Teaching that promotes higher order thinking skills must ask the the right questions of its students. But in order for children to use those higher order thinking skills, we must encourage them to ask questions.

The latest web tool I am looking into is Stroome. What is Stroome? Stroome is the world's most collaborative video editing community. Upload videos, share clips, then mix it up and mash it out. Thousands of clips, hundreds of collaborators, unlimited possibilities. Stroome is a tool for web reporting. I have not created a project yet, but I'm sure that will happen in the near future. Here's what intrigues me about this web tool.

Have you heard about Quest to Learn? Quest to Learn is a new school that is using game-based learning to build 21st century literacy skills. Here's a video podcast from the school's executive director of design, Katie Salen, who talks about the philosophy behind the school, including the similarities between the way game designers work and the way good teachers work. Must see web-TV!

My recent project for the Cory Center was What Matters Now in Children's Ministry. While the team that developed this resource are still in conversation about how to further the use of the content and expand it, I've been wondering about a new project: what's next in children's ministry? My first port of call is the New Media Consortium's "Horizon Report."

I came across a couple of great resources for Digital Immigrants who want to become more fluent in the language and tools of Digital Learners. The Digital Diet is a new book by Andrew Churches, Lee Crocket, and Ian Jukes. The contributors have also create some "Small Byte" ebooks. According to the Committed Sardine Blog, each ebook "includes a quick-start guide, examples of how to use this tool in your classroom, and examples of activities which will help cultivate the 21st century fluencies." Please note that these resources were created specifically for educators and school settings, but they are really accessible for ministry. Read more...

I just finished reading a Wired Article entitled "Why Aren’t Games About Winning Anymore?" by Jonathan Liu. Liu uncovers a recent trend in video games where modern games are less about actually getting to the last level (a la Super Mario Brothers) and more about gaining achievements during the game. http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/06/achievement-unlocked For instance, I have become addicted to the iPhone app Angry Birds. Angry Birds is a great game built on a ridiculous premise: catapult birds into fortresses made of wood, ice, and stone so you can destroy green pigs. As I have played through the game, I noticed that every once in a while a message would flash across the lower part of the screen indicating that I had reached one of the game's "Achievements." The game all of a sudden became less about defeating the green pigs (which is relatively easy) and more about the achievements. Read more...

I want to continue looking at the divide between the digital immigrant and digital native leaders in children's and family ministry and the big questions that all of us need to answer. Let's start with: Bring on the Revolution! Read more...

I have been challenged recently by a series of questions that I'd like to present to you, the readers. These questions are some of the raw materials I work with every day. They occupy my time, effort, and energy. They are the splinters in my mind. I would love to get some feedback from you! Sound off on the comments or send me an email or Twitter message!

I am continuing the series of posts on kidmin and video games. In my research, I came across Evoke. According to Evoke's blog, "Evoke is a ten-week crash course in changing the world. It is free to play and open to anyone, anywhere. The goal of the social network game is to help empower young people all over the world to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems." Evoke is the kind of thing children's and family ministry leaders need to pay attention to! Imagine if we could engage kids in virtual projects aimed at faith formation (serving, evangelism, discipleship, prayer). Expect to see more and more games like Evoke in days to come. If you are a gamer or know any programmers, DM me on Twitter! I'd love to explore this idea!

"I am not an artist." "I cannot draw or paint." "I am not creative." These are all lies that people tend to believe about themselves. I know; I believed all of these fallacies. I remember trying very hard when I was a kid to draw horses or castles or people. The results were nothing more than hard scribbles. So, like any disciplined young man I gave up my dreams of being an artist and turned that passion towards Tecmo Bowl. The problem with these lies is that they keep perfectly creative beings from developing their gifts. Read more...

I wanted to post my answer to the question, What Matters Now in Children's Ministry. I chose the word, digital. Here's why… Research makes it clear that the generation of children in our ministries today is vastly different than any other group of children the Church has sought to reach. They engage and edit media, experiment with culture, and experience community in new ways. They are fluent in the language of technology. They collaborate, teach, connect, and relate using a network of individualized digital tools. They prefer a unique learning experience with parallel processing, multitasking, feedback, and relevance. They navigate the digital world deftly and quickly. They blur the lines between the physical and virtual. They are open to the truth of God's Word. Read more...

