I’m marking again. Every time I mark an assignment there are distant students who could have got better marks if they had used a decent scholarly commentary or two, to supplement whatever they, their aunt Jemima (who did a course at Capenwray in the 1960s) or their pastor happen to have. Time and again I tell them, so now I’m telling you, the secret of a massive theological library that offers (at least) several good solid recent commentaries (in stock when you go to look for them)¹ on every Bible book. And, to make a good story better, this huge resource is available in your own home :)

Or a download link

1. And with your local theological library isn’t it always the case that the best commentaries on the book you are interested in have always been borrowed by either a PhD student or a class of hungry students with an assignment due?

Christchurch has taken a beating for month after month now, which makes this mashup especially interesting. Why not Share or Like it on Facebook and offer some encouragement?

Here is an extract from the long video I linked to the other day. The extract covers reasons why we should teach theology to adults and children together.

Here in the peaceful hills between Tauranga and Rotorua, I watched (and recorded the end of) a prolonged fight in the sky. Two Magpies saw off an Australasian Harrier, with other birds including our one of Herons getting involved a bit.

Make it fullscreen, because without a tripod and better gear I could not zoom closer. Notice the magpies actually manage strikes on the much bigger Harrier!

TED often has inspiring and intriguing short talks. Though, as a long-time visitor to the site I’m less easily wowed than I used to be. One from the latest crop is a commercial demo. It’s what Push Pop Press (or possibly TED) think is “the next-generation digital book”. Take a look, it is impressive:

I suspect the technologically clever windmill that turns when you blow will lose its wow in a few weeks, but the possibilities of the visuals is stunning. Though in the demo the data “visualizations” were on the whole less than impressive. Not a patch on for example the more static data visuals TED demonstrated a while back.

And that’s my frustration with Push Pop Press’ Al Gore book, it looks good, it may be fun, but it is static. Umberto Eco classified literature on a scale from closed to open texts. Closed texts tell you what to think, open texts encourage exploration and readers to form their own understandings. (Although his distinction was intended to describe a significant feature of fiction, I think it applies at least as powerfully to educational and “factual” books.) Looked at with Eco’s eyes, Al Gore’s sequel to An Inconvenient Truth is a closed text, it fails to encourage exploration or imagination, but tells us what to think. Despite its title Our Choice is not about us learning and growing, it’s about us watching and enjoying a masterful performance by the programmers and designers.

This iBook is a digital equivalent of the bread and circuses TV or the mega-Church “worship” that are the opium of the people in the wealthy and comfortable bubble that is Western Culture. It is indeed a next-generation digital book as the corporates would like it to be, saleable and static, a disposable commodity. A true next-generation digital book would by contrast be open, it would encourage exploration and conversation far from being disposable it would open new possibilities and thoughts on return readings.

The technology for such a book does not need teams of expensive programmers. With minimal coding skills we could do it with a combination of HTML and WordPress. The linkages and connections made possible by <a href=http://… together with the ongoing conversation and community that blogging tools allow are all that is needed for a true Next-generation Digital Book. I love to see us produce a FOSOTT (free, open source Old Testament textbook) that as well as a paper edition offered an e-book version that included such interactivity.

One video in particular from Michael Wesch’s Visions Of Students Today 2011 project caught my eye. He asked students to make short videos of education from their perspective, and offer them as an open source resource.

This video caught my attention because it highlights the dangers of leaving students passive and the power of active learning:

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For more on Michael see these previous posts:

• Participatory pedagogy and cultural literacy
• It’s not what we’re teaching, it’s HOW we are teaching!

Image by jonathan.d.becker

Brooke at Anuma in VOST2011: The Visions of Students Today asks:

What do students in Higher Education see today? What do they “see” in the sense of, “What are their visions?” And, what do they literally see from the place in which they are expected to learn?

He’s pointing to a new project by Michael Wesch, professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. The call for submissions asked students to make short (preferably < 2 minutes) videos of education from their perspective, and offer them as an open source resource. The videos are often fascinating (at least for a teacher ;) and sometimes compelling, just think of the talent and effort being expressed here!

Brooke also wrote:

In the professorial circles in which I run, I am probably among those more likely to identify with the students of VOST2011: besides being a “distance pedagogies guy” (in progress), I am after all a Gen-Xer, and until a subject matter grabbed me in my Masters work, felt continually disenchanted with and alienated from the structures of education, while still identifying strongly with other students as a peer group.

Well, it may not surprise you to know that although well past being Gen-X those experiences rign true for me, as do many of the students’ visions. Perhaps they do for others… so, in this over-mediated world where information tends to be free, why do we still teach, instead of facilitating learning?

See these earlier posts among many others for my thoughts:

• 2004: Internet and Missions yes, despite the title it IS on this topic, and despite the age IS still relevant ;)
• 2007: (What) does the Web change (in) education?
• 2009: David Clines’ SBL Presidential Address

Johnathan at ξἐνος has posted a striking announcement of an exciting new technological breakthrough:  New Technology Coming Soon!!!!!!! Despite his predilection for exclamation marks, and despite the video being in Spanish, you probably ought to watch it before the one I repeat below (in Norwegian, but both have subtitles for the linguistically challenged) ;)

Still from the Execration Texts video

Robert Cargill has been making interesting use of YouTube. Basically it seems (I am judging by the videos, I have not asked him) he videos class sessions (with the screen as well as the lecturer in shot) then later extracts interesting short focused segments of few minutes on a topic. As I write the most recent were on the Gihon Spring and the Triumphal Entry of Jesus and the Execration Texts and Jerusalem. He has also, as the screenshot on the right shows added “annotations” in YouTube which provide concise explanations of terms used and other technical matters.

I think both these two things make his videos more useful than the average recorded class:

• their short length and focus: means they offer people a manageable chunk that is on the topic they are interested in, not merely a record of a class – that is, you or I could point our students to one of these for a quick fix on their topic
• the annotations: make the videos more useful for both his own students revising, and for your or mine looking for a noddy guide

I’d love to try this, it seems like the next step up from my current audio recordings (for my students) and 5minuteBible podcasts (for the rest of the world). More work, but potentially richer (than the audio) and more reusable (than the class recordings).

HT: Jim West.