Claire+Hamilton+Essay

ESSAY DUE DATE Dec. 1, 2013


 * __Capstone Project Essay __****__: __****Using Digital Technology Tools To Create A 21st Century Children’s Faith Formation Website For St. John the Baptist Catholic Community **
 * __Autho __****__r __****: Claire Hamilton **
 * 1-352-489-3166 (Work) **
 * claire@stjohncc.com ****(email address) **

In //Recommended Technology Guidelines for Pastoral Work with Young People, //a document compiled in 2010 for the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, Matthew Robaszkiewicz stated that “The vision for youth ministry as identified by the U.S. bishops and others, clearly calls for the evangelization and catechesis of the young…For evangelization to be effective, it must ‘use their language, their signs and symbols, …answer the questions they ask, and … [have impact] on their concrete life.’ (EN 63).” He goes on to point out that today an ever expanding majority of youth are using the internet, social media, as the premier avenue to stay in touch, to gather information, to form opinions, and in some respects, to build relationships.

I am the Catechetical Leader for our parish. Accepting the validity of Mr. Robaszkiewicz’s statements and desiring to increase our young people’s active and continuing participation in faith formation, this past summer I began to restructure our program to include the use of digital technology tools. My first objective was to create an interactive Children’s Faith Formation website to promote effective communication with our young people, their parents, and our parish community.

As the person responsible for the site, however, I was on shaky ground. I had little knowledge of the internet and social media. I certainly didn’t have the skills necessary to build and maintain a website. To remedy that situation, I secured our pastor’s permission to attend “Digital Discipleship Bootcamp 2013”. After six months of participating in their webinars, online classes, and homework assignments, I achieved a skills and comfort level that enabled me to successfully construct and publish our website: **sjbcff.com**. In addition, I became familiar with many digital tools appropriate for use in other aspects of our faith formation program. Beyond that, DDBC brought to my attention the various documents, such as ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers, that provide us catechists and our students with guidelines regarding what’s expected of us as we prepare to navigate the internet as digital citizens.

Planning our website, I was able to meet several of ISTE’s NETS for Teachers performance indicators. I collaborated with my catechists, my students, and their parents regarding content and design of the site’s web pages. Using **Padlet.com** I provided a limited-access “Parents’ Bulletin Board” on which parents and catechists can exchange information and ask questions. I created a “Visitor’s Survey” page using a comment form linked to a password-protected email account. Site visitors can comment on the usefulness of the site and give suggestions for additional site features. I secured an educational wiki account with **Wikispaces.com;** I encourage my catechists to create special collaborative classroom projects for their students.

Finally, I see our Blog and group Facebook website components, now being developed, as our primary source of digital evangelization and catechesis of our young people and their parents. We will “use their language, their signs and symbols, answer the questions they ask.” Hopefully, we will have an impact “on their concrete life.”