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Essay by Patti Kamper December 2, 2014

In 2013, I attended MAC (Mid-Atlantic Congress) and had the pleasure of attending Sr. Caroline Ceverny’s presentations about using technology in the classroom. As a CRE for a parish with about 100 volunteer catechists I was intrigued. With my DRE’s support, I participated in DDBC (Digital Discipleship Boot Camp) and my eyes were opened to the endless possibilities. Our parish was in the midst of renovating our education wing and I was eager to embrace technology and engage the elementary children enrolled in my program. Our pastor then made the decision to equip every class/meeting room with a short range projector with smart board capabilities. The reality is that I am working with volunteers who range in technological competency from working business professionals using technology on a regular basis, to teachers in our county schools who incorporate technology in the classroom frequently to others who may understand the basics of Facebook and web searching, but are not interested in much more.

I began including ideas in my weekly catechist email, inviting catechists to incorporate technology by using Youtube videos of music and bible stories, encouraging them to enhance their lessons. Our founding pastor’s administrative assistant is still a parishioner and until her health began declining, was also an elementary catechist. During our catechist training sessions she began sharing stories about our worship space and the birth of our Church and the desire to hear and record these stories was born. The catechists were begging to hear more of Juanita’s historical knowledge and she began writing notes about the items/places in our worship space for catechists to use while touring the Church with their class. Having these field trips available gave some of the catechists the confidence they needed to explore our worship space with their class. I noticed many catechists were still lacking the confidence that they could share “our” story, even with the field trip notes so I decided to use my new found skills and make “our” story available to everyone in the parish through a video tour of our church, led by Juanita, dressed as her favorite character, Gloria, the St. Michael Christmas Angel.

My participation in DDBC, introduction to so many creative tools, and the ISTE NETS have given new life to my ministry. The ISTE standards for coaches have led me to seek out new means to reach my catechists, the families I work with and the parish as a whole. Becoming aware of the Vatican use of social media as well as the Catholic Church’s support of digital discipleship has been the motivation I needed to explore and encourage our parish to spread the good news and look to improving a communication plan for the parish. It’s a big world but technology has the possibility to bring us all together no matter what the distance is between us. We can easily collaborate with co-workers, speedily research the unknown, reach out to the lost and home bound, connect cultures and engage the young with free tools that are at our fingertips.