Information and communication technology is coming to the Church. It can be seen in worship, on web pages, and in email communication. Now the Church has the opportunity join the explosion in online education.
The Institute for Discipleship, located at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, is a continuation of the life-long Christian ministry of Richard and Julia Wilke, co-authors of the widely-used Disciple Bible Study series. The mission of the Institute is to provide educational opportunities that nurture and enrich Christian leaders, lay and clergy, for effective living and ministry. The Institute provides the top tools for online teaching and learning at www.BeADisciple.com.
Online learning means that participants in a workshop can be located anywhere in the world. In a workshop with 10 people, two people could live in the same town, while three others live in completely different countries. Participants need not incur the expense of travel in order to gain the content and the community experience of a workshop.
Online workshops are not simply correspondence courses; however. The workshops begin and end at specific times, with specific due dates of projects and for mastering material before the workshop moves on to another topic. This timetable allows the community to develop since all the participants are involved with the same materials at the same time.
Daniel Benedict, Worship consultant and former Director of Worship Resources for the General Board of Discipleship and now living in Hawaii, says of online instruction, “As an instructor living in the middle of the Pacific, difference in time zone and geographic realities could make it impossible for me to teach except in very limited and local contexts. However, online teaching opens up the world to me and to students. I am grateful to God for the times in which we are living and this venue for the opportunity to serve and relate with clergy and laity across the globe and across the church.”
The Institute currently has 18 trained instructors, certified to offer online workshops. The two-week training workshop, “How to Provide Your Workshop Online,” teaches potential instructors how to use the software tools to present their workshop content to their participants online. It has been offered eight times in 2007.
Since its first offering in the fall of 2006, BeADisciple.com has run 15 successful workshops. As awareness and interest in this format continues to grow, so will the number and variety of workshops being offered. To keep up with the latest online workshops, register today at http://www.BeADisciple.com.
posted by TN Conference UMC @ 8:32 AM
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