Special Topics Course CU-490: "New Media for Urban Change"

Fall 2007, Crossroads Bible College... 'Center For Urban Innovation'

Bryan Hudson, Neil Cox, Hosea Baxter

NEW ! Proceed directly to the course website.

Subsequent... Now see the collaborative national 'MEDIA CENTER' for cityreaching... compiling a 24x7 LIVE MEDIA timeline !

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EVERYTHING BELOW IS UNOFFICIAL COURSE-DEVELOPMENT... past, present & future.

Description: This 3 credit-hr course will examine new opportunities for urban change in the 21st Century resulting from Christians leveraging technological advances in internet communications.

Course Objectives:

Discover issues & dynamics unique to '21st Century' urban ministry.
- [including a Big Question... "How Does Information Change The World?"]
- [including a Big Question... "What does a 21st Century leader need to know and be able to do... innovatively?"]
Entry-level proficiency in key Web 2.0 applications.

Network and interact with cityreachers around the country and world.
Develop an ability to focus on priorities amid the 'information explosion'.
Innovatively serve the urban community during the duration of this class, and build value for future classes.

Prerequisites:

Basic computer skills, including surfing & emailing. [basic training available.]
[Suggested... Race, Cultural & The Church. Or urban-issues type of course.]

Preliminaries & Key Resource Links

[And here's the link to his full article & related articles. We'll cover it moreso in Unit #8 Social Networking Is Media.]

We're preparing the following short-list of things needed BEFORE the first night of class.
Textbook -- No official textbook to buy. Here's one ebook we'll be using... "Pastors Guide to New Media". But mostly, we'll be reading from academic documents, articles and videos already available around the internet.
CU490 Formative Quiz
We're building a list of potential Web Cam Interviews -- one per class-segment.
Consulting/linking-to the Encyclopedia of Urban Ministry.
Glossary of Terms ___________________. (Bryan has it.)
Bryan has set up a (free, online) gradebook app at UrbanNewMedia.org.
RESEARCH wiki-page for our students to access.
We've requested the CBC computer lab (& library) include these Basic Computer Setups.
Ongoing... throughout the course, we'll be compiling/distilling a list of Examples of New Media for Urban Change.
Wiki pages... Ellen Spencer... Shad Hill... Keith Goldsmith... Mike Boler... Hosea Baxter... Neil Cox... Bryan Hudson.
Del.icio.us (tagging) pages... Ellen... Shad... Keith... Mike... Hosea... Neil... Bryan.
Google RSS Reader Shares... Ellen... Shad... Keith... Mike... Hosea... Neil... Bryan.
Personal Blogs... Ellen... Shad... Keith... Mike... Hosea... Neil... Bryan.
Facebook Profiles... Ellen... Shad... Keith... Mike.... Hosea... Neil... Bryan.
YouTube Videos... Ellen... Shad... Keith... Mike... Hosea... Neil... Bryan.
Facebook... 'Crossroads' Group... (in general)
Facebook... 'CU490' group... our own ('secret') group... for Discussions, etc.
Team Projects (and Research Paper)
[Review our overall course design... and see if it meets the ADDIE method.]
Strays... [See long list of resources we've compiled so far, from which we'll choose as assigned readings.]

16 Lesson Seqments

#1 -- 8/24/2007 -- Introduction to New Media: Introduction and overview of course. Demonstrations. Exploration of personal values and current understanding of new media. Biblical and historical uses of media. Definition of terms and concepts. [See official assignments for this unit.] We also cover... Basic tenets of C4UI to fill gap... L4C, P4C, S4C. All this at the speed of Light.. Examples?
- Wk# 1 Summary (afterwards)
- Leftovers: Definitions list? [Overcoming Objections? Role of Media/Journalism: "Seek truth & report it." What is Truth? Internet true? Wikipedia? Scams? How about just Spam - distractive value? Will our students need wiki passwords tonight? Or your site? ] How do any of us change? [Ineed2change.com] GAP, SWOT, P.E.S.T. model. Basic tenet of CBC to fill gap... M4C (Reconciliation, collaboration, Metcalfes Law, I Cor 12 & 13). [Wish we'd have had time to cover/discuss this article... especially his section re discernment of truth and prioritizing during the information deluge. [And wish we had an updated version of the article... It's getting dated. Nonetheless, the principles stand firm. And his "data is like food" analogy is a gem.]
- Get a Google account (for Gmail, Blogger, Docs, and Reader)
- Get a Facebook account (for our class forum, as well as for social-networking, CCDA, etc.)
- (loose ends?)

