Crawford,+Lori+-+DDBC+Essay

=hLori Crawford's essay about DDBC.=

ESSAY DUE DATE Dec. 1, 2013

Write a 500 word essay summarizing your DDBC experience and how you plan to apply what you learned to your ministry. Demonstrate how you have applied your understanding of ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS/T) and applied them to a faith learning environment. Include reference to relevant research about technology and learning, especially as applied to faith settings, if appropriate.

Reaching out with “SacramentConnect”

By Lori Crawford

It was the jillionth email request for something that I had recently passed out in Sacramental Prep that indicated a need for easier public access to those handouts. Our parish website is managed by another staff member, which limits my control of the page. In 2012 I enrolled in Digital Discipleship Boot Camp, and while the sheer volume of available technology we covered in the boot camp was overwhelming, our class Wiki gave me the idea for my project.

I call my project “SacramentConnect”. At the January 2013 First Eucharist “class” I launched my project, our wiki at http://ololcommunion.wikispaces.com/. I started with two goals: All our information easily accessible to those with ‘no’ time and yet a spot on the site I could put the voluminous resources found online for those that had time to tool around. Over time I narrowed it down to four pages. Video technology next came into play - using Vimeo to upload videos of parent lectures and music for our program gave the Wiki life and personalized it to our program. All-told, the site now boasts videos, articles, and even a “how-to” for the handmotions of our class song.

Promoting the Wiki: This site is obviously only accessible to those that have internet access, so I utilized my email in three ways to promote the Wiki. The first was direct email inviting parents to simply stop in and see it. The second was to add a link to the Wiki in every email sent to families, whether it was referenced in the email or not. Lastly, whenever I had those questions come in, rather than responding with the answer or attachment, I directed the inquirer straight to the Wiki for the answer. For next year’s group I would like to add a QR code for use in our bulletin and other class materials.

By May of 2013, the few parent responses garnered suggested the site was useful and appreciated. Alas, with the site being so new and my being so busy I did not take the time to adequately test for usefulness or user-friendliness that I should have. The site will be live again for the January 2014 preparation class and I have incorporated plans for evaluating the site via Survey Monkey and one-on-one interviews with a handful of families.

Lastly, in the interest of building efficient communication for participants, the addition of Remind 101, a free group text service, has been incorporated into the fall 2013 Sacrament preparation program and will be used actively with the January 2014 class. I can text links to data on our Wiki, music videos (class songs), sermonettes, and gift ideas directly to those interested in more without getting lost in the inboxes of those less interested. I’m looking forward to finding new ways to utilize technology in this class to make church and faith more accessible and relevant.