I had another post set to go for this day. Then that incident with EJ happened (see Twitter, Dec 6th tweets) and I had to sit and ask more seriously, “in what ways am I asking for MMM to be supported?”

The first part of that answer is easy. If you are doing mobile in ministry, I can guarantee you that there are very few (individual) people in this space (overall ministries working in this space is certainly getting larger by the moment). With the exception of one person whom I can’t mention, the others don’t have the experince, technical knowledge, or depth across all identified areas of ministry which have had specific mobile activity. If you are doing mobile in ministry – development, content, missions, evangelism, pastorate, etc. – consulting with MMM is worth your time and expense. You can go about it other ways, but I’d encourage you to support MMM when looking at whomever else you are looking for towards mobile.

The other part is closer to the core of things. We used to give away mobiles. Having given away the last “extra” mobile in December of this year, I’m empty. We give the mobile to a person/ministry in need with training. There’s no cost to you (or them, in some cases) for this. Mobile ministry can only happen when people are freed from the constraints of what they don’t know and can just be free in the Spirit to use the tech to push the Kingdom forward. If you’ve got a dusty mobile, or even an old one. We’d not just find a home for it, but ensure that its used before it leaves our possession.

Lastly, partnership. We’ve been talking with a few folks in the past months about what partnetship with MMM looks like. The connections and knowledge here are unique, and worth such an endeavor. If a partnership can be mutually beneficial, we owe it to fulfilling John 17:20-26 to make it work. In doing so, all of us gain.

No, we don’t build your apps or websites. We’ll help you get there, such that you can teach someone else and enable your ministries to succcessfully use mobile. We need your support to continue to do that. Simple as that.

Was on Twitter recently and @_ndsmith posted about putting the entire Strong’s Concordance into a SQLite database. I replied that I was sure that it was something that had been done before, but hey, these kinds of projects can be used beyond just technical experiments?

So, developers. What can you do with this: SQLite/Python Database

Maybe you’ve got a project or two that you’ve been doing that was pretty much a fun exercise (we’ve got one), if you put it out there, what can people do with it?

Though there’s considerable debate about the “social gospel,” there isn’t so much debate about the building of computing technologies which enable social, wellness/health, and economic progress in various communities. To that end, we want to draw your attention (just in case you missed our retweet of it on Twitter) to a great resource called Building Applications for Social Good. Here’s a snippet about this resource from its author’s initial posting of it:

“If you were thinking of designing or building a website, you’d be in luck. If you were thinking of writing a suite of financial management tools, you’d be in luck. If you were even thinking of creating the next big video game, you’d be in luck. Visit any good bookstore and the selection of self-help books and “how-to” guides leave you spoilt for choice. 

Unlike the plethora of self-help guides on the more established topics, if you were looking to do something with mobile phones you’d likely have mixed results. There are plenty of books available extolling the virtues of Java, Python, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, C++, Symbian, Android and just about any other development environment or platform out there. Combine that with the growing field of mobile UI (user interface) design and you’d think that pretty much everything was covered. But there is one thing missing, although you’d probably only notice if you’re one of a growing number of developers turning their attention to the developing world”.

Read the rest of that post at Kiwanja.net.

This resource is available in a PDF format and has been noted with our other resources of a similar type on our Case Studies/Resources page. Much like we alluded to when we talked about potential tablet apps, you can put the product of your faith into practice by building those applications and services which level-up individuals and communities. Its very much part of your application of the Gospel and consideration for living peacably with one another.

Of the few complaints that you tend to hear from those using Kindles/Nooks/Kobos and similar eInk-based reading devices, the primary ones have to do with the speed of navigating while inside of a book. Getting around to different materials isn’t so much the problem for some. Its when they want to get around inside of the materials that there’s a challenge, and sometimes a disappointment.

Over at This Lamp, a commentary on the user interface (UI) refinements made with OSNOVA have been published. This gets me excited because of my personal history with mobile Bible interfaces (Palm Bible+ and Katana specifically) and the amount of work that needs to go into making just getting around as efficient and productive as possible. Here’s a snippet of This Lamp’s observations:

…So, if a Kindle user wants to go directly to a verse, in many non-OSNOVA Kindle Bibles, he or she would have to go to the menu on the Kindle, then table of contents, then scroll through the pages until the book of the Bible sought after appears. Some ebook Bibles have chapter numbers listed, but I’ve seen other Bibles in which the Contents merely takes one to the first chapter in the selected book. With OSNOVA’s DVJ, a specific verse can be accessed directly by typing in an abbreviated form that works with the Kindle. So, if I want to go to Romans 1:17, I’d type ro 1 17 and the Kindle immediately jumps to that location in the Bible…

Read the rest of This Lamp’s experiences with OSNOVA. Also, check out the OSNOVA website for optimized documents for Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and other eInk devices. There are also several tutorial videos on this interface at the OSNOVA blog.

