Should Educating Ministers Include Mobile Practices

Elements of the 21st Century Waterhole - Share on OviSome of the stories that I come across concerning mobile education have to do with curriculum development. Other stories talk more about the access and impact of the devices themselves on the structure of the classroom. What I haven’t been able to find so much of though are those stories of educating teachers, especially in those contexts where lack of materials makes for mobile and web use to work best.

As I travel about NC and VA this week, one of the questions that I ask of pastors and teachers is whether they think that their learning should be limited to what can be pulled together in a classroom, or if there are aspects which should/could be done outside of the classroom, where mobile devices can play some part. The answers are interesting – generational differences abound – but all tend to agree that if they understood the technology better that there would be a place for mobile in the teaching-teachers process.

So with that, I’d like to throw the question on there to chew on: should ministers be expected to know enough about mobile technologies to be educated anywhere? Or, is that one too may toolsets to require of their already full belts?

  • wezlo

    It might be surprising, but I say no. Pastoral training is already too much like managerial training, with some theology thrown in, we don’t need more.

    On the other hand, including mobile in the pursuit of the education is a MUST – and shame on the school that doesn’t teach well-enough that their students can’t synthesize their own ideas from tools they used in school.

  • wezlo

    It might be surprising, but I say no. Pastoral training is already too much like managerial training, with some theology thrown in, we don’t need more.

    On the other hand, including mobile in the pursuit of the education is a MUST – and shame on the school that doesn’t teach well-enough that their students can’t synthesize their own ideas from tools they used in school.