SortFix is an interesting search tool that incorporates an intuitive, fun interface. You type in the search terms, but SortFix scans and examines your results and kicks back a list of keywords that will help you define a search and narrow the results. Call it "search by word association." Check it out.. sortfix.com

I've been reviewing a study entitled, "Life Support: Young People's Needs in a Digital Age" which looked at the psychological and neurological effects of the Internet on young people. The report, authored by Professor Michael Hulme, provides a new definition for the common term, "digital native." According to Hulme, "digital natives" are people under the age of 25, who have been surrounded by computers, the Internet, mobile phones, and digital video games since a preschool age." One of the biggest obstacles I encounter when talking about digital learners is when leaders think that their characteristics only apply to older kids. While this is true, the Life Support report confirms that digital natives begin their immersion into technology around the age of three! Read more...

Several years ago I stood in front of a group of children's ministry volunteers and leaders at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin. For the very first time, I shared my thoughts on how digital kids learned and the challenges ahead for the field of children's and family ministry. One of the big questions from that presentation that has stayed with me over the past six years has been: What if children's ministry became more like a video game than a book? Read more...

Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do) is a book by Gever Tulley and Julie Spiegler. The title explains it all as the book contains fifty different dangerous projects for kids to do with care and supervision. The book includes a section for parents because the purpose of the book (according to Tulley) is to "start a deliberate effort to start a national and global dialogue about what we are really doing when we [parents] overprotect children, which is to keep them from having the kinds of experiences that lay the foundations for creative genius."

As a children's pastor interested in technology, media, and the Internet I am always looking for resources related to the way kids interact in the digital world. Recently OnlineFamily.Norton, a background computer program that shows that your children are doing online, released a fascinating report on the most popular search terms for kids 13-18, 8-12, and 7 & under. Read more...

If you're in children's ministry, you know the Wiggles: the part education, part Boy Band, all fun group from Australia. Their meteoric rise to popularity has several lessons for children's ministry. Check out the article...

Recently our children's ministry team sat down to discuss scope and sequence. Our team creates the majority of the curriculum resources used during weekend services at our three campuses (both written and video), so this discussion was vital to the next stages of our curriculum process. We spent a block of time getting a picture of where kids are today and where kids will be in middle school. This is an important task in the our field! We need to know exactly where kids are and where they will end up. Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, and a host of colleagues wrote a paper dealing with the subject of 21st Century Skills (which I came across in preparation for our team's scope and sequence meeting). The article discusses several critical skills children should develop. Filed under: Digital Learning, Curriculum | Comments (17)

Previously I wrote about five forces or broad trends that we are facing as children's and family ministry leaders (the rise of the individual, connectivity, Twitter Speed, Rip-Mix-Burn-Share, and Motion Blur). I'd like to finally address the last force - Motion Blur. From the original article: Motion Blur: The result of the previous four trends is motion blur. Motion blur is happens when you take a photograph of something that is moving rapidly. The result is a less detailed picture, since the picture is trying to interpret all the movement and show the sense of speed. In the lives of kids and families today there is motion blur between the virtual and physical worlds they occupy. For kids and teens in the virtual world, friends and relationships on Facebook are just as valid as the friends and relationships they have at their school or neighborhood. Shane Hipps who wrote Flickering Pixels introduces the term "digitally absent" for those who would rather take a phone call th

Previously I wrote about five forces or broad trends that we are facing as children's and family ministry leaders (the rise of the individual, connectivity, Twitter Speed, Rip-Mix-Burn-Share, and Motion Blur). I'd like to address each one of these trends and present some ideas and possibilities for response. From the original article: Rip, Burn, Mix, Share: The iTunes mantra has become the new normal for content. Television shows or news programs get live video responses then mashed up, auto-tuned, and delivered to YouTube. Did you know that Google recently changed its copyright enforcement largely because of a YouTube video of a wedding party dance that turned a song into Sony's 8th best seller in history? Tutorials for professional software are distributed with the original files so that users can think up new ways of creating content, all for free. Kids are used to creating their own content. One of my favorite weekends of the year is the weekend after Christmas beca

