One of the more popular topics within the educational space these days is the push towards 1:1 computing programs in middle, junior, and high schools. The idea is one part driven by the access that these students have already to the technologies, and another part driven towards the idea that materials and skills facilitated in the digital space cannot be replicated in an analog space. There’s a lot of back and forth there, much of it really good. And I think that churches can pay attention and glean some lessons here from how to not so much deploy 1:1 solutions, but make steps forward towards some newer learning engagements.

For example, its nearly common for persons to attend a church service or Bible study with their own device in hand. And in some communities, there is some kind of shared Wi-Fi access point covering the area – even if its used just for staff and internal work. I can imagine the provisioning of some kind of collaborative space that exists only on the access point of the church facility (since being in-person is so vital). Such a space would be easily managed by the teacher’s device, and probably driven by a Dropbox-like wiki and local Bible app for a common text. Ah…. but that one is getting ahead of myself. What can we do today, that doesn’t seem so impossible?

Could we see some aspect of less control to the pastor’s notes, and get something like them being shared as soon as the teaching period begins? Or, maybe some use of reading plans by small groups that stretch beyond devotions, but are aligned with core doctrines of the faith or a denomination? How the teacher doing something like using Bluetooth and other P2P tech to share notes when the study is done?

I have ideas, and folks can tell you that I personally take delight in experimenting with the kinds of interactions around Bible content and behaviors that stretches to look more mobile and less controlled than what we’ve seen with print – outlines, email, curated lists, etc. I believe that we can do a lot more that what we are, and that like some in the educational space, we might be missing the benefits of 1:1 computing in our presence because we are looking too much at the fact that tech is present, not that there’s someone on the other end who needs us to be nearer to them.

Seems that more and more of mainstream media is seeing, acknowledging, and tracking the disruption of digital across web, mobile, and social networking. Business Insider has a slideshow on the topic:

The Disruption of Digital slideshow by Business Insider

Kind of lengthy, but worth taking a browse through. If you are looking at this outside the USA, what kinds of trends or items are you noticing?

Last year, we asked the question “where are the Advent mobile apps?” After a lengthy search, we found some, and even added a section on the Bible Apps page to account for these. With Advent here again, its not only good to reflect on the coming of Christ, but also ask if there has been any new or improved apps or services which further the spirit of this season? If you have a favorite Advent app kr service, or have just done something to reflect the season via your mobile, we’d love to hear it in the comments.

Having just attended the 2012 Mobile Ministry Forum Consultation, it is good to get some jogging to the memory with this slideshow provided by the Visual Story Network:

Learn more about the Mobile Ministry Forum, and stay tuned to a there for the executive summary of this past event.

Mobile Ministry Magazine was a special guest on one of the latest Symbiota webinars. This past Monday, we talked about mobile ministry (#mobmin); specifically, how churches can leverage SMS, mobile web, and mobile apps in order to grow those deeper and wider connections inside and outside of faith communities.

Good this is that if you missed this one, that you can still make another. This webinar will be held again on Dec 3rd and Dec 17th. All you have to do is sign up and show up. Just showing up gives you a chance to win some great prizes, so its totally recommended. Here’s an overview of what will be talked about in the webinar:

Visitors are increasingly using mobile devices to search for churches information, listen to sermons, and pay tithes and offerings. Your church members are mobile, how about your church? On this webinar we will be helping churches understand how to get their message through, on the most important method of communication today: Mobile Phones.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• 3 Major myths about cell phone usage that are not true.
• Dissecting the noise about mobile websites and mobile apps.
• Tips on using mobile to increase donations & giving.
• Why your church cannot afford to not be ready for mobile.
• How to not to miss up to 50% of people searching for your church.
• Connecting members to small groups using text messages
• Keys to integrating Twitter and Facebook with mobile.

You’ve got two more times before the year is out. Sign up for this webinar and learn more about the services Symbiiota offers at their website.

During this past holiday, I got a chance to reconnect with a friend of mine who is a heavy user of assistive technologies. One of the wonders that I had for her was in her new mobile device (obviously). She had moved to an iPhone 4S after many years with a few Android devices and I was was very interested in hearing about how she got along with it. What surprised me was what didn’t work as well, which came across as issues that many guys just flat out fail to notice in non-techie situations as well.

Later on, I was with another friend, and while we had a moment of quiet, I noticed that for the first time in that time period that she had finally put down her mobile device. Granted, I had two of mine at hand (finishing up Alone Together ironically), but it was interesting to note how she goes about augmenting life with computing, but it fits into a totally different sphere than what I do. Again, something that would be so obvious if I were of the other sex (or married).

With both women, the issues and opportunities of mobile don’t come in features – but don’t get me wrong, these features are important. The value in the device comes in communication, security, and opportunity (we talked about this previously). Anything that props up those three items – and does so well, not only gets attention, but becomes a matter of social cohesion outside of the spheres of the tech.

