Elizabeth+Potito+Essay

ESSAY DUE DATE: December 13, 2016
Write a 500-word essay summarizing your DDBC experience and how you plan to apply what you learned to your ministry. Demonstrate how you have applied your understanding of ISTE's Standards for Teachers or Administrators and applied them to a faith learning environment. Include reference to relevant research about technology and learning, especially as applied to faith settings, if appropriate. Please see the rubrics for more complete information.

Please post your Essay below.

I undertook this program to improve myself as a volunteer, and to learn how to integrate the new digital world with the old blackboard based world of education I grew up with. Every module brought new programs, new ways of disseminating information. I think my favorite is Animoto. It can be used at any age or grade level to draw students in. As a teaching tool, it gains more attention than typical lecture presentation would. As a homework assignment, it draws in those who think visually, who may be left behind in a written assignment. One benefit is the wide variety of music that is available. It is quite daunting to attempt to get music rights for any project, and with Animoto, that work has already been done for you. I am also a fan of wordclouds.com. I used the words to the Our Father and the shape of a church for a short presentation to our religious ed teachers. The impact of the prayer seen as art rather than as text is quite amazing.

I believe we need to get our parishes and our programs “wired”. The ISTE Standards ought to be part of the standard toolbox used by all DREs, and shared with their volunteers. We, as a parish, ignore the world that has moved online and expect people to still find us. We ought not change to stay relevant, but to not move online makes as much sense as insisting on communicating solely in Latin.

My Capstone Project (increasing and improving our parish web presence) is still a work in progress. Although it was initially assigned by and approved by the Pastor initially, Parish Council decided that they needed to create a “subcommittee to look into the internet” (really, that’s how the chair of the subcommittee described it to me). I have provided the members of the subcommittee with a copy of my proposal, and expect to hear back from them in January.

In the interim, I have worked on a Parish Social Media policy. I was surprised to find out that neither the parish nor the Diocese has any policy in place. I also asked priests and staff at other parishes, both in and out of my Diocese. Most of them had no idea what I was talking about. The pastor of one parish supplied me with a copy of their policy; but it is limited to what parish staff is permitted to say on their own FaceBook pages. I did finally find one policy online from a Midwestern parish; it is now forming the basic template for the first draft that the Pastor and Parish Council will hopefully review soon. Needless to say, our policy will certainly reference the ISTE Standards when it comes to technology in the classroom!

I am designing and building an adult religious education program, while continuing to work to improve the parish internet presence and various communication issues. This course has given me a full toolbox to work with.