Recently, I\u2019ve been thinking about how to do more religious education online. I\u2019ve been imagining a kid-oriented Web site that encourages kids (aged 5 through 18) to do religious education outside of that one lone Sunday morning hour of Sunday school. I\u2019ve been dreaming of an interactive teaching\/learning Web site that got kids excited about religious education, and drew in their parents as well. What might such a site look like? I decided to do a little exploring and see what was currently available on the Web \u2014 are there any Web sites that get me excited and interested?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First of all, if I\u2019m going to do online religious education, I want stuff that is at least as cool and engaging as the Exploratorium\u2019s series of videos on dissecting a cow\u2019s eye<\/a> \u2014 of for that matter, almost anything else on the Exploratorium\u2019s Web site<\/a>. The best part about the Exploratorium\u2019s Web site is that if you live in the Bay area, you know you can go to San Francisco, visit the Exploratorium, and see that cool stuff in person. The downside to the Exploratorium is that it\u2019s not a place that you want to go every week, so it\u2019s not entirely analogous to what I want to do in religious education. All the Exploratorium really does is to provide a supplement to other educational opportunities; it serves primarily to get kids jazzed up to do science in other venues beyond its walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another great learning Web site is Bre Pettis’ “I Make Things.”<\/a> Pettis is known online for his short how-to videos, and when I look at the latest topics in his online video podcast, I see that I can learn how to make a robot that will make me a sandwich if I type \u201cSudo make me a sandwich\u201d into my computer; and I can learn how to count in binary on my fingers (a skill I\u2019ve always wanted to possess though I never knew it until now). Unfortunately, it looks like Pettis has stopped making his video podcasts; the most recent entry is dated March 23, 2009. Pettis\u2019 site interests me because he pretty much does what he does on his own \u2014 he\u2019s not a huge educational institution like the Exploratorium \u2014 and I think an individual Unitarian Universalist congregation could do something almost as good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turning to Web sites that are specifically designed for doing religious education online, most (not all) of the Web sites I\u2019m finding are far less interesting. The best one I\u2019ve found so far (and it\u2019s pretty darned good) is TMC Youth<\/a>. \u201cTMC\u201d stands for \u201cThe Mother Church,\u201d the central church for Christian Scientists. Like many religious groups based in the United States, the Christian Scientists have seen their revenues shrink in the past few years; nevertheless, they still have pretty deep pockets and it shows in this Web site. It\u2019s a well-designed site, with a variety of media \u2014 audio podcasts, videos, online Sunday school lessons, online student chats, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I expected some of the big megachurches to have Web material aimed at kids, and they do. Saddleback Church, for example, has fairly extensive resources for junior high kids on their Wildside: Church for Junior Highers Media Center<\/a>. There\u2019s not a lot there, though \u2014 a registration form for camp, a few videos (including one titled \u201cExposed! Understand God\u2019s Plan For Sex\u201d), and that\u2019s about it. Not nearly as interesting or deep as the Christian Science site. (Their page for children has almost no material, and is not worth visiting.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Willow Creek Community Church has more interesting online material for kids. Their site for junior youth, Elevate: Church for Jr. Highers<\/a>, is obviously focused on convincing kids to participate in small groups, but it\u2019s done well, with interesting videos and references to dodgeball and mission trips and so on. This isn\u2019t exactly online religious education, but it does what it\u2019s designed to do \u2014 make you want to be a part of this church community. I was pretty impressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Obviously, megachurches are focused on serving their own church community; equally obviously, they have the will and the resources to do things that our entire UU denomination can\u2019t take on. But creating a Web site like TMC Youth for Unitarian Universalism is well within our reach, even with the scanty financial and human resources we have in our tiny little denomination. Seeing the TMC site makes me wish that we had taken the money and effort that went into the \u201cTapestry of Faith\u201d curriculum, and put it into something like this truly kick-ass religious education Web site. Oh well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It did make me feel better when I took a look at other online Sunday school Web sites that are less well done. Take, for example, Simply Christian\u2019s Online Sunday School<\/a> — after fighting the clunky interface and looking at the old-fashioned stuff they have, it\u2019s hard to believe they want me to pay to subscribe to their service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhat more interesting is Sunday School Sources: Free Bible Lessons<\/a>. There\u2019s some pretty cool resources here \u2014 but this is not a site that is aimed at kids, it\u2019s aimed at Sunday school teachers who need lesson plans, bible trading cards, and things like that. (Take a look at this printable page of Bible trading cards<\/a> \u2014 dude, I so want the Satan trading card \u2014 and check this out, Cain is about to bash Abel\u2019s head in!) This is still pretty low-budget, and something like could have been well within the reach of Unitarian Universalism. But here again, like the \u201cTapestry of Faith\u201d curriculum, this site is nothing more than old-school Sunday school resources placed online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other cool-looking Sunday school Web sites are hidden behind a pay wall. I liked the look of Spark Online<\/a>. If you\u2019re going to do old-school Sunday school, something like this would be fabulous: teacher scheduling takes place online, teachers can download lesson plans and resource materials, and they can even watch short videos on how to prepare a given lesson. Parents can stay in touch by looking at what their children learn online, and they can register their children online. (Their program can be adapted to a workshop rotation model of Sunday school, and if I were going to administer a workshop rotation Sunday school, with its high administrative load, I can\u2019t imagine doing it without something like this.) This isn\u2019t a kid-oriented interactive site, but it looks pretty good nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another Web site that combines a more traditional approach to learning with some pretty good online resources is REonline<\/a>, a site based in the United Kingdom. In the U.K., \u201creligious education\u201d doesn\u2019t necessarily mean Sunday school, it can also mean passing on knowledge about religion and educating for religious literacy; in the U.K., religious education can and often does take place in the regular school system. Though they are traditional and not interactive, I like REonline\u2019s resources for students, which provides a curated set of links to other informational Web sites. Through REonline, I discovered the BBC\u2019s Web pages on religious questions aimed at children \u2014 like this BBC page that\u2019s a kid-level FAQ on Buddhism. REonline\u2019s teacher resources page<\/a> is also excellent, and I\u2019m going to be passing it along to my Sunday school teachers at the Palo Alto church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Summary:<\/strong> I found a few good interactive Web sites devoted to religious education. But most religious education Web sites seem to be devoted to supporting old-school Sunday school with lesson plans, teacher resources, etc. The only religious education Web site I\u2019ve found that approaches the coolness factor of the Exploratorium\u2019s Web site is the TMC Web site. The best kid-oriented religious education Web site, however, was probably Willow Creek Community Church\u2019s Web site \u2014 fun, interactive, and designed to draw kids into actually coming to church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I\u2019ve been thinking about how to do more religious education online. I\u2019ve been imagining a kid-oriented Web site that encourages kids (aged 5 through 18) to do religious education outside of that one lone Sunday morning hour of Sunday school. I\u2019ve been dreaming of an interactive teaching\/learning Web site that got kids excited about … Continue reading “Notes from study leave, pt. 2: Web-based education”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religious-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12849,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/12849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}