This review was also published at Urban Scholar

I’m an Android purist. Nearly every device I’ve owned has used a vanilla install of the Android operating system. I started off with the original Android phone, the G1. Upon upgrading that phone, I opted to move to the G2, the G1’s successor. I later purchased an ASUS Transformer (with keyboard) from a fellow techie & friend (which I talked about here last December). While not a vanilla install, it was as near to stock as it could be. It was a great device, but ended up giving it to a friend as a means of “investing” into their business efforts & making them a bit more mobile.

This summer I felt that I was in the market for a new phone and wanted another Android tablet, so I started looking at devices. Being with T-Mobile at the time, I could have simply waited & gotten a new phone on contract in September, but I was also tired of paying $120 a month for my cell phone service & looking to move to pre-paid. With that in mind, I wanted to make sure that the phone I purchased would be able to work on a pre-paid carrier’s network (in my case Simple Mobile). My initial thought was to get my hands on an imported ASUS Padfone, but that would have cost me nearly $1,000 for all of the pieces I would have required (phone, tablet dock, and keyboard). I ruled that out due to expense. With that ruled out, I started to look at the unlocked Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ from Google. Quite frankly, I couldn’t beat the price for an unlocked phone that was also a Nexus device. Then Google announces the Nexus 7, and I was sold. I already owned a full-sized tablet (iPad 2, courtesy of my employer) and wanted something with a smaller form factor to be used primarily as a reading device. The Nexus 7 fit the bill perfectly, especially with its price & vanilla Android install. At the end of July, I purchased both the Galaxy Nexus HSPA+ & the Nexus 7 (the 8GB version, also with the case).

Having had the devices for a few weeks now, these are my first thoughts on both devices.

Galaxy Nexus HSPA+

Since I’ve been an Android user since their inception, I knew that I would have no problem with this device. Although, there were a few things that I took into consideration when buying the phone. With the G1 I loved having the full QWERTY keyboard, which influenced my decision in purchasing the G2 when it came time to upgrade. With Swype installed on the G2, I rarely used the slide-out keyboard. Keeping this in mind, I knew that I could opt for a phone without the keyboard, which would give me a much slimmer form factor. Having used those two models of phone, I felt comfortable with the screen size & thought it was perfect for a phone; so, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about having a phone with larger screen real estate. To state it simply, I’m enjoying the larger screen size, almost to the point of wondering how I operated without it. It was also to my benefit that the phone came with the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean) and I can be assured that I’ll get the latest updates direct from Google. That is a huge plus.

The only real downside that I’ve found to the phone is the storage. In my G2 I had been using a 32GB microSD card, which was primarily used for housing my music offline. The Galaxy Nexus has no expandable storage & only comes with 16GB of storage. This was the only thing that gave me pause in purchasing this device. I was able to get past this quite quickly though. With my entire music collection being in the cloud via Google Music, I felt comfortable enough to know that I could stream all of my music at any time (especially since in most places I have Wi-Fi for streaming). For those times that I need music offline, I still have plenty of room to download a playlist or two that has the albums that I’m feeling at any given time. This is exactly what I did when I had to take a trip to Nashville for work a couple of weeks ago.

In terms of my usage of the device, it really hasn’t been any different than how I used my previous Android phones. For me, my phone primarily serves as a messaging & communication device, as well as my music player. With that in mind, I’m a heavy SMS, Twitter, Facebook, Google Talk & Google+ user. Music is handled primarily by Google Music, with DoggCatcher for podcasting and Spotify & Pandora for “radio” streaming. Aside from that, it’s used for the occasional game (Words & Hanging with Friends), and of course as a Bible in my pocket (Logos, Olive Tree & YouVersion).

I’m quite pleased with the phone and think it was a great purchase. The build quality is solid and it is by far the best phone I’ve ever owned & would recommend it to anyone that wants a solid Android phone that they can take anywhere in the world.

