology in Theological Education, into one question it would be; “Can media culture help transform our religious communities?”. Through short essay format, Mary Hess takes a deep and crucial look at the interplay between media culture and theological studies. Hess defines media culture as “increasingly digitally created and mediated” and as the “water in which all of us swim” (Hess, 30). Integrating digital technologies with theological education is complex and challenging, yet if “God is revealing Godself within this medium” (Hess, 31) then the cost is worth the undertaking.

Therefore, possibly a more complete synthesizing question would be; “In what ways can God, revealing himself through media culture (digital technologies), transform our religious communities?”. As educators, we need to seriously “engage media culture – respecting it as a powerful source of our students’ meaning-making, and thus inviting it into our critical interrogation” (Hess, 60). As we come to the realization that learning happens all around us and at all times, the use of media technologies will naturally become more appealing and useful in our learning contexts. Because the people, purpose and context in which learning is occurring is dramatically changing (Hess, 44), we need to digest these changes and prepare ourselves for education in a new, “transitional community” (Hess, 60).

Classrooms of learning (cognitive, psychomotor and affective) are no longer restricted to four walls inside a building. Understanding this change in context will allow educators to take advantage of “emerging technologies to reshape and improve our more typical classrooms and other learning spaces” (Hess, 73). As a distributed learner myself, I have come to the realization that being in class no longer is limited to a time and place, but can happen anytime and anywhere thanks to new technologies and an educators willful attempt to think outside the box. This “adaptive change” (Hess, 75) by higher education has enriched the lives of people and religious communities around the world.

But, we are not there yet. As Mary Hess points out, challenges still exist and bridges still need to be built between media culture and theological education. Issues like institutionalized racism and sexism and copyright and infringement laws still exist and need to be broken down between media culture and theological learning. By overlooking these issues, we will overlook the opportunity to further explore channels in which God is revealing Godself to us all.

The one struggle I had with the book was placing myself within the narrative of its dialogue. The thought kept coming to my mind, am I the theological educator or the media submerged student. I especially struggled with this in chapter five, All That We Can’t Leave Behind: Learning from the Past in Engaging New Media. Mary Hess does provide a bridge between the two areas saying, “we all live in digital environments, even theological school faculty, and we all live in religious environments, even those of our students who had no prior experience of religious community or even religious emotions” (Hess, 90). And so we teach and learn together, as co-teachers and co-learners in the digital technology and religious community of today.

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

In Clay Shirky’s (Find out more about Skirky here) Here Comes Everybody, we are introduced to the growth and impact that social media, tools and networks are having on our global world. The decentralization of technologies and the decline of social transaction costs is affecting and changing our world today. Clay writes, “most of the barriers to group action have collapsed, and without those barriers, we are free to explore new ways of gathering together and getting things done” (Shirky, 22). As society adapts to these changes and critical masses begin utilizing these social tools, the revolution of human interaction and behavior will result.

New tools (internet, email, blogs, cell phones, texting, etc) have almost wiped out transaction costs (the costs incurred in trying to collaborate) and therefore have made human interaction easy and valuable, adding an abundance of positive supply. Changes in technology have setup this revolution in society (society’s new behaviors) by removing two hindrances to social interaction, “locality of information and barriers to group reaction” (Shirky, 153). Social tools have improved the ease of interaction and therefore have moved us form a society of “gather, then share” and “filter, then publish” to a society of “share, then gather” and “publish, then filter” (Shirky, 35 & 98). This new ease of distribution and collaboration across the world has allowed for the mass amateurization in most professions. Because “more people can communicate more things to more people than has ever been possible in the past” (Shirky, 106) we are living in a radically changing society.

New technologies have provided the resources for more information to be communicated and gathered around and therefore have enacted a behavioral change in how people interact with that information and with each other about that information (Shirky, 163). This allows coordination to occur in a more effective and efficient manner, again lowering the market costs of social interaction and increasing the social capital.

This revolution is not perfect though, in the sense that failure is inevitable. Through the collaboration of people and the mass amateurization of professions, there in turn is much failure, some modest success and the very occasional grand success (Shirky, 235). The beauty of the system though is that this power law distribution that heavily sides with failure is still efficient because the costs of collaboration have become almost insignificant thanks to the new social tools available for common use. Open source “reduces the cost of failure; it essentially gets failure for free” (Shirky, 246). In a “publish, then filter” format, the success or failure of trying new things in an open system does not carry heavy transaction and/or management costs and therefore allows for the mass production and distribution of ideas.

So what conjures success? While there is no single recipe or format for victory, Shirky does explain three social and technological factors that must be synthesized in order to achieve the successful use of any social tool(s). A promise (why), effective tool (how) and acceptable bargain (what) (Shirky, 260) are required for the success of any venture utilizing social tool(s). How these three factors interact is the name of the game. As people continue to adapt new behaviors in working with these social platforms, they will continue to combine, extract, fuse, join and juggle these social and technological factors trying to come up with the winning combination that in turn creates a grand success in and for society.

Learning Goals

A learning goal I would like to focus on in EL3517 is to gain a better understanding of the religious educational theories and philosophies provided in the class, (especially dealing with the connection between media/technology and learning) and to apply the best practices into my current ministry of Director of Youth Ministry. Technology is everywhere. We are infiltrated with gadgets, software and hardware that have the capability to do almost anything it seems like. Media is a powerful tool and I believe can be used for the Glory of God and to spread His Kingdom. An excellent example of this can be found at: http://www.livingwaters.com/

I have chosen this goal because I believe media and technology have the potential to become an outstanding ministry tool but also has the capacity to become a hindrance to the spreading of the Good News. If used correctly, media and technology can be utilized in a way that is inspiring, God-honoring and faithful. But if used in the wrong way, media and technology can become a hindrance, stumbling block or possibly even an avenue for sin. Therefore, being able to understand and utilize the new opportunities technology has to offer for teaching and learning will be crucial in all areas of ministry as we become a world that is more technologically advanced and a people driven more and more by media. Through exploring the development of learning communities in faith settings that engage digital cultures, I hope to become more well-rounded with media and technology in my context.