The Efficient Interface Is the One That’s Transforms Lives

One of the best selling features for a Bible/reading application is the efficiency of the user interface. In talking with friends about my iPad during Thanksgiving meals, one of the comments against the iPad was that people couldn’t see how a device like a tablet would be conductive to annotation behaviors such as writing on margins, highlighting, proofreading, and cut-pasting-mashing up more than just lines of text. In that conversation, I demonstrated the abilities of Good Reader (an iPad document reader with many of those features). Upon using it for themselves, the viability of eReaders and tablets became more relevant.

Hence the challenge for user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) folks:design into content pleasurable experiences which take advantage of the technology, not simply repeat the behaviors of less capable media.

Not sure that we could have framed this one better, but over at the Digital Evangelism Issues blog, there was a great posting talking about the merits of digital publishing/media versus the costs/benefits of the print-ink counterpart. Here’s a snippt of the piece:

What are some impediments to Bible and book distribution in the Majority World, including the Middle East?

• Shortage of supply, possible import or government permission issues, and inadequate distribution channels.
• Price: a Bible or NT, especially in a minority language, may well cost several weeks, even months, wages in poorer countries.
• Even committed believers may well be unable to make the considerable financial sacrifice to source and own a Bible, especially one in their heart language. Not-yet-followers, who may be seekers or merely inquisitive, are highly unlikely to make such a commitment.
• In some regions of the world, expect considerable disapproval (or worse) if you are seen to own or read a paper Bible.

Read the rest of Are Electrons Better than Dead Trees at the Digital Evangelism Issues blog.

Make sure to offer your comments to the discussion. Though, I think that you might end up coming towards similar conclusions – we’ve got a history in these matters 😉

Going up to start this session in a few minutes, view the presentation or share the QR code (if you are me and using this tech to engage your audience).

It probably doesn’t need to be stated because its often felt. But, I do think that in the race to use this technology for casues that forward faith, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that there are very few specalisists, fewer folks implementing, and even fewer folks that can communicate their story as they walk through this. In fact, its a common refrain in many calls/meetings about mobile ministry that you just won’t find best practices and case studies. There just aren’t enough people doing it that are able to compose best practices and cases studies. And that’s a shame. The current state of affairs invalidates the approach of mobile in ministry (or mobile as a ministry tool) in the minds of some because of the lack of this information; even though context dictates a different perspective should be adopted until those experiences and materials are grounded.

Having said such, when you are able to hear the successes and challenges present, its best to hightlight them. As community of technologists and believers see these stories, then we can start talking about solutions and making things more eficient for all. For example, in this snippet, we hear very clearly the challenges presented to one of the veterans in this space, Craig Raridian of Laridian Bible Software:

…Mobile software development is a challenge for small shops like ours. There are no good solutions. Consider the fact that when we started Laridian there were two dominant platforms: Windows CE and Palm OS. Both were programmed using the C++ programming language that we already knew from our prior experience programming for Windows PCs. Today the two dominant platforms are iPhone and Android. iPhone uses Objective-C and supports non-user-interface objects created in C++. Its operating system is based on the familiar Mac OS X. Android uses the Java programming language and has a proprietary operating system that is still evolving. And if we throw Windows Phone into the mix, it uses C# as its programming language. The result is that we can’t be like diplomats who have to learn the language of their host country, but rather we have to be like a representative to the United Nations whose headset is broken so he has to understand every language being spoken by all the other delegates…

Read the rest of this article (which talks about the progress of Android development of PocketBible).

These challenges aren’t unfamiliar, nor isolated. In the history of craft and creative fields. Having a capacity across several simlar or disparate fields is normal. It is very common for people engaged within these fields to be going at it alone, or in resource constrained fields. I’ve certainly felt this in full since branching out to do MMM full-time. There’s essentially this challenge of not just producing what you are gifted to do, but making sure that you can relate that creation/creative event to the social, financial, and spiritual needs that are also present.

This is one of the reasons why in our recommendations for building a mobile website or application, we specifically state that there should be a small team of people dedicated to prayer (and emotional/mental) support for the effort. You just can’t take on an effort that has technological and spiritual components and expect it to go on passion alone (speaking from experience here, have been totally burnt out from doing MMM, often).

