Some weeks ago, we talked about a specific case of using several applications across one’s mobile and tablet to do bible studies. The response from that article has been quiet, but there has been something quite consistently stated: the amount of inking, drawing, and pictures was a bit overwhelming. So, how about we scale things down a bit to just using your tablet (iPad, Nook, Kindle Fire, etc) for studies.
[click for larger view]
The Setup
- Safari Mobile Web Browser
- Penultimate
- Evernote
- Dropbox
We are keeping things simple here with the use of the built-web browser, Penultimate to collect and organize our content, and then Evernote and Dropbox for the purposes of archiving and sharing (you only need one of these, but am including both as Penultimate works seamlessly with both).
The Study: John 8:1-11
Many of us might be familiar with this section of the Bible. Here, a woman is brought before Jesus by scribes and Pharasees and she is charged with adultery. This was one of those studies where we were given the text before the meeting, and then had to come to the study with items to contribute. I decided to collect my thoughts within Penultimate, and then again use the app during the study to capture additional thoughts.
Before the study, I read the text and started in Penultimate with some questions that came to mind about aspects of the section of text: location, timing, what the Temple looked like, etc. After getting a few of these, I began just by using a simple search to look them up, and then started collecting facts and images from image searches, Wikipedia, and other places.
Then in Penultimate, I just went at it. What I liked here is that my notes very quickly started looking like something in a composition book, but with better links to images and data. What’s missing from Penultimate is some kind of screen that keeps track of the items that you grab from websites (like of like an automated biblography).
During the study, I went back to the document that I started, and just added additional pages to correspond to the questions being asked. No styli, no keyboard. Just grabbing snippets of images and writing as I see fit.
The end product looked like this PDF. I exported the Penultimate file into Dropbox, and it created this PDF. I also did an export into Evernote which gives me the opportunity to view this notebook on my mobile or anywhere else that Penultimate doesn’t exist (aka, anything not named iPad).
All in all, this has become a pretty neat workflow and exercise. Its only one of a few ways that you can use your tablet for Bible studies. Of note, the ability to mashup content within your notes is something you should take advantage of, or encourage those you teach to take advantage of. If you can do somethingl ike provide them with an outline to start with, and then let them cut/create as they go, you’ve got the starts of building understanding (Proverbs 4:7) with the text – note just memorization and rote learning.
Could this work for you? Or, do you have your own workflow for how you use a tablet with Bible studies? Chime in the comments and share.
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From the Perspectives of Teachers
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011Yet OliveTree and others showed very well that while they might not always be the preferred tool for creating sermons and studies, they were no less capable than “full” software packages commonly found on pastor’s desktops and laptops. This year’s SBL Bible Software Shootout reintroduces the mobile component – especially because of the popularity of the iPad – and gets an additional curveball in some responses towards using this software not from a company’s perspective, but from an instructor’s perspective.
From this year’s SBL Bible Software Shootout 2: Revenge of the Teachers, Biblical Studies and Technological Tools offers some commentary towards these presentations:
Again, there’s nothing radically new here, unless you look a bit deeper into what’s happening. The SBL Shootout is usually composed of companies skilled to develop towards the tnedencies of academics, not necessarly the most mobile-friendly audiences, and definitley one with a different paradigm towards teaching emthods. There was a heavier emphasis on the presenters here to be led towards applying the text of Scripture, but also demonstrating their methods towards dissecting and interpreting the meaning of the text based on what’s worked in instructor-led settings (languages, cultures, etc.). If you will, you are getting an opinion out of the actual use of the product, not simply the features that the developer wants to most demonstrate (biased towards their marketing/compitence). When you get the presentation of the capability of the software from the perspective of the teacher, you begin to see a bit more how this is used in such settings (wealth and warts) and can start to discern a bit more contexually the strengths of the software versus the stregths of the teacher.
What’s not clear from the commentary is how the reception was from students who engaged instructors that prepared these materials. Were the classes better managed? Or, where there additional challenges getting (some/most) students information in a manner that didn’t just work best for teaching the concepts, but also their devices? Clearly, the software is in a better place. And now hearing the academicly-tuned Biblical/religious community share their lessons-learned is great. The question is how can these persectives be rolled up into something of a working document for best practices for others who wish to have some insight or clarity towards instructing to this depth from a mobile device, connected software, and theological perspective.
I like some of the discussion here about the utilization of Apple’s iCloud. In some conversations with ministers recently, iCloud has come up as something they very much liked because it meant that they were better able to take what they needed from a laptop setting and have that on their mobile or tablet as they went. Again, this isn’t a radical change from what we’ve demonstrated and talked about here (its really syncing, though more than just calendar/contact data as many of you have done via Exchange, PalmSync, etc., without the fun of pushing a button to say so), but the acceptance of the behavior to prepare and be ready to teach a lesson is something to note. On our end, products such as Dropbox and Idea Flight have been quite useful towards instructor-led engagements. Though, simply putting your items on a server and then provoking interaction from that point has also been quite demonstrative.
Read the rest of the commentary about the SBL Shootout 2 from Biblical Studies and Technological Tools and then consider how you are leveraging these technologies to teach clearer or better. It might be that you create something similar to a traditional lecture-based course, or, that you might make something more along the lines of the Cybermission’s Mobile Ministry Training Course which goes towards a different direction of technical competence for instructors. In either respect, going mobile isn’t an excuse for not being able to handle teaching a lesson – the tools are there, are your teaching chops and students up for the rest?
Tags: Accordance, bible applications, bible software, Biblical Studies and Technological Tools, classroom management, Cybermissions, Dropbox, education, iCloud, Idea Flight, instruction, Internet, Logos, methodologies, Mobile in Discipleship/Education, Mobile Minsitry Training Course, Olivetree, SBL Bible Software Shootout, seminary, teaching
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