Going back to the second woman described above; she and a friend of her’s have developed their own texting language. The language came first out of the relationship they already had, and then the understanding that no one who picked up either of their devices would have any clue as to what was being said between them. Weird, but stepping back I totally get it.

Swinging this around some…

A lot of the technologies, applications, and services that I see pitched towards women do very little to pay attention to these details. Sure they might get some colors, fonts, and general direction right, but they totally miss out on what women want. Here’s a hint, they don’t (always) want a new feature, they want the connection that the feature provides. There is that Samsung commercial that aired recently called Work Trip which details the ability to share files from one Galaxy SIII to another Galaxy SIII. First the kids share a video with dad, who’s about to go on a trip; then mom shares her video with the instructions to not look at it on the plane. The commercial closes with the dad looking a bit flustered/blushing, and with a sense of wonderment about what his wife could have possibly shared with him that was so private. Many guys will pay attention to the fact that you could share something between mobiles; the ladies pay attention to the fact that they could have another means to intimately connect with their husbands.

I don’t mean to paint men and women with a broad brush, but I do mean to pull out a detail about connecting across faith and tech that is often missed in the thrust of these discussions about what is new and needed, is that even across genders (economies, etc.) that connecting with one another happens on a level that is well beyond the tech. Well, it should be. As both of those women would tell me in various conversations later – you have to pay attention to what isn’t said just as much as you are paying attention to what you are listening to.

After what has seemed like months drawn out way too long, I have finally finished reading Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together. Weird how this book has taken so long for me to read. And at the same time, there was a lot to chew on in between reading sessions. Having the benefit of starting the read on my iPad and finishing on the Kindle Fire HD gave me a chance to compare the screens and ability to read (nearly even, KF-HD I could hold in the hand longer, the iPad was easier to navigate in terms of responsiveness when annotating). Still, I don’t think I can give good enough words to this. How about I just let some of the items that I’ve highlighted or noted speak towards this one:

• If the problem is that too much technology has made us busy and anxious, the solution will be another technology that will organize, amuse, and relax us. Read more at location 449
  Note: This is the teaching point. Silicon Valley and other creatives seem to be very deliberate in not saying this
• Winston Churchill said, “We shape our buildings and then they shape us.”23 We make our technologies, and they, in turn, shape us. So, of every technology we must ask, Does it serve our human purposes?—a question that causes us to reconsider what these purposes are. Technologies, in every generation, present opportunities to reflect on our values and direction. Read more at location 609
• children’s attachments speak not simply to what the robots offer but to what children are missing. Many children in this study seem to lack what they need most: parents who attend to them and a sense of being important. Children imagine sociable machines as substitutes for the people missing in their lives. When the machines fail, it is sometimes a moment to revisit past losses. What we ask of robots shows us what we need. Read more at location 1839
• People talk about digital life as the “place for hope,” the place where something new will come to them. Read more at location 2988
  Note: Honestly, I think this is the statement born from a generation that saw media as separate from interpersonal interactions. I don’t know that this idea of hope for a place is all that different from hope in a memory that performances, altars, and institutions aim to provide, or psychologically become
• When online life becomes your game, there are new complications. If lonely, you can find continual connection. But this may leave you more isolated, without real people around you. So you may return to the Internet for another hit of what feels like connection. Again, the Shakespeare paraphrase comes to mind: we are “consumed with that which we were nourished by.” Read more at location 4353
• a sixteen-year-old girl who tells me, “Technology is bad because people are not as strong as its pull.” Read more at location 4366
• We have to love our technology enough to describe it accurately. And we have to love ourselves enough to confront technology’s true effects on us. These amended narratives are a kind of realtechnik. The realtechnik of connectivity culture is about possibilities and fulfillment, but it also about the problems and dislocations of the tethered self. Technology helps us manage life stresses but generates anxieties of its own. The two are often closely linked. Read more at location 4647
• A sacred space is not a place to hide out. It is a place where we recognize ourselves and our commitments. Read more at location 5312

Those are only a few. You can check out the rest of my public notes and highlights over at the Amazon Kindle page for Alone Together. In terms of a recommendation, let’s just say that ministry leaders should have read this already if they haven’t; and parents with teens or young adult children need to read this with them and listen to one another in the responses.

Off to put these highlights and notes into my notebook. You never know when access might be taken away on these services.

I’m sitting at something of a crossroads when it comes to tech and ministry. At times, when looking at what many of us who speak online about it want, its comes across more like we are defending our stances, rather than showing folks how to design a faith that’s theirs. I don’t know even if I can point to specific examples, but, it just seems that way.

As I worked on a different paradigm of presenting the Mobile Ministry Methodology, I was challenged with this perspective. Here, I’m being asked to take something that’s been in my head and on these (uh) pages, and then translate it into something that would effectively transfer knowledge and change how the outputs of ministry projects are processed by all. You see, I could have done this the way previous MMM talks have gone – a mobile-driven, HTML-produced slideshow, with a story or three to knit what’s on the screen with the lesson meant to be learned. And that would work; but the challenge hasn’t been translating the information, its been changing the behavior. Outside of pulling an Elijah on some social network’s digital mountain, there’s not much we can do to change behavior… or is there?