You have that resources challenge. Are there enough people, finances, skills, or even just materials, around you to create/sustain what you are working towards? Many times, you might start with sufficient resources, but unforeseen circumstances push those reserves to an empty point. That’s a tough place to be – especially when you’ve not made a shipping product yet. I won’t even go into the resource challenges when you are marketing/selling skills and experience. So let’s be a bit more realistic, and discerning of the pressures we are putting on technologists and ministers when ascribing our energies and attention towards this very new field called mobile ministry. There are challenges that just can’t be swept away, or waited for others to do. The folks out here doing this are cutting the ground. Their challenges are as real as the opportunities.

At some point in the coming days, we will be giving a presentation opening the discussion of tablet computers in ministry contexts. This is by no means a new topic, tablets have been a part of computing for a very long time and many vertical industries have long used them. That said, the consumer attention placed to the iPad, Kindle, and Android tablets now means there is some discussion towards how these can be used in ministry.

There was a direction that we were going to take this discussion. But, less than a week before the 2011 Mobile Ministry Forum Conference, things changed. A situation changed how the discussion was to be framed. The following story is how that discussion changed. As for the presentation, well, you’ll just have to make sure that you peep it and the notes with it:

The Story That Changed This Presentation

I had something of a good idea towards what I wanted to present today. However, a situation that I encountered recently changed this presentation, and really reset me in a variety of ways towards ministry. This story frames what we’ll look at today in respct to tablets in mobile ministry (if you follow @mobileminmag on Twitter, this will be something you’ve seen.

It was Tuesday, I’d awoke before the sun and had to get on the road to Greensboro to teach a SharePoint virtual class. I got there with such a small amount of gas that it was nothing but God’s provision. I’d been given breakfast and lunch there. My stomanch stopped aching. My lap, on the other hand, did smart a bit. During the class I spilled my second cup of coffee all over the front of me. Embarassed, even though it was a virtual class. I was compensated for work from some months ago. Not all that I wanted, but enough to supply needs for a time. Then I travelled back to Charlotte to connect with the Charlotte Area Bicycle Alliance for their monthly meeting. Learned about brain injuries and shared my own stories. Then went to Amelie’s Bakery to work on this presentation. That’s when I got rocked.

I usually position the iPad close to me. The wireless keyboard is stetched out in front of me and I basically get a suitable and erogonmic position to type. I gentleman walked past me, then he came back. He wanted to know what I was typing on. It looked like I just had a keyboard and was typing on the glass table. But, then he saw the iPad and remarked that I had to be doing something different because Facebook wasn’t on my screen as he’d seen on others’ computers. We had a brief conversation. He told me of his situation. Homeless. Wife in a city about an hour away. I didn’t want to listen, but EJ was compelling. The poem probably was it the best. Chock full of confidence and conviction despite his state. I was complaining just the other night about mine, he was about to sleep in the cold and wet.

I know better than pulling out a wallet in these moments. I had a few bucks from dinner that didn’t go towards food nor the tip and they became his. I wanted to do more, so I tweeted that he had a need. Between the city tag for Charlotte (#CLT) and the handle for Amelie’s Bakery, I was sure that someone might see and be able to offer him a room at one of the shelters. The CLT handle was vital. There are several people and agencies that monitor it for services and opportunities in this city. There had to be a response. But, my tweet didn’t get any replies. Minutes felt like hours. There wasn’t a poke of a reply. Then there was one. One of the people (I think we met at the VSN Leadership Conference a few years ago). She was in Arizona.

You can see the tweets at @mobileminmag. Emotionally, I was shot. After that guy walked away, many minutes after. It hit me that I should have done more. I should have had a listing of temporary shelters in my mobile, or at least been somewhat better adept at searching for them. Jenese Cook helped where my emotions stopped me cold. But, I couldn’t find him. Drove a 2 mile radius around the area, asked around, nothing. People didn’t even see him. I couldn’t do what I set out to do. I could only sit in my car and stew at myself for not being able to respond better here. After a talk with a friend, I just went to sleep.

The next day I set out to work on this presentation. It would be this story that framed this presentation.

I was told days before, there is a difference between ministry and the work of the ministry. This nailed that one in quite well.

I’m a gadget guy. I’ve loved electronics from a young age, whether it be a computer or the latest video game system. In recent years, that love of electronics has grown to include mobile & handheld devices. The challenge, though, has been to weigh my lust for gadgetry with their practical implications for my life; which, is a part of what we try to preach here at Mobile Ministry Magazine. If the device doesn’t fill a real need, do you really need the device? That’s been my personal challenge.