Nexus 7 Tablet

As I stated above, I had owned an Android tablet before & had been wanting another one since giving my other one away. I also knew that I wanted a tablet that had a smaller form factor so that I could use it as an e-reader. Yes, I have an iPad that can do all of these things; but, when it comes to reading (especially in bed or one-handed) the iPad can become heavy very quickly, which makes reading for extended periods a chore. Thus, a smaller & lighter tablet would be great for doing extended reading, which is something that I’ve been trying to spend more time doing. All of these things taken together, along with my love for vanilla Android devices, made the Nexus 7 the perfect device for my needs. I wanted to get the 16GB version, but opted for the 8GB model since it was in stock & I convinced myself that I could live primarily in the cloud and would be working in conjunction with my phone.

The easiest way that I can sum up my use of the Nexus 7 is to say that it has easily replaced my iPad as my everyday tablet. Since owning the Nexus 7, I have rarely had need to pull out my iPad, which was primarily for work purposes. Everything that I used my iPad for I have been able to do on my Nexus 7, even without being hindered by the 7-inch screen size. For example, this was written entirely on my Nexus 7 (in Evernote, using my Apple wireless keyboard).

With only 8GB of storage on my Nexus 7 it has forced me to be creative with how I use the device. This means that I am making sure that I am primarily using this device for what I purchased it for, which is reading. The majority of the apps that are installed are for reading and/or productivity. Very few games are installed, and primarily are games that look & work better on a larger screen, or ones that are very light on space (like Sudoku).

My reading apps consist of the following: Google Play Books, Nook, Kindle, Google Reader, Logos Bible Software, OliveTree, YouVersion, Marvel Comics, and Comixology. This combination allows me to read books from just about anywhere. The Nexus 7 has also become my primary Bible, as I can read & study the Bible very easily (while only downloading resources locally that I use everyday or am presently reading). Using Logos, everything I do (notes, reading position, etc.) syncs with my desktop install of the software. Plus, I can get my comic book fix quite easily (again, only downloading the comics that I’m reading at the time, leaving the others in the cloud until needed).

Other apps that I use frequently include: Play Music (streaming only), Evernote, Chrome browser, WordPress, Google Drive, Dropbox, andYouTube. This allows me to access my files when I need them and create new ones that I can access from anywhere.

All in all, the Nexus 7 has been a great device and I’ve really enjoyed my time with it. Being such an avid Android user who is steeped deeply in the Google universe, this tablet has been perfect for me. The form factor is great for long periods of reading, and it is still large enough to serve as a productivity tool while on the go. It is definitely a worthy replacement for my iPad, which I rarely use anymore.

Final Thoughts/Looking Forward

To say that I’m pleased with the Nexus 7 & Galaxy Nexus would be an understatement. These are both very solid devices & work beautifully for someone who is always connected and doesn’t mind living in the cloud. The Galaxy Nexus is a wonderful phone and you can’t expect to find such a powerful phone that is unlocked and able to go nearly anywhere for such a low price. Seriously, $350 is a steal. The Nexus 7 is a steal too. For the hardware that gets packed into this device, you cannot go wrong in spending $200 on this tablet, even given it’s 7-inch size. It’s a worthy upgrade to spend the $50 more & get the 16GB version (which I may do down the road).

I look forward to using these devices for quite some time and fitting the needs that I have in my life, both personally and professionally.

Both the Galaxy Nexus (349 USD) and Nexus 7 (199/249 USD) devices can be purchased from the Google Play Store.

When sitting with a friend (and fan of MMM) earlier this year, she remarked that one of the hardest things to deal with in terms of this magazine is the pace at which content comes out. It’s not so much that it comes out at a (normally) regular pace, but that the kind of content that it is and it’s depth leaves you at an intersection of your own when you skip out a few days: do you just pick up where you left off, or scan the past to see what might have come that you missed that would be of value. It was an interesting chew, and was one of the reasons that the summer had a slower pace than the rest of the year. With the last third of 2012 coming upon us, the pace is picking up here, and so this topic felt like a good one to hit on.

