This advent, the C3 project team implemented a variety of measures integrating technology into advent activities in the parish community and as a region. The biggest accomplish, which was also the number one objective for this part of the pilot, which was to create the foundations needed for an effective social media outreach. Each parish identified a social media coordinator and they were responsible for pushing out content to each community. Through training and coaching by Elaine Menardi, Social Media Expert the parishes learned new apps and tools for organizing their content. She also shared with them a simple scheduling tool in Excel format. The social media coordinators who hadn’t used HootSuite before were coached on setting it up and using it to plan, organize, and distribute the advent specific content to parishioners of all ages. I think the experience gained in Advent will help the parish.

Curated Advent Content: The regional staff and intern searched and identified a variety of social media content, including YouTube videos, daily prayer resources, blogs and items for spiritual reflection, etc. One thing we learned in doing is that while content can be found in advance of a church season there is content constantly being generated so we should have had someone continuing to seek out the new content and push it out to the social media coordinators. We treated the content as a static reality instead of an evolving one. Also, we learned that we needed to be sure that in curating content you check out the links on the

#AdventOn, Using Facebook with Teens: The Confirmation Coordinators, Youth Ministry Leaders, and the Social Media Coordinators from the three parishes collaborated on a project called #AdventOn. We developed four themes for each week with their own hash tags. Each parish and the regional office took a week and did a short video introducing the theme. Primarily we used Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to push out links related to the weekly hash tag. We found general engagement difficult and hard to measure. Also, we found that some parents were actually engaged more than their teens. Were the young people just viewing it the content share social medai, but not adding to the conversation going on by liking it, or retweeting/sharing it, or by using the hash tags to add to it? One thing we questions was were they even on Facebook since one parish just used that app. There was recent article that address the question, “Are young people leaving Facebook?” Instragram seems to be the strongest among the teens that engage in using social media but due to the focus on images with Instagram some parishes have challenges using it due to social media regulations and parental concerns. In evaluating our efforts, we wondered why young people didn’t seem to engage and how to measure their engagement?

• Where they waiting on their friends to join in first?
• Were they concerned about being connected to a religious organization?
• Did we use the wrong social media such as facebook?
• Was it to complicated? Did we use too many hash tags? (Week one: #waitingon, Two: #NewHolyModernFamily, Three: #PinkIsTheNewPurple, Four: #babyjesus)

Ultimately, we decided that each leader would take some time to talk with the youth in our parishes that we were targeting to see what were the other reasons and how we can measure their level of engagement. I’ll share more about this as we get feedback from the youth directly and as we make plan for #FortyDays!

Advent Bible Study, If You Build it Will They Come: The regional staff hosted an online Bible Study reflecting on the readings of each week in Advent. Twenty-five people registered but only about a 5^th of them engaged actively in the study. We are still evaluating this effort but some feedback from the project team seem to point to the issue that Moodle was to difficult to navigate and that while the content was really good finding the time during a busy advent and holiday season was the greatest impact on participation. This Lent we are going to try another approach, a short retreat in the middle of lent for busy people. There will be more to come later from regional staff, Kay Harter and Margaret Matijasevic on this regional effort.

Recording Advent Homilies: Other efforts that we undertaken with some success were the recording of homilies by priests to share on the website and social media. We discovered there is a need to have volunteers or staff who can edit the audio content prior to uploading it to the web.

QR Codes: Each parish became trained on using QR Codes and used them to promote various advent activities in bulletins and on flyers. One thing that is needed is a way to train parishioners on using QR codes.

Generally, it was a successful collaborative effort in my opinion because all involved learned a great deal through this initial pilot effort. Pilots are so important just for that reason, to give us ways to learn from our experience! Thanks to all those from the SFPR C3 Cluster that helped make our joint efforts so fruitful!

 

 

 

 

“Is there an APP for that?” is such a 2013 question! I mean you ask that question as few as 13 years ago in 2000 and people would look at you like you are a little nuts wondering what you are talking about. It is amazing how our language evolves; I mean the new word for “search” is Google? We don’t say, “I’ll search for that,” we say, “I’ll Google it?”

I had a chance to reflect on that question recently at the San Fernando Regional Religious Education Congress. I did a workshop, Is there an APP for that? focusing on integrating technology into ministry and it was sponsored as part of the C3 Cluster Pilot. It was my first time being live streamed over the Internet which was fun and scary at the same time. Most of my family had never seen me speak, my god-child, Emily even said, “Wow, Nannie, you are a good teacher!” Well that made my day, but what is really cool is that this resource lives on in the Internet well beyond the day I gave it. Check it out, if you get a chance, check it out on this YouTube Link. In this blog, I will be exploring some of the ideas and strategies that we are using in the project that I mentioned in the virtual workshop.

 

I am a big star wars fan, I mean really big. There are Star Wars fans and then ones in a category all there own, you know who you are. How big of a fan? Well, my master’s thesis was on using the original 3 Star Wars movie as a faith formation program for teenagers in parish settings. So when I was told about a project that was called C3, I started out excited!