#2 -- 8/31/2007 -- Race, Culture, MEDIA and The Church -- Summary & Discussion of the Issues -- [Hosea Baxter] An examination the role of media and God’s church in redemptive relationships among urban people. [See official assignments for this unit.] [Hosea... Here are some great RESEARCH links] Assignments: Get a del.icio.us account [see TAGGING capability]. [Skills: ______ (community mapping? tagging?) If you get a del.icio.us account now, you can start getting the hang of it... tag stuff centrally for C4UI, for example.] Role of media? "Seek truth & report it." Example: Urban Best Practices. Perhaps mention such as the racial divide between MySpace and Facebook now? Does African-American culture help or hinder when it comes to grasping for CHANGE... vs. being behind in the digital divide? Tom Brown, running coach comment re AA sprinters -- is it applicable here? Maybe interview Pastor Andy _____ in Texas re his cafe church. Or someone from Innovate 2007??? Is a tech-mega-innovative church really what we're after? Or does that just continue validating Emerson's assertion? And maybe interview Jeremy Del Rio -- especially see his summary/comments on the Urban Leader page... and link to a social justice report. Or perhaps better yet... use this segment to teach the WIKI... so our students can consider the potential for collaboratively building the 'MODEL CHURCH'. Btw, leadership... what is the most COMPELLING media for conveying vision? For implementation & evaluation? [Consider how the annual SAVI conference could fit with this unit... and the Research unit below.] Story-telling is particularly important to urbanites. New media crosses boundaries... sometimes SAFETY-related boundaries. Video tells stories most compellingly. And you need to know what MEDIUM to use to tell the story. Emerson cites job-related networking as an example of how our tight evangelical social-networks work against (really) solving some of the systemic issues in our cities. By that he means tightly black and tightly white, albeit not intentional; but very much because of our LACK of intentionality to do otherwise. Say we try to network for our next job... who's in your network to help you? Now... alternatively... what if we used a Web2.0 easy, free, wiki-page for some employment links? It's at least a start toward networking more diversely, and finding some ways to help by working together.
Here's a Michael Emerson video, as he presented at CCDA conference, re the heart of his research conclusions re "Divided By Faith" and "United By Faith".
Here's Chapter 1 online... of Emerson's book, "Divided By Faith".]

#3 -- 9/07/2007 -- Social Impact of Technology & Internet for urban people and ministries (Cox): A survey of the usage of media, computers and Internet technology in urban centers. What are the current trends among youth and adult populations that afford evangelistic and service opportunities.

#4 -- 9/14/2007 -- Web 2.0 and Communications Tools: An introduction to common communication technologies such as email, social networking (such as FaceBook) RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds (along with feed readers & aggregators), chat, social-tagging and cellular telephone services. [We didn't really cover 'email' significantly. And we've deferred cell-phones/texting to a future unit.]

#5 -- 9/21/2007 -- Web Development for Ministry & Community Service (Part I): Introduction to the development of a World Wide Web presence through the means of a web log (blog). Utilize online content management tools and applications. Perform development of a blog-based web site using the “A.D.D.I.E.” development model. [Skills: Picasa? Flickr? Here's a short video-clip of Brian Bailey & Terry Storch... The Blogging Church] [Web-cam interview(s)... with... who... at the Internet Evangelism Coalition conference?] [Perhaps have students read & be able to discuss... re blogging church problems, yes or no? Here's a recent story re Frank Page, who rose to SBC power via blogs... now decrying their use for dissent. Or see my Memphis church case-study and update it.]
Still to calendarize on our course timeline... When shall we teach... Online Photos. Cell phones. Texting. DEAF-texting!
When do our class participants team up with an urban ministry?
#6 -- 9/21/2007 -- Web development for ministry and community service (Part II): Website development continues incorporating informational, graphic and interactive features. Perform usability evaluations. [See official assignments for this unit.]
#7 -- 10/05/2007 -- Social Networking Is Media: Use FaceBook to build or extend relationships online. Learn to engage persons in order to build a social network around purposes related to urban ministry and community service. Use Web 2.0 social networking application to support class group projects in the areas community service, ministry and discipleship. Develop a "wiki" resource [Why wiki? How to Wiki?] using the PBwiki application. Use team tagging and notation tools. [See official assignments for this unit.] [Is Facebook Web3.0? How to discern the coming trends? Dangers of 'AOL/DisneyWorld mentality boxing us in re FUTURE ability to change? Is the world truly speeding up? Accelerating? Twittering one-liners? Mashups? Lifestreams? Paul: "Watch my way of life."]. [We'll be doing some assignments involving leveraging the socialnetworking that will be going on re CCDA... leading up to the conference, and even AT the conference... and also leveraging the ONGOING value of socialnetworking after the conferees have gone home.] Consider the Communications Center concept. Perhaps pull in the (Christian) movers & shakers of the media world for a great discussion -- possibly pull in the Facebookers as well, for a major discussion... and possibly the start of a 'way forward'.
Podcasting. Team-Podcasting. Project Work-time.
10/12/2007 -- NO CLASS -- CCDA Week -- Hosea & I will be in St. Louis... interviewing new-media gurus among CCDA'rs. Here's a report Neil is drafting. Also doing Facebooking there!
#8 -- 10/19/2007 -- Research Methods and Digital Assets Management (Hudson) Discovery of methods for project research and planning. Manage digital assets such as documents, photos, audio, video and Internet links. [See official assignments for this unit.] [Consider how the annual SAVI Conference could fit into this... as potential homework assignment... or in lieu of some classtime.]
The Role of Critical Thinking For Higher Learning -- maybe add this to our Innovation Theory segment.
The Long Tail effect also needs to get added t our Innovation Theory section, as it well demonstrates the newly found impact of converting old media to new user-level media. [I've posted about it at LovingChange.com a couple of times... Here's a piece re Comments... On or Off... "The Audience Is Up To Something".]
Exploiting Technology for Multi-Church & Multi-City Interactions??? LifeChurch.tv?
Internet Caveats? "Porn Sunday" will fall in the middle of this semester. Check it out for possible inclusion.
We also need to build in some more 'innovation theory', as we progress more deeply into all this. Eg... Diffusion of Innovations. Or how about this practical concept of Tipping Points for Urban Change. Here's a list & definitions of a few innovation theories. Also see our 'INNOVATIVE' wiki-page.

