Continuing with this week’s meme of disruption, another site (Civic Tripod) comes across the brow that pesters a few questions (first quote from site, then questions):

…Mobile games are quickly appearing in many dimensions of our lived environment, but few go beyond the small screen. Mobile games that are particularly innovative or locative are often low-profile, focusing on art, or civics at the neighborhood level. The big picture for such games has been hard to see. This report addresses the mobile frontier for civic games, which is fragmented across the applied domains of activism, art and learning. We argue that these three domains can and should speak jointly — an approach we call the civic “tripod.”

Its an interesting approach, and one that was near immediate in some of the questions it made me ask of myself:

• Why haven’t Christian (or other fatih-oriented developers) touched this?
• Why don’t more current apps and services in the faith space attempt to tackle this
• Where are other opportunities that civics and gaming, combined with faith, addresses a need, not just draws light (re: noise) to an issue

To go a bit further,M listen to a perspective of mobile learning from this same endeavor:

…Mobile learning?  Too often, mobile learning is simply a repackaging of established content — at its most banal, re-purposing desktop content for a smaller screen, retaining unsuccessful game components that supposedly add “entertainment” (Klopfer, 2008). Mobile designs that take these incremental steps only obscure the domain’s potential. (Hint: the writers of this report are not very interested in mobile games to help memorize facts about a social issue; the more profound mobile shifts are a matter of form and experience, not content access.) As a sector and as researchers, we must insist on those aspects of games and mobile that are distinctive; only then can we understand which forms of learning are most appropriate and powerful. In other words, we must beware the temptation to “add mobile games and stir” — such games work like chocolate-covered broccoli: not tasty, and with uncertain learning.

Good games, by contrast, focus on experiential learning rather than content. For example, they can help players develop intuition for the systems of physics — but may be worse than textbooks at helping students memorize physics formulas. Another example: games can offer role-play with deep insights into the perspectives and identities of oppressed peoples — but games are often worse than Wikipedia for delivering biographical facts. In other words, games are particular kinds of learning systems, not a panacea for engaging learners…

These are tough questions and perspectives, and should be asked and addressed now – beyond the pulpit and the classroom. Perhaps Civic Tripod sparks your efforts? Or, perhaps you have been preaching a gospel with the emphasis on a paradigm of living that’s no longer applicable in your community. Dose that mean that culture has to adjust to how we want fatih to be lived, or we adjust how we live in order that the kernel of our faith doesn’t die, even if some behaviors, assumptions, or cultural activities do?

In the past we have talked about this idea that the skill set of a community’s faith leaders needs to change with the times. I also think that the bar for the person engaged within the faith community needs to rise as well.

The challenge is identifying what exactly is missing when we say that the bar is too low. And then, how to move forward with leveling-up the community (for example, how mobile health is being addressed in some African regions using entreprenural methods). This report from JISC about the skills researchers lack (pointed to by NetGen Skeptic) sheds some light on this worth gleaning.

In a survey enquiry asking about their last incident of information-seeking activity, the majority of all doctoral students (including Generation Y) across all subject disciplines were looking for text-based and secondary, pre-published research resources (journal articles, books etc) and not primary source materials.

This apparent and striking dependence on published research resources implies that, as the basis for their own analytical and original research, relatively few doctoral students in social sciences and arts and humanities are using ‘primary’ materials such as newspapers, archival material and social data. In sciences, few may be drawing on large datasets. The implications of this are so significant that there is a strong case for more in-depth research in this area to determine whether the data signals a real shift away from doctoral research based on primary sources compared to, say, a decade ago. If this proves to be the case there may be significant implications for doctoral research quality and other long-term concerns, such as what this might mean for the concept of the doctorate as a ‘research apprenticeship’ if it includes little experience of finding and using non-published and ‘primary’ research sources and materials in research work.

A bit weighty for some conversations, but again, if we are going to say that digital is suitable for ministry, then in order to continue ministry when the initiators of this craft are finished, we’ve got to identify what skills are lacking now, and what needs to be fortified in this foundation.

One of the questions that comes across the brow, just about every month, asks how religious groups, missionaries, non-profits, or some other faith-serving group can adjust to the rise of mobile and social (aka, digital) services and devices. For the most part, many of the folks asking have been on the side of a paradigm of living and sharing faith much like a producer or broadcaster does – authority/validity on one end, action/activity on the other. Problem is, access to the content, whether it comes from verified sources or not, leads people to synthesize faith in a manner that works for them best, not necessarily for everyone. Disruptive to the norm? You bet.