In an article titled Everything in its Right Pace at A List Apart, the question of pace was looked at from the lens of what technology has afforded and what we have allowed because of tech:

Some time ago I realized, with mild panic, that our always-on, real-time communication channels weren’t going away. As I was gulping down the day’s feeds along with my morning coffee, it occurred to me that even if I wanted to, I couldn’t really opt out. My refresh twitch is so habitual now it’s almost hard to remember just how experimental things like the early days of Twitter felt.

Of course it once was, like all new things. The real-time web started as something we did because we could. Technological advancements like more efficient ways to retrieve large amounts of data, the cloud, and the little computers we now carry around in our pockets made it just a really sexy problem to solve. Successful experiments turned into trends, and those trends are now becoming unquestioned convention.

But is real time always the right choice? Do we even want everything we consume to move at this pace?

Going back to that illustration at the start of this article about the pace of publishing at MMM, one fan of the magazine subscribes to updates via email and has a filter set to put items into a folder. This allows the reader to keep up with the pace of when things are updated, but also throws in a filter by which they can scan the titles of the posts for what might be most interesting and then read those and archive/ditch the rest. Another person mentioned that they only subscribe to the feed for a few specific tags instead of the entire magazine (instructions on how to do this at bottom of this article). In both cases, they are allowing web structures (email, RSS) to be be the lens at which they keep up with the perspectives seeded here.

You might have heard of the term the slow movement, but I want to speak away from that end a bit (in contrast to a response to the ALA article). I want to talk more about pace in respect to how we design it into our interactions with data and with each other. For example, one of the things that I have noticed since using All Books as my primary digital bible is that I read a lot slower and with a more open ear in community settings. Part of that is because of the performance of the web app (slooooow). But, another reason for that is I am much more engaged into the text because this is something I built, rather than something that was built for me.

We design pace into our meetings with one another. For example, in meetings we make a pause to pray, shake hands and offer peace, or pause for remembrance of those lost or serving. We design pace into our applications when we display confirmation dialogs (ok, cancel. Etc.) or transition dialogs (loading, email sent, tweet sent, etc). We also have this design in our prayers (“…forgive us our debts as we forgive those who sinned against us…”). These moments to pause and then move are designed to keep us from overloading ourselves, others, or the moment with too much information. Our senses can only take so much; our intentions can only take so much. As James said, we “let patience have its perfect work, that we might be perfect and whole, lacking nothing.” As such, paying attention to what takes our attention, and what we do with it is very important to the framing of digital behaviors within faith spaces.

Now, I indeed recognize that not everyone has the ability to make their own Bible app or create a filter to handle a series of articles from various websites (the folks who make bible readers and such do an amazing service to us all) But, I do think that we frequently find ourselves disturbed at the pace of life because we don’t take on that onus to subdue/manage the stat reams around us. What would our connected networks look like if we did take on that aspect of control and filtering? Would we see more explorations of design like Different Tack/twheel for social networks and information browsers? Would services like Google Now or ifttt become normal to how we pipe the web around our needs? Or, would we simply find that there really isn’t that much information happening around us that we need to be concerned with – leaving the extra stuff to search engines and demonstrative lessons when needed?

Pace can be designed. You should design yours.

How to Subscribe to Specific Categories/Tags

After mentioning that some people use filters and the categories here to keep up with articles, I thought it good to list the steps on how you can do similar:

1. Go to the Categories/Tags page
2. Click on the category/tag that you wish to follow
3. In your address (URL) bar, add “/feed” (without to quotes) to the end of the address (for ex. http://mobileministrymagazine.com/tagname/feed)
4. Copy that new URL into your favorite RSS reader, or use that URL with a service like ifttt to automatically get updates sent to you via email, SMS, you social network stream, or even have article automatically sent to Dropbox, Evernote, Box, or other services

How you do this might look different than someone else. The key is that all of the content here is designed such that you don’t have to get it as soon as it comes out for it to be valuable. Yes, there are some pieces that will relate to specific contexts which can only be understood then, but you now have the ability to take MMM (any any other website with an RSS feed) and create your own newspaper/resource library. How you then proceed is up to your steps and the push you get from the Spirit.

