Last week’s Facebook Friday poll we asked about Windows 8 (see results).
This week, although we keep our eyes on computing, the question is far less OS-centric.
[Read more…] about Facebook Friday: What’s Your Favorite Word Processing App [Poll]
The #1 Resource for Church Technology Creativity & New Thinking
by Eric Dye
Last week’s Facebook Friday poll we asked about Windows 8 (see results).
This week, although we keep our eyes on computing, the question is far less OS-centric.
[Read more…] about Facebook Friday: What’s Your Favorite Word Processing App [Poll]
Two years ago my life changed.
About this time three years ago, I found a website called Write Nonfiction in November. In 2009, I started to believe that maybe some day I’d write a book.
On November 2, 2010, I read something that I needed to read. It said that procrastination is just trusting your future self to do something. The thing is, if your present self never takes steps to accomplish your goals, your future self will never be the kind of person who does the thing that your present self thinks you’ll do.
I started writing that day.
by Eric Dye
We always want more, don’t we?
More gadgets, more widgets, more things to own so we can be ‘happier.’
Just as the “pursuit of more” can drive our day to day living, it can also effect our creative output. However, the old adage still remains true:
“Less is more.”
When I was in eighth grade, my language arts took us through a unit on poetry. (Guess what? I’m now working at my old junior high, with my language arts teacher!) I really enjoyed writing, and I kept writing long after the unit. I wrote poetry well on into college, where I also began to write essays. After I got married, I started blogging and loved it! Then, a year ago, I got an awesome chance to write for some Gandalf-loving geeks called ChurchMag. Short story shorter: I love writing and blogging!
Now that I’m a junior high teacher, I’m taking every chance I can to encourage my students to try writing. To that end, I’m using my extension class (an extra class at the end of the day where we teach students different academic skills) to teach my student writing through blogging.
Last month, we created a WordPress blog—powered by Standard Theme!—and got to work. I’ve given them pointers about what to use to write (Evernote), how to get inspired, (showed a clipped from Finding Forrester-“You’re the man now, dog!”), and the different types of posts (editorials, reviews, etc.). The results of this experiment has been mixed. Some student love it, while others love that their homework is to play video games and write a short review.
After a few weeks, I’ve begun to wonder about how blogging could help in youth ministry. How much more likely are our students to be engaged by what their peers share about living life for Christ than what we “dinosaurs” share?
I don’t know about about you, but I’m always looking for ways to increase student involvement in the actual ministry of the group. Blogging seems like a perfect way to do that, and here are a few different ways I might use students as bloggers.
by Eric Dye
Would you like to be published?
Perhaps this flowchart will offer you some inspiration!
I admit this ‘flowchart’ is half part humor, but if you’ve talked to anyone who’s been published, they can vouch to the accuracy.
Take a look and be inspired!
by Jeremy Smith
If you have been living without the Internet and television for the past three months, here is some big nerdy news for you, Disney purchased all of LucasFilms, including the rights to all media content. Even bigger, they plan to make the seventh episode in the initially intended 9 episode series. The purchase of LucasFilms was a natural move for George Lucas as he heads into retirement and now has a bit of pocket money in the $4,000,000,000 that Disney paid. (Yes, that’s ‘B’ as in billion)
But how will this new trilogy turn out?