There’s tons of items online and even here at Cory Center about working with and teaching digital natives. The children in our classrooms don’t know what it is like not to be bombarded with information, images, and messages. They interact differently with technology than their teachers.

Rather than fight to get them to be more like you – which will never happen – be creative, see how you can leverage the world that they live in to help pass along the message you have.
One idea, inspired by the RSA Illustrate people is to augment your talk with drawings…here’s a sample that I’ve used:

The week I used this, the student’s were captured. I had their full attention for the length of the video and several moments after – not a peep. I used the moments after to clarify the message and drive home a few points….

And believe it or not, this video only took about 2 hours to create. I’m sure that my next one will go from brain to screen much quicker since there will be less of a learning curve on my end.

Here’s what I used:

1. Story – we’re using Tru, but any story will do
2. iMovie – Windows movie maker may work as well
3. Garage Band – any way to record your voice so that you can import it into your movie software
4. ScreenChomp app on my iPad – I’m seeking another app, but this one will serve me for now. It’s possible to do the entire talk on ScreenChomp, but their server seems to have issues with large videos.

Here’s the process:

1. Record the story. (This is where I used Garage Band)
2. Using screen chomp, illustrate a point. It’s helpful if the illustration is longer than what you are saying.
   * With screen chomp, you have to save the movie to their server, then download the mp4…another app may save the file locally.
3. Import into iMovie.
4. Using the clip adjustment, adjust the speed of the clip to fit the portion of your talk.
5. Repeat 2-4 until you’ve illustrated everything
6. Show the movie

As you can see, with the right tools, this is a simple process that enables you to make a quick video to get a point across or to illustrate an entire talk. Just don’t over use it, the natives will get restless.

What are you doing to facilitate native learning in your classroom?

I am fascinated with the teaching and learning process.  As children’s and family ministry leaders, part of our work is educational so being attenuated to issues related to learning theory is critical.  In Approaches to Training and Development, Dugan Laird posits that the vast majority of knowledge (75%) is learned through seeing.  God created our eyes to help us learn.

So often in children’s ministry we overemphasize learning through hearing, even though hearing accounts for only 13% of retained knowledge.  Learning to represent ideas and concepts visually is a worthwhile skill to acquire for anyone involved in the teaching and learning process.

I know what you’re thinking:

“Wait, I don’t draw!”  “Even my stick figures are unrecognizable!”

Have no fear, technology is here to help.  Here are 5 resources that can help you begin the process of learning how to represent ideas and concepts visually.

Draw Something – This app is being played by over 20 million people all over the world.  It’s turn-by-turn Pictionary for your iPad.

Vizthink.com – Free articles, media, podcasts, and presentations cover topics like Idea Mapping, Drawing Ideas, and Visual Note-Taking.  There is a fantastic library of articles covering the basics, including how to conquer the fear of drawing.

Paper – My favorite app for the creative process.  Simple tools make it easy to pick up a “pen” and brainstorm.  Available in the iTunes store.

Napkin Academy – Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, is on a mission to help people learn to use simple pictures.  With Napkin Academy, you can begin with a variety of free lessons that help you go from “I can’t draw” to “I can draw any idea.”

How to Draw Faces – This is one of my go-to resources by author and artist Austin Kleon.  It’s a simple video of how to draw faces with a square, two dots, 2/3 of a triangle and three lines.  Watch and learn.

For decades, animation has won over audiences both young and old.  From the first animated film, Snow White, to the Toy Story trilogy, animation has become one of the most powerful storytelling tools in our culture.

In the early days of children’s ministry, a church producing original animations was inconceivable.  The time, cost, and expertise required greatly exceeded the average church budget or staff.  Technology has changed all of that.   Now the average Sunday School can produce high quality, original animation for free.  If you’re interested in using animation to help teach children, let me introduce you to some of the tools available.

Toontastic: Toontastic is an iPad app that uses drawing tools to bring original artwork to life. Toontastic isn’t just the brute strength of animating your artwork.  It is a storytelling tool that helps users determine a story arc, setting, and the characters.  Imagine using this with your storytelling team in a training setting to help them illustrate the Bible story!

Xtranormal: Xtranormal is a web animation tool.  You provide the script and Xtranormal animates it for you.  I’m serious.  You type in the script and Xtranormal does the work.  You select the characters and backgrounds, then add the script by typing it or submitting your own audio recording.  Xtranormal allows you to choose the emotions, actions, and gestures for the characters along with the camera angles and sound effects that go along with the script.

What other tools have you discovered to aid storytelling in your children’s ministry context?

Several months ago there was an incident in our home that has caused me to ponder my over-connectedness.  It was a cool spring evening.  My wife and I were settling in for the night and I began, what was then, my nightly routine.  Checking last minute e-mails on the laptop, checking Facebook on the iPad, sending a Twitter update on my iPhone, and pulling up the newest book on my Kindle.  It was this sight that prompted a slightly sarcastic remark from my wife, “are you serious…I think screens are little to important to you these days.”

At the time I didn’t want to admit it…but my wife was right…I was in love with my screens.  But it was more than just my screens, it was the connection that they represent.

When Katie and I got married 10 years ago I didn’t have a cell phone.  I didn’t have a laptop.  Smart phones and tablets were just a twinkle in Steve Jobs eye.  And I didn’t even have a Myspace account, let alone Facebook and Twitter.  It was a different world.  A world where the only screens I owned were far from mobile.

This has all changed.  And for the most part I am thankful. The connections and networking that is possible because of technology and social media is incredible.