Amongst the recent moments that have provided some instance of insight towards how we get along at the intersection of faith and mobile tech, LinkedIn has provided some good insight that its easy to forget about at times.

The situations have been around the simple idea of people asking to connect on LinkedIn. As many of you might do, making a connection on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networks is as simple as putting in an email address and then sending the request to connect. For personal connections to LinkedIn, I keep a pretty decent policy of not saying ‘yes’ to every connection request, and usually ignoring those which come without any kind of contextualization as to why the person wants to connect. Its a simple philosophy and has really cut down on the amount of email spam recevied.

Weird thing has been that over the past weeks, I’ve had a sizable increase in connection requests. Most of these have been without any additional message or context as to where I know them from. So, instead of the quick reject, I’ve been sending a message thanking folks for the connection request and then asking for more information as to why they want to connect. A few have come back with apologies, and a few others have illustrated an interesting issue with the LinkedIn connection interface – specifically the feature where you are asked to put in your email address and the LinkedIn (or any other social networks) then uses your address book – saved and unsaved contacts – to find for potential connections. Its not a bad idea on their part, just one that some people miss saying no to.

That brings up the question and approach piece for this post:

• Does your church resource, membership, newsletter, or other community system have a means to subscribe and unsubscribe people from easily – and not easy as defined by the peron who built it, but defined by those who will only occasionally use it?
• What approaches are you taking in regards to opting in and out of services that you or your organization sponsors?

Because at the end of the day, if staying attached to you is perplexing, then perhaps your message is as well.

A few days ago, we retweeted an link to an interesting article:

RT @SeattleMing: No Mobile Website? You’re Probably Turning Customers Away http://m.entrepreneur.com/blog/224238 #mobile #smb #business

The article basically relates the fact that for those doing commerce, sales, marketing, or any other kind of engagement activity that a mobile website is at the very least what you need. Now, this is a point that we’ve said before – even going as far to recommend that you might want to reconsider your efforts towards making a mobile application until you have finished that initial effort of making a mobile website. But, after reading this article, and considering exactly what contexts people find themselves in, I’m ready to make the statement that you (individual, organization, community) does need to be mobile, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they need a website.

[I hear the thinking happening now. First he goes on and on in the beginning of the year talking about not making a mobile app the center of your mobile strategy, and then there’s this push for SMS and mobile website considerations. Now, he’s saying that a mobile website probably isn’t needed? Uh… I thought MMM was the one who had their minds wrapped on straight?]

The ideology behind Instagram is very intriguing, and very much factors into this. The other part of things again speaks to that aspect of being in a context where you might have a mobile device in hand, but you might not necessarily be mobile. With Instagram, you have a community of people, who essentially snap images, add filters (because their cameras don’t really take awesome pics to begin with is my opinion here), and then post them thru and app to people who follow them. Officially, there is no central website. All of the interaction for Instagram happens in the app, and if you aren’t in the app, you might see fleeting pieces of the experience when those photos in the app are also shared on social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.).

Its mobile, but not exactly the base of a mobile website. Yes, there is data connectivity being used, but that’s happening through APIs that work with the camera hardware through a simplified application. The application is probably not even as necessary, as something like Instagram could just as easily supported email or MMS for receiving the photos and encouraged (smartphone owners) to use the default or a recommended 3rd party app to do things like filters and such. You’d not have the following aspect, but you would be utilizing the network of folks whom are already in your phone book. Yet think about it, none of this is happening in a way that is different from how your faith community is already connecting with one another.

Your mobile device has a camera, speaker, microphone, ability to record audio and video, compose messages in a memo or in a text/email app, receive/make voice calls, send/receive DMTF codes… whew. You get the drift. And if you are like me, your mobile probably does a bit more like has HDMI or composite video output, an FM radio receiver and transmitter, has a memory card slot, can attach to USB accessories like portable hard drives, memory keys, has the ability to receive files via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, or can send to a media center device the multimedia content on it (DLNA, AirPlay, etc.). There is a lot happening within that little device, and you have to constantly not just consider what it is that people think is the default of what they want to do, but also consider that there are many other screens pulling on their attention spans and that if you want to be noticed, then your approach has to be distinct.