[Thought... "How does new media affect theology/education... for urban change?" How do any of us change our minds about some theological position? What if we can no longer isolate our people and demonize the opposing POV's? Truth at the speed of Light will prevail at the speed of Light". Interview Adrian Warnock? Or "Justin Taylor?]
#9&10 -- 11/3/2007 -- “Technology & New Media in Ministry” Symposium 2007 (T-MIN) -- This all-day symposium will explores the growing world of technology and New Media as it relates to churches, outreach ministries and faith-based community organizations. T-MIN 2007 will focus on affordable and accessible solutions for ministries of all sizes, with a special emphasis on urban organizations that may not in a position to hire full time media and support personnel. [See official assignments for this unit.]
#11 -- 11/092007 --Part One • Audio & Video Production for Web Deployment. Techniques of audio capture, editing and uploading podcasts to personal/group websites and to destinations such as the Apple iTunes online store. [See official assignments for this unit.] [Video link in our Internet Tool Kit] [One thing our students could do to help ministries, would be to help edit/upload clips to YouTube. Eg... Ivan's "Religion In The News" segments -- typically a little too long for YouTube... eg. Dr. Gabriel Love segment. Remove commercial and try it.]
#12 -- 11/16/2007 -- Part Two • Audio & Video Production for Web Deployment. Techniques of video capture, editing and uploading streaming video to personal/group websites. Use Flash Video and QuickTime tools. [See official assignments for this unit.]
#13 -- 11/30/2007 -- Project development workshops: (Instructors support students in completing projects) [See official assignments for this unit.]
#14 -- 12/07/2007 -- Student Project Presentations, Discussions, Evaluations [See official assignments for this unit.] And somewhere along the line, we need to ultimately develop a list of "Best Practices of New Media for Urban Change" (one of our course objectives)
#15 -- 12/14/2007 -- (continued) Student Project Presentations, Discussions, Evaluations [See official assignments for this unit.] Is this the place for discussing our final conclusions about "What does a 21st Century urban leader need to know and be able to do... INNOVATIVELY?" People Bryan might interview via Skype-cam could be... Scott T., Rudy, Jeremy.
#16 -- 12/21/2007 -- Submission of Final Projects, course journals and research papers [See official list of items due today.]

Attendance -- Because the course can include a certain amount of 'self-study', physical-attendance requirements are as follows... [to be determined... Schedule allows some flexibility, and alternative lab time is available on Saturday mornings]

Grading -- Subject to other academic policies, grading for this course will use... [stay tuned]

Cost -- See Crossroads Bible College standard tuition rate & fees. Federal & State financial aid may be available, and a special 'Innovation Scholarship' may be available as needed.

Other policies -- Be sure to read... plagiarism, etc. This is especially important, given the new-paradigm ability to so easily cut/paste. [We'll also need to determine how closely to hold to the more formal Turabian vs. the web's relaxed writing style (and documenting via links)... To be determined]