As ministry leaders, connection is at the center of our ministry.  Relationships are everything.  They are the foundation for growth.  But if we are not careful, our connectedness can actually lead to neglecting the relationships that are the foundation of our world.  We are so connected everywhere else that we forget to be present…here.  at home.  at work.  at play.  with Jesus.  And when it comes to building healthy relationships, presence is key.

We have amazing technology that holds incredible potential for the movement of the gospel.  We just have to use it wisely.

Is your connectedness keeping you from being present?

What’s your story?  How do you fight against the ever-increasing difficulty of presence?

KB

Last month an interesting conversation spread online over this question: iPad vs. TV: which is better for your kids?

A Cult of Mac article spawned the debate while Tecca fueled the fire.  I’d definitely recommend reading the Cult of Mac article because it has a ton of stats on children and media.  But let’s get to the basic premise of the question introduced by both articles:

If kids spend 1500 hours every year watching TV and only 900 hours a year in a classroom, wouldn’t it be better to swap the TV for an iPad?  The iPad is portable, interactive, educational, features less harmful advertising, and can be finely tuned by a parent.

What do you think?

I remember when my parents brought home our first wood console television. This hefty monstrosity never moved from the room my parents placed it in.  Like many families, the television served as the “first screen” in our lives.

Not long after the television took up permanent residence in my childhood living room, the Macintosh Classic became part of the family.  After this computer, I have never lived without a “second screen” in my home.

And while years later in college I did begin using a cell phone, the phone did not dramatically change my life.  It was a simple tool used primarily for emergency calls.  It was not until four years ago when I bought my first truly mobile device (an iPhone) that the “third screen” arrived in my life.  Now I am addicted and I’m not the only one.  As my wife and I have migrated to newer mobile devices, our old devices ended up in the hands of our two daughters.  Take a long drive with us in the Pontiac Vibe and you’ll see a family engaged in Angry Birds, Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, and YouTube on a range of mobile devices.  A simple car ride demonstrates a tremendous cultural shift from the wood paneled RCA television I grew up with.

This “third screen” as author Chuck Martin refers to it, is “the present and the future.  It is profoundly changing human behavior.”

The kids in our churches are children of the “third screen.”  They are always on, always plugged in, always in control.  Sometimes I get concerned that children’s ministry leaders are pretending that we still live in a world where the “first screen” is the only screen.  In this “first screen” world, television is thoughtless entertainment.  We need to make strides to take advantage of the other two screens through websites, web tools, games, design, and media creation.  Matthew May lists some key takeaways from Chuck Martin’s book The Third Screen on the Open Forum that relate to children’s ministry.  Check them out and comment on how you think we can make ministry more mobile.

The iPad is a gamechanging technology with countless resources for children.  I like to explore these resources because I get a sense of the possibilities for how children’s ministry could develop and use digital apps for teaching kids the truth of God’s Word.

Here’s a list of list of iPad apps, books and magazines for children, culled from Mashable and the New York Times.  If you have a cool resource that you’ve used or seen, post it in the comments section!

Books:

Go, Clifford, Go! ($5) is one of Scholastic’s first e-books, which, along with I Love You Through and Through (also $5) lets you tilt the screen to make cars move, trees sway, waves roll. Ages 2-up.

Finding Nemo: My Puzzle Book ($1) is one of a series of movie-inspired e-books that mix jigsaw puzzles with a scavenger hunt, plus the ability to record your own narration. 3-up.

PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit ($5) respectfully presents Beatrix Potter’s classic illustrations on the multi-touch screen, with touch-and-hear text, and pull-tabs that pull you into the action elements of the story. 3-up.

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed ($3) Eileen Christelow’s color pencil illustrations help a child learn to read, by connecting the words with the pictures, at the touch of a finger. The same technique has been used in other Oceanhouse Media Dr. Seuss titles. 3-up.

Goosed Up Rhymes ($1) six funny, noisy versions of nursery rhymes guaranteed to make you smile. 3-up.

The Three Little Pigs ($8) is one of the best renditions of the classic story in the app store. Besides excellent graphics and sounds, you get to help the wolf blow down the houses by way of the iPad’s microphone. 4-up.

Nash Smasher! ($2) pulls you into the world of Nash, a 7-year old mischief-maker who likes to break things. You “pull” on tabs to do the smashing, or if you like, the un-smashing, on the way to a happy ending. 5-up.

Ultimate Dinopedia: The Most Complete Dinosaur Reference, ($6) puts the embellished details of 600 dinosaurs at your fingertips, as if dinosaurs needed any embellishments. 6-up.

Bartleby’s Book of Buttons ($5) turns traditional storybook pages into combination locks, that won’t open until you figure out the right mix of switches, buttons and sliding controls. It helps to read carefully. 7-up.

Wild About Books ($5) is an expertly adapted version of the printed Judy Sierra book, with 16 Marc Brown watercolor illustrations that celebrate the book, in every form, by way of quality narration and hidden surprises. 8-up.

Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch ($10) choose your own path through the book-inspired story, while you find clues hidden in the text. 10-up.

Magazines

Timbuktu (Free) An Italian publisher says its iPad magazine, Timbuktu, is the first ever targeted at kids and designed to allow children to understand the news while being entertained.

“Think of devices like the iPad, and its little brother, the new camera-equipped iPod Touch, as the bicycle of the digital age. These devices are at the center of a modern child’s play. They capture and manage information.”

— Just read this quote from Warren Buckleitner in an article from the Detroit Free Press, an educator, education researcher, and contributor to the New York Times.  What do you think?  Is the iPad the tool for exploration and play that the bicycle was for previous generations?  I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments!