Blogs, Wikis and Twitter, Oh My!

The Word was first,
      the Word present to God,
      God present to the Word.
   The Word was God,
      in readiness for God from day one. (John 1:1, The Message) 

This January, I am taking a series of Curriculum Development courses. The focus of the first course was to understand how technological trends influence Christian formation – of both learners and teachers. 

Who has not wondered something and “Googled” for an answer?  Google, “source-of-all-knowledge,” that points us where we can find out.  Most learners and teachers know this – and all those websites and all those answers are all available 24/7.  With blogs, you can post your opinion and invite others to add their thoughts.  With wiki’s, you can create a single website on which classmates or colleagues can access, update, and use as a knowledge warehouse.  With twitter, just remember to tweet others as you wish to be tweeted.  The technological trends are influencing how we teach and learn from others.

What about Christian formation?  All this technology points us back to … the logos.  “In the beginning was the logos – the word…” and that means conversation.  All these technological trends (so fancy, so hyper-new, so cutting edge) point to Christian virtues we have known since The Beginning.  We form each other around conversation.  God calls us to be collaborators, connectors, adapters, storytellers – with Love.  Trends in technology are simply just now catching up to what we have known all along.   

Oh My!

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (John 1:1-4, NRSV)