My first taste with handheld devices came with the $99 Palm Z22 back in 2005. It filled a very specific need: 1) having a device to keep track of my life, and 2) keeping a Bible in my pocket. The need quickly came to stop carrying three devices (feature phone, Palm, Zune) and to knock it down to two. So, in 2007 I upgraded to my first smartphone (T-Mobile Dash, a Windows Mobile device), which allowed me to carry just a phone & my Zune. My needs hadn’t changed, other than wanting to carry fewer devices; since, I intentionally did not have a data plan very long after buying the phone. In 2009, I upgraded to the Android G1. Again, needs hadn’t changed all that much, although I wanted to take advantage of the Google ecosystem that I had already made myself a part of with Google Apps. Last Thanksgiving (2010), I had the opportunity to upgrade to the Android G2, as my wife wanted a better smartphone (after having inherited my Dash) & we were able to take advantage of a buy 1 get 1 free deal. A subsequent upgrade to a 32GB microSD card allowed me to ditch my Zune altogether & get down to a single device, which is where I’ve been for the past year.

As you can probably see, part of my upgrades typically come when there’s a need to fill, and I sometimes get the opportunity to alleviate some gadget envy in the process. Recently, I’ve wanted to take a part of the whole tablet craze. I held off for a long while, not being able to fully justify the price or function for my needs. I wanted a tablet so much so that I bought an iPad 2 earlier this year, but returned it after I couldn’t live with the amount I had spent on it. So, when the opportunity presented itself last week for me to purchase a tablet on the cheap, I jumped on the opportunity (and the Lord aligned the circumstances for me to happen to have the funds available). What did I get? I ended up with an Asus Eee Pad Transformer (a Honeycomb Android tablet), along with its keyboard dock accessory.

What finally convinced me to purchase a tablet? Well, simply put: it filled a need. As a student of the Bible and someone who just likes to read in general, I have amassed quite the digital library of theological resources. Many of these resources are great for study, but others are great for just sitting down and reading from cover to cover. Well, when you have a 17″ notebook computer, sitting with it on your lap or at a desk isn’t always the best way to read an electronic resource. Mobile apps have allowed me to read on my phone, but that screen real estate is just too small for extended reading. So, a tablet that can run those same apps fit that niche quite nicely. Also throw in the desire for wanting to be more mobile while staying connected and you can see where a tablet comes in handy. While it’s only a Wi-Fi only device, that doesn’t concern me because my G2 has 4G connectivity & it doesn’t cost me extra (with T-Mobile) to turn my phone into a hotspot.

It’s nice having a device that fits my needs, and with both my phone & tablet being Android, it makes life easy because there was no need to buy new apps, except those that were tablet specific. I was actually quite surprised to find that as soon as I logged in & hit the Wi-Fi that the Android Market was smart enough to automatically download all the same apps that I had put on my phone. While it’s primarily a reading device, I’m also excited about the opportunity to try pushing the envelope of mobile. This weekend I’m taking a business trip to Austin, TX and I’ll be leaving my laptop at home; I’ll only be taking my tablet with me (and phone, obviously). But wait, I’m supposed to be giving a demo of some desktop software. Doesn’t matter, I’m still leaving my computer at home. Why? Because I can simply VNC into my machine from my tablet, and with a mini HDMI port & VGA connector, I can connect to a projector & give the demo from the tablet. How cool is that?!

As I strive to be more mobile in the coming days & weeks, I’m interested in seeing where my phone & tablet take me. I’m looking forward to the conversations that it sparks, both in the office and in public when I’m using my device for reading, drawing, taking notes in church, and more. It’s nice when upgrading a device can also upgrade your life.

At the time of composing this, I was only a few hours from hearing that Judy Breck (Golden Swamp, Handschooling, and various contributions to Smart Mobs had passed away in October. She was a huge encouragement to myself and the activities here at MMM and always did an impressive job of presenting mobile and web technologies as the best tools yet to close the (race, class, access) gaps that exist in educational activities here in the USA (for example, her video interview with We Magazine).

To that end, I’ve gone through her works and started pulling out some of the many resources she’d linked to. Of note, work by ACU and St. Mary’s City Schools which aren’t too dissimilar to work I (Antoine) did in 2002-04 with PDAs and high school students (man, I wish I could find that documentation). Highlighted below are links to some of their case studies on mobile learning worth adding to your resource library.

Abilene Christian University (ACU) Mobile Learning Reports

• 2008-09 Report (PDF)
• 2009-10 Report (PDF)
• 2010-11 Report (PDF)

St. Mary’s City Schools Mobile Learning Technology

• Verizon Case Study (PDF)
• GoKnow Case Study (PDF)
• Inkster/Michigan Public Schools Case Study (PDF)

I know of other projects happening in this space such as foundational work happening at Taylor University, and the pionnering work by Cru’s mLearning Project. What else should we be highlighting here? Or better, what have been your challenges and successes towards mobile learning/mlearning initatives?