Online classes are becoming more and more common - not just for adults seeking flexible degree programs, but for children. I came across a great article in the Seattle Times about an online class for kids about kindness. Here's what Dan Pink had to say about the kindness class: Andy Smallman, head of the Puget Sound Community School in Seattle, has come up with a social innovation that’s ingenious, inspiring, and infectious. He calls it “kindness class.” Each week students in the online course get an assignment. In week one, they do something kind for themselves. In week two, they do something kind for someone they love. And so on. Along the way, participants do something kind for a neighbor, provide something wonderful for someone to find, let everyone go ahead of them for a week, and do something kind anonymously. For more information, check out the site and this Seattle Times article. In a world where people are seeking purpose and connection, kindness classes could be an i

Previously I wrote about five forces or broad trends that we are facing as children's and family ministry leaders (the rise of the individual, connectivity, Twitter Speed, Rip-Mix-Burn-Share, and Motion Blur). I'd like to address each one of these trends and present some ideas and possibilities for response. From the original article: Twitter Speed: Clearly everything is getting faster and more powerful. Computers, cell phones, netbooks, and the Internet. Five years ago, only 81% of American households had access to a low speed Internet connection! Now 96% of American households are connected to or have access to a high speed Internet connection. Many of you may not have heard of Ian Jukes. Dr. Jukes is an educator who specializes in digital learners. He has researched their needs, preferences, successes, and failures. His books include Teaching the Digital Generation, Windows on the Future: Education in the Age of Technology, and Understanding the Digital Generation: Te

Kids are more wired and connected than ever before. On one hand I can see the argument for becoming unwired and unplugged while at church. Ministry should focus people where they need to be. But on the other hand, I think it's more important to focus ministry on where people are before you focus them on where they need to be. Here are some suggestions...

Previously I wrote about five forces or broad trends that we are facing as children's and family ministry leaders (the rise of the individual, connectivity, Twitter Speed, Rip-Mix-Burn-Share, and Motion Blur). I'd like to address each one of these trends and present some ideas and possibilities for response.

So many things around us are changing. There are forces at work in the lives of our children and families that need to be recognized and addressed.

It is possible to shoot amazing videos with a camera that costs less than $200. I'll show you how!

I'm about to share one of the best kept secrets in children's ministry.

This past weekend, I used the program "Comic Life" to create five different scenarios on obedience as small group discussion starters after talking through the Parable of the Two Sons in Matthew 21:28-31. Did it work?

One of the best exercises for me to build my creativity has been drawing. I am not an artist, but I'm always looking for tools and ways to express ideas. Here's some great resources I've come across that are worth sharing.

How can we develop as leading learners in our faith communities? What will it take to establish ourselves as leaders of learning?

Get the most out of your time in brainstorming meetings by following some simple rules.

Teaching Bible stories and how to find passages in the Bible is only part of a much larger faith skill set that children need to survive in the 21st century.

As leaders, we must examine how we use the greatest book in our ministry. Tech Learning provides us some ideas about how to take strides to improve our efforts.

I had the privilege of having five minutes to share about my graduate school experience during commencement weekend. I thought I would share those thoughts with all of you and make what I hope to be a compelling case for advanced study in children's and family ministry.

As the field of education shifts towards integrating technology into the classroom, what are the shifts children's ministry needs to make to engage digital learners?

Is there a reason why the Cory Center has a technology blog for a children's and family ministry website? Find out.

I came across an excellent article reflecting data and conclusions about the study of the impact of e-learning and learner’s views on the physical places where they learn. From my understanding, this study was intended to help organizations plan better learning spaces (buildings, centers, libraries, colleges, schools, etc…) but the information revealed some key components of digital learners that are helpful for children’s and family leaders.

Everyone loves a good story. But the truth of the matter is that stories actually hold a special place in the brain. Research from Sung-Il Kim in 1999 (and later reflected upon by cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham) showed that the brain treats information told in story form in a different manner. There are a few general characteristics of story that are pertinent for our conversation as children’s and family ministry leaders.

If the world of information is growing exponentially, what are you doing to keep up in your leadership, teaching, and learning?

With new online tools for devotions, how much time should we spend teaching kids how to use the book of the Bible?

Employers and school superintendents define "creativity" and there are interesting disconnects between framing problems and being comfortable with the absence of a right answer.

Phil Vischer kicked off the Conspire Conference with an insightful look at children and media.

A new video game changes the face of interaction.