I soon found out that C3, stood for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Catholic Communication and Collaboration (C3) Pilot. According to the website, it was created, “to serve as a “test platform” to assess and enhance technology, professional development, content and applications at 25 selected parish, school and administrative sites. The C3 Pilot is overseen by an Archdiocesan Working Group and is scheduled to continue until summer 2014. Components of the C3 Pilot Program include upgrades in infrastructure, connectivity and equipment, providing professional development in the areas of change management, skills development and technology integration, and provide online content and applications to benefit members of the various communities being served throughout the ministries.”

The C3 San Fernando Pastoral Region Technology Cluster Project has been designed to respond to needs identified by pastors and parish leaders from Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Mels, and St. Euphrasia at the planning meeting in March of 2013. The identified pastoral needs will be met through sharing resources and developing new initiatives to enhance and expand parish ministries by the innovative use of current and trending technology.  Based on those discussions the following outcomes were identified:

• Create a multi-parish collaborative effort utilizing current and trending technology solutions.
• Cultivate an environment to promote strategic development of new initiatives and enhance/expand parish ministries by fostering partnerships, enabling functional integration and utilization of shared resources
• Utilize change management strategies to foster parish visioning and strategic decision making to increase the long-term benefits of the project for participating parishes.

The C3 Technology Cluster Project Team identified the following measures of success for this pilot effort, they are:

1. Positive feedback from parish community.
2. Increase level of proficiency by parish staff and volunteer ministry leaders in use of technology solutions.
3. Program efforts can be sustained once Pilot phase ends.
4. Effective collaboration with other parishes in cluster on areas of common need and interest.

In future blogs, I’ll be sharing the resources, research, strategies, and activities that are related to this effort so stay tuned and, of course, may the force be with you!

There is lots of talk these days about online learning, especially with the proliferation of mobile devices. At first glance, it seems like an easy solution to our time crunched lives. For some the thought might be a scary one because it is so different from the type of learning we are used to.

I have been engaging in online learning and teaching since 1998. I’ll never forget my first class at LSU as I began to the doctoral program, I was nervous because it had been ten years since I finished my masters degree. I knew things had changed but little did I know how much until, the instructor wrote a website on the board and said this is where all of the course materials can be found. I was scared to death; I thought to myself, “You are not going to give me a sheet of paper with the requirements?” See that class was a face-to-face class but the blackboard site is where all of the course activities took place between our class sessions.

As a graduate assistant at LSU, I actually taught my first online class. It was at that moment, that I thought this tool has incredible potential for educating and forming ministry leaders. As a youth ministry leader for over 30 years, including 10 years as a diocesan leader, I knew that ongoing education was critical to success in youth ministry, any ministry for that matter. But I also, knew that for all of those years my schedule would not allow me always to prioritize my own continuing education and I knew that ministry leaders in my dioceses where experiencing the same struggle. That actually is how MTS came to be. Since 2000, I have been teaching and learning in this medium, an experience filled with many struggles and successes. In the past 12 years, online education has change dramatically. But the one thing that has been consistent is the focus on learning.

So, as an online learner, you may be feeling a little fearful about how you can be successful in this type of learning. Or, you may be excited about the possibility of being able to learn without having to drive or give up a full weekend, but are still wondering how online learning works.

What are the keys to success?

First, be intentional about learning. Online learning does not happen magically, just like in face-to-face learning, we have to focus our energy towards learning. Any learning requires our investment of time and energy to the learning process. As an online learner you are not required to be in one place with the instructor in order to learn. This online learning site provides you a wealth of information, actually much more information in some ways than if I was teaching this course to you on a Saturday in your diocese. Be intentional about how you schedule your learning time! Look at the course schedule and look at your schedule and figure out when you will complete the learning activates. Also, create a physical space for you to learn.

The second key is persistence in overcoming learning challenges; sometimes in a new learning environment, we can become frustrated. We forget our password; we can’t open a document, our Internet crashes. A successful online learner is persistent. They don’t give up at the first, second, or even tenth frustration. They keep at it and seek help to move through whatever issues arise. Don’t be afraid to ask questions on the tech support discussion forum.

Sometimes, as an online learner we can feel alone with our computer, but the opposite is true. The instructors will share with you ideas and thoughts about how to be effective in ministering to the young church; however, the real learning takes place in our community interactions. So, make a commitment to the learning community. If you have questions ask! If you have insights, share! If you have a solution to another learner’s challenge offer it! As an instructor, I always get new insights from our shared learning.

The discussion forums are often the main way we learn together in an online environment. Other ways include completing course surveys, and following instructor or student blogs. Student blogs are not always required but they are excellent ways for ministry leaders to share and document their learning. Some of these student bloggers use this as a way to pass on insights gained in online learning with members within their ministry setting. Live webinar sessions are also great opportunities for collaborative learning! Finally, accountability in online learning is critical to success. The flexibility of online learning is the best and worst part of online learning. If we hold each other accountable, we will all succeed.

So, those are my three keys to success 1) be intentional in creating time and space for your own learning, 2) be persistent when obstacles seem to challenge learning, and 3) make a commitment to our online learning community!

If you are interested in pursing online learning, check out the NACYML OnCourse Youth Ministry Specialization Certificate, offered completely online. Classes begin on September 24th.