Mobile is a lot more than downloading an app that asks you for some measure of personal information. Its more than being restricted to a web browser or a programming language. Mobile is about capturing at the right moment the context and communicating that to someone on the other end of the collection of cell towers between you and them. Discover that and you find the magic bean that is what mobile can grown/build/encourage for you. Don’t restrict your mobile efforts to an app, website, or SMS. Look at the device and go further. And then when you do, be prepared to be surprised by what people will do with the tech when you show them a little bit more than simply tapping a keypad or pinch-zooming on a screen.

Back when MMM began, one of the questions that launched some of the content had to do with the challenges of behavior and access to ideas we’ve placed towards institutions, structures, and methods. If you will, what is the role of the physical space that is church when the institution and the methods in that instutution are no longer primary to defining the behavior?

…The ability of service institutions to acquire clients has far outgrown the ability of individuals to be heard independently of institutional media, which respond to individuals only if they are salable news. Peer-matching facilities should be available for individuals who want to bring people together as easily as the village bell called the villagers to council. School buildings—of doubtful value for conversion to other uses—could often serve this purpose.

The school system, in fact, may soon face a problem which churches have faced before: what to do with surplus space emptied by the defection of the faithful. Schools are as difficult to sell as temples. One way to provide for their continued use would be to give over the space to people from the neighborhood. Each could state what he would do in the classroom and when—and a bulletin board would bring the available programs to the attention of the inquirers. Access to “class” would be free—or purchased with educational vouchers. The “teacher” could even be paid according to the number of pupils whom he could attract for any full two-hour period. I can imagine that very young leaders and great educators would be the two types most prominent in such a system. The same approach could be taken toward higher education. Students could be furnished with educational vouchers which entitle them for ten hours yearly private consultation with the teacher of their choice—and, for the rest of their learning, depend on the library, the peer-matching network, and apprenticeships…

While reading the article A Special Supplement: Education Without School: How It Can Be Done (Ivan Illich, 1971) at The NY Review of Books, that thought came back to mind. If for no other reason but that if mobile and web technology are the change agents we are noticiing them to be, do we keep the structures of faith that are familiar (but not necessarly all that old – ever consider how long its been that we’ve had personal Bibles, let alone collective literacy)? Or, do we explore what the technologies offer, what our behaviors instigate, and what we might have been provoked to do for a long time now (John 4:20-26).

Just about every week, there is a collage of mobile writings called the Carnival of the Mobilists (CoM) which features some non-mainstream but not far from the norm writings. In the latest Carnival at Tego Interactive (@tegointeractive), MMM’s piece Communting != Mobility is included along with a few others that should get you thinking and considering a bit more the implications of your mobile ministry efforts.

Per the usual instructions, grab a cup of coffee or tea and a nice place to read and take in the 279th Carnival of the Mobilists at Tego Interactive.

If you have writings that should be considered by a future host of the CoM, do follow the instructions at the CoM website. If you read someone who should have something included, poke them with a note that you’d like to see their writings featured and give them the link as well. If anything, that will at least spead some of the goodwill and insight that others so frequently find in this space.

The other night, I was given a chance to connect with some upcoming presenters and former presenters for the Ignite Charlotte series of speaking events. In April of this year, I was a participant in this TED-like speaking event and thoroughly enjoyed presenting and connecting with other presenters as well as the audience. Things went so well in fact that I later appeared (via quote) in an article about the event. Listening to some of the prep details and the talk topics by the upcoming presenters got me thinking about talking a bit more about some of the presentations done here, and some of the value in these that you might miss if you don’t catch the articles or tweets that talk about them.

For example, one of the first wide-spread presentations done by MMM was at the 2009 Visual Story Network Conference (4th Screen to Reinvent a 1st Impression Slides | Video). There, the hope wasn’t so much to illustrate the need for mobile in ministry. But, to demonstrate through an interaction that many are familiar with (making a first impression), that mobile is a way to build and mend bridges with relationships between media/community organizations and the people they choose to be their audience.