A brother in the faith that I recently met teaches and speaks on the subject of apologetics. He and I have had several snippet conversations and we’ve had a general fun time in getting to know each other around this topic. Here’s the thing: we come to points of these conversations where we get from asking how people can or won’t defend values present in the Christian faith, to wondering what we individually, professionally, and vocationally, can do to empower others to think differently, and therefore shift their response to life and change their behaviors. I tell you, those discussions are always a caffene shot to the day.

So, I get this chance to share strategy and process, and what do I do? I design a flow to ignite design-centric thinking – not defend traditional means of going through a process, or collecting information, or even just presenting it. Will it be successful? I’m not sure. The proof in the pudding is whether the output of the product is reproducable, not simply something worth being defended.

Am writing this before Thanksgiving. Before folks have finished making plans for how to rotate family members for a place in line for Black Friday deals. And before folks have decided to think about how much time to dedicate to Monday’s lunch to parouse Amazon and other web stores for Cyber-Monday deals. I’m writing this specifically after entertaining two streams of conversation via Twitter which indirectly point to a statement about tech and how we live with it, that I’m not sure is all that healthy.

The first parts of this thought come from the convo had with Jason Caston. During a recent trip of his, he remarked on Twitter how he had LTE coverage for more than 80% of the trip. LTE is the next evolution of cellular (if we can be simple about it) networks. Essentially, its a re-done way of making airwaves more faster, more secure, and more efficient for carrying voice and data transmissions. Right now, Verizon Wireless is the leading mobile company deploying this tech -and mainly because their older CDMA network technologies do not scale profitably to newer devices and greater usage.

Jason’s point towards his liking of LTE is that it is a faster connection. It allows him to essentially connect and consume information faster. Being the introspective type, his comments got me down a line of thinking and tweeting if speedy connections are always needy connections? Or, if you will, just because we can connect faster, are we connecting deeper, fuller, or more healthy than we had been before. That was a point that was certainly much further out there than where Jason and I had been speaking, so I had to just leave it. But, I had the thought that I’d at least get it up here and process some more.

Then there was another convo happening with Donny. He’d asked if there would be any post about the Microsoft Surface here. I’d thought about it, and even after seeing a demo of the Surface RT at The Geek Fest, I figured that at some point that there would be some place in these bits and bytes for some words about it. But, also I had that fuller/deeper thought come in there as well. You see, the Surface is a fairly new product, and aside from the applications which are still coming out at a decent clip for it, there’s this question about talking about it here because it offers some relevant conversation piece here. Part of me (and Donny) would argue that there is a place for it. However, its not so different a product than the tablets that have come before it – even those from MS’s partners with previous versions of Windows before – that its got a place in the conversation of what happens at this intersection of faith and mobile technology.

Is the Surface relevant to those faith-based orgs who are still trying to get a handle on the tablet-oriented tech needs of their orgs? Yes. Is the Surface tablet an antidote to the BYOD-tainted usage of the iPad and Google Nexus tablets? Probably, and could merit some discussion towards those companies looking at it from that end (not as many on the faith-based side as you would think). Is the user experience of a touch-enabled Windows platform so different that it will change, literally shift the paradigm, of how folks who have used Logos/Olive Tree/eSword/etc. now use Bible software? Nope (as a matter of fact, that’s been my main beef with this genre of software for sometime). So what then does the Surface bring to the table in terms of a voice for those things faith and tech that are relevant enough to write on? I don’t know.

Deeper and fuller. That’s something that I keep getting back to when it comes to talking about this technology shift. Is it a shift because it has more colors, comes in a less expensive package, or because its open licensed? Or, is it a shift because of the way that it allows for us to go a bit deeper with each other than in times past?

Is tech the voice voice we use, or are our voices enabled because of what tech allows?

Just a headsup that MMM will be a guest on the ipcoming Symbiota webinar talking about how folks are using mobile devices in churches. There’s a chance to win some neat prizes, as well as a time to just get to learn about some products that may be just what your ministry was looking for. Here’s the summary from the website:

Visitors are increasingly using mobile devices to search for churches information, listen to sermons, and pay tithes and offerings. Your church members are mobile, how about your church? On this webinar we will be helping churches understand how to get their message through, on the most important method of communication today: Mobile Phones.

What you will learn on this webinar:

• 3 Major myths about cell phone usage that are not true.
• Dissecting the noise about mobile websites and mobile apps.
• Tips on using mobile to increase donations & giving.
• Why your church cannot afford to not be ready for mobile.
• How to not to miss up to 50% of people searching for your church.
• Connecting members to small groups using text messages
• Keys to integrating Twitter and Facebook with mobile.

Learn more and sign up for this webinar and learn more at the Symbiota website.