What would you say if I told you there were universities offering free course material (i.e. lectures) through iTunes? As skeptical as I know many of you are, I’m sure you’re thinking, “Great! Some no name school is offering its remedial and 101 courses for free. Who cares?” What if I told you these courses were from Standford and MIT? The variety of material is a lot broader than I was expecting and, they are simple to access. I am downloading my first round of lectures right now; I’ll let you know about them when I finish listening.
Back in March, I posted about Mobile Learning and it’s impact on Christian Education as part of a series on the Future of Ministry Education. In that post I said:
Discussions about educational technology do not answer larger questions of educational philosophy, but I believe they must be at the forefront of any discussion regarding changing how we train people for ministry. Technological advances fuel the future. We cannot be married to technology, but we also cannot let our inability to be innovative (technologically) handicap us. Unlike many of our predecessors, we must unshackle ourselves and utilize the cutting edge.
ReadWriteWeb posted today about CourseSmart’s new iPhone app which will allow students to access textbooks from their iPhone. Right now, CourseSmart has over 7,000 eTextbooks available. This may very well provide competition for the Kindle.
Kindle, e-books, education, iPhone, technology
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app, Christian Education, college, CourseSmart, ebooks, education, eTextbooks, iPhone, Kindle, Mobile Learning, ReadWriteWeb
Let me point you to an article written by my friend Aaron Saufley called “Bible College or Church?”. Aaron is a church planter, blogger, and all around decent guy. In his typical, atypical perspective of church and christian spirituality, Aaron questions if there may be a better way to prepare people for ministry than what we typically do.
“I’m wondering why we insist on sending guys who want to be preachers and church planters off to Bible college and seminary for four years (or more). Would it not be more beneficial for a guy to be mentored and coached by the staff of his local church? He could learn the ins and outs of ministry on the field instead of in the abstract theories of the classroom. And he wouldn’t amass a huge amount of college debt that will take him at least a decade to pay off… and the chances are high that he’ll be out of “professional ministry” a few years before he gets his education paid for.”
It seems to have drawn out some helpful conversation and has got me thinking. If there were no limits, traditions, or built in assumptions, what would be the best way to train people to do ministry? I will try to wrap words around my initial thoughts in a few posts over the next week or so. In the mean time, show Aaron some love.
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