Another presentation that stands out, and not really because it was tech-oriented, but because it was a literal Bible study on discipleship in which the tech was used to create and present the lesson (5 Cs of Discipleship – Slides). Since that specific presentation, the onus has been to not just demonstrate competencies with tech, but also understand to a very detailed degree some of the issue people have had in retaining, applying, and multiplying faith.

One of the persons at the Ignite Charlotte speaker-meetup event reminded me of the presentation done in 2011 at Hackerspace Charlotte (Minutes to Mobile Money – Slides). I heard a few comments about the presentation then, but wasn’t aware that impressions from it stuck around so much. The person that brought it up mentioned that initially they weren’t paying attention to things, but a few minutes into it I had their attention. A very humbling moment, and a reason to get back out to Hackerspace CLT and learn a few things new (they teach you how to make your own 3D printer for example).

I’ve not mentioned the mobile ministry presentations or interviews so much because they kind of speak for themselves with the audience here. If I had to point at any though, I’d probably say that the two appearances on the BBC Outriders podcast (2009’s Expressions of Reigion and Faith Online – Outriders | Audio (.MP3)| Post and ICCM and God In Your Pocket – Outriders | Audio .MP3) rank pretty high on the list. Last year’s Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF) presentation was pretty slick (Tablets in Mobile Ministry – Post | Slides | Sketchnote: PDF, JPG), if for no other reason that I was able to experiment with not using a projector to make the point about tablets/mobiles as ministry tools. And finally, I’d throw in this year’s ICCM talk (iOS vs Android vs Windows Phone vs HTML5 Smartphone Platform Comparison – Slides) as one that I enjoyed. There was so much information in that deck and said. I’m grateful that folks didn’t walk out.

That’s a slice of presentations and interviews. There are more coming too. I’ll reveal some as they come, and others you’ll probably hear me poke about from time to time. If you’d like to keep up with what’s being said, the Issues, Presentations, and Experiments page has a section devoted to interviews and presentations that’s worth bookmarking for now. With the exception of the first set of slides, each deck is easily viewable with any web browser, and all contain some extra information in the slides to point to research used to make the points in them. Its not quite mobile-friendly, but it is worth the bookmark.

If any of these presentations, interviews, or podcast conversations sound appealing enough that you’d like for me to appear on your event deck, get in touch with MMM so that we can discuss those details and make that happen. Nothing like having something new to add to the list.

I didn’t have this one prepared beforehand. You see, I have been trying to answer a question about screen sharing from my iPad over the web to other devices. If you will, a reverse Skype or WebEx experience. However, I keep running into the limitation not so much of there not being an app, but that technically, it’s a problem that can’t be solved on the iPad (conventionally; this is probably possible by jailbreaking). It is the kind of thing that gets me thinking again about the way that we use technologies of the screen, and then how we adjust to them or they adjust to us.

Now, in the past, issues with connectivity or media could be solved with adding some software or even a hardware accessory. Need to game, get a better mouse. Need to present, get a web cam and some recording software. Usually speaking, how we go about connecting to one another is a case of taking some base that is close to perfect, and then adding onto it whatever else is needed. I know though that at some point, that approach changed for me. If the device couldn’t do it with minimal changes to the physical space or my behavior, then it was probably acting a bit outside of its design, and I would become more the administrator rather than the user/creator.

So I go back to this question of screen sharing. Now, I could potentially do something where I use the native screen shot taking ability of the iPad to snap screens (press the home button, then the power button at the same time and wait for the photo click) and use Dropbox and a shared URL to a photo gallery to share screens. There wouldn’t be much live interaction happening, but it would pass the screen’s content along. If in the same room as the audience, I could use software like Idea Flight or Mobile Presenter Pro, or even just the native sharing abilities of iOS in AirPlay, to so the screen shot sharing. Again doable, but a lot more steps. Or, I could move to an Android or BlackBerry tablet, where this software might exist and I would just have to deal with any bandwidth or security concerns once I use the screen sharing software.

Living mobile-only, and having moments where by mobile I am looking to solve issues of training, support, and mobile-enablement, these are the kinds of problems that come up and are worth experimenting and investigating to be solved. Then again, it’s only a matter of sharing a screen. Perhaps there is something better than can be done to transfer the message.

The NFL (National Football League) is approaching its regular season, and the preseason games are already in full swing. For many believers, this is one of the best times of the year coming – as fantasy football fans gear up for drafts, trades, and the excitement of the upcoming season’s storylines. What’s most interesting about this is that its not just fans who are getting their playbooks in order, teams are also gearing up and using a twist on tablets to make it happen.

In a recent article at the Washington Times, the NFL’s Washington Redskins were profiled on their use of iPads to replace the traditional paper binders teams have used for years to dissemenate plays to players and coaches. The article goes into how the NFL is evolving with the technologies of the times, how the Redskins and other teams are using the devices and customized apps, and then how players are living with this slightly different paradigm. Here’s a snippet of the latter:

…Just from a mental standpoint, players don’t want to trudge to Redskins Park if they want to do some studying, Alexander said. Now it’s possible for them to lie on the couch, watch TV and still review plays. Being more accessible helps beyond learning plays and being able to check out video. “Football always has had the rules where you go in, you’re the first guy in, you’re the last one to leave, you’re living in that office,” Mr. Brown said. “I think this device could actually help coaches in their quality of life, help players in their quality of life because they can do things, like the corporate world, in a virtual environment.” There are still long days. That’s inevitable. But now those days can include more work from home. “Guys have families,” Young said. “It just makes it more convenient to be at your house and Coach sends everyone an email on the iPad because it’ll ring regardless and say, ‘Hey, this is what the install is. We’re going to change this blocking scheme for today.’ Before they teach it, we can get a look at it.”

The immediate thought had in reading this piece was literally wondering if we are dropping the ball in how we’ve applied tech to spiritual transformations. For example, why don’t more churches who have the ability to create their own app have a specalized Bible study app where snippets of Scripture (for copyright reasons) can be sent to communities as the pastor thinks of them? Yes, I know email does this, but something that’s just a bit more customized to the experience of that worship community is what I’m talking about.

Or, where are the instantly accessible strategies for study, discipleship, learning languages, and such that flow into your devices that have been vetted by your denomination’s regional or national office (why do you need to wait until convention to get a paper handout of what was already typed on a PC)? I mean something a lot more than the Talking About Jesus app that recently came out, I literally mean to have a behavior of using this tech that accents what we get when the game is on.

Its probably best to ask those of you whom are pastors. How do you take the abilities that people have been used to with paper Bibles, Socratatic-methods of teaching, and broadcast types of media and help those who’ve gone digital to get what’s needed? Not so much asking if you are using social media, SMS/MMS, or have an app. But, are you fostering behaviors that are digital, that lead to a better quality of life and faith, and aren’t a copy of the media of old?

Let’s hear it from you in the comments.

Now these are the kinds of reads that I most enjoy for weekend reflection. Besides already agreeing with the premise that there is no such thing as a digital native/immigrant except in a very specifically defined social and economic class, there’s just the beauty of constantly having this discussion continue as we figure out what digital means whether we are in digital-accessory communities or digital-transformative ones.

Here is the introduction summary from a journal looking at this idea of being digital native or a digital immigrant, and what is right and wrong about such terms and resulting approaches:

A lot has been written about the digital native since the coining of the term about ten years ago. A lot of what has been originally written by the digital native has been taken as common sense and has been repeated many times in many educational contexts, but until recently the true nature of the digital native has not been explored. Because the myth of the digital native is still alive and well, this article aims to examine the findings that have come out of recent research with regard to digital natives and their true nature, as well as turn a critical gaze onto the assumptions, taken as common sense knowledge, of what the characteristics of digital natives are.

Read the rest of Digital Natives: Ten Years Later by Apostolos Koutropoulos and the MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching (PDF).