Take a look at some recent statistics on device ownership from Pew Internet:

Microsoft Excel-compatible spreadsheet of Gadget Ownership Data; More info about Device Ownership from Pew Internet

The majority of people own devices with a personal screen. Shared screens are owned a bit less. What should be the implications of this? We should be seeing much more personalization in mixed-media content for the devices with greater ownership. But, what do we see instead, the greater variety of content pushed to the higher economic of ownership (folks got to make a buck), with automation and personalization seen as longer-term functions of those offerings.

What mean is that you have more people with mobile devices, but you spend more time and money making your desktop-friendly website and HD video streams than you do providing content that sits on mobile screens that’s easier to share, comment on, and study.

Does that make sense? 

Of course it doesn’t. But that’s because low-cost and multi-channel digital access has disrupted the model for disseminating the faith that seems like it has always been hierarchical. But the faith isn’t such, it was and always will be organic first (“…he who does the will of the Father, the same is my brother…”) and then as the needs arise/fall, people take position to serve and direct (“…body is made of many parts…”).

The challenge for religion is to get out of its mindset that it controls the conversation and the process of faith. Digital has disrupted the mess out of the control that was never supposed to be permanent. If you want to adjust to the mobile paradigm, or the social networking paradigm, or the upcoming ones (AR, cybernetics, etc.), then you have to disrupt yourself, and find a faith that’s deeper than traditions, and more unified than maintaining an attention span.

Over at Missionary Geek, an excellent resource detailing some of the options for mobile devices and services for missionaries has been published. This is especially beneficial for those folks in need of a temporary mobile while traveling:

Many missionaries live and die by the cell phone while they are on deputation. When they get to the field they feel like they have to get a cell phone as soon as possible. However, it only takes a few days without a cell phone to realize that they really don’t need to send 75 text messages and talk on the phone for 3 hours every day. The cell phone starts to lose its grip over the life of the missionary. While a cell phone is still probably important, the missionary quickly learns that it is not a sin to go to the grocery store without the cell phone attached to their ear.

A calming feeling of freedom and relief washes over the missionary for the first time in a couple of years. Or, at least as far as the cell phone is concerned. He is quickly learning there are plenty of other things to keep his stress level high.

It only takes one thought to bring panic back to the mind of the missionary once again. That thought is the prospect of returning home. It doesn’t take a full-blown furlough to cause cell phone panic to grip the missionary. Even a return trip of one or two weeks will have the missionary looking at all his options for obtaining a cell phone within an hour or two of the plane landing.

Read the rest of Temporary Cell Phone Options for Missionaries at Missionary Geek

~ via Twitter (@bdrhoa)

As you might have seen via Twitter and a few former postings, Cybermissions has begun the next Mobile Minsitry Training Course, and for the first week, I’m the guest presenter/faciltator. One of the questions that started off the discussion I thought was quite appropriate and so I’m posting both the question and my answer here to continue the discussion in a wider frame:

What really zings you about Mobile Ministry – the numbers, the opportunity, the ideas, the technology?

And here’s the answer as posted to the thread (w/addition of links or emphasis here)

I find that numbers are one of the more interesting parts of the discussion. Mainly because while we are very often in the mindset that the entire world (all 7 billion or so of us) is a candidate for evangelism, that we don’t usually pay as much attention to the numbers of people who are already hearing the message, who heard and rejected the message, or who are out of range of any [computer-aided] technological opportunity for the message of the Gospel. And if that sounds like I’m saying that not everyone can be reached with the Gospel via mobile, that’s pretty much it. The numbers don’t line up with the zealousness of the activity.

The numbers (for mobile ministry) do line up with the ability to fix some broken walls between classes/cultures as it relates to the Faith. The numbers do line up with the economic opportunity to improve situations for those using the devices (and by counterpoint, undermine the economic opportunity for those on the side of making the devices and pulling the materials needed for those devices). As it stands with current activity, mobile ministry is only addressing the side of people exposed to a literal message of the Gospel, its not addressing the lifestyle of those folks who should be influenced by a Holy Sprit-infused perspective.

If we look at it by the numbers, then the direct opportunity for mobile ministry gets clouded:
– global population of 7 billion
– global population of ~4 billion with exposure to some cellular mobile device/service
– global population of ~2.5 billion whom are some iteration of a professed Christian

If we take the first two (global population and all those w/some mobile exposure) as a proportion (2/3 of the world connected mobile) and do so in isolation (that is, we aren’t counting the other media channels like radio, TV, Internet; nor are we accounting for a global illiteracy rate of 60%), the we can take that 2.5 billion and ask a simple question:

Are 800 million people enough to spread the Gospel via mobile technology? Or, are 800 million people preaching a Gospel to themselves, missing the ears other 6.2 billion?

That’s where my answer to the question ends. What’s your input on this (I’ll point the class here to also view perspectives as well).

And just think, this is the first week of the Mobile Minsitry Training Course. There are three weeks left, and the conversations get a lot more intense than this. You should consider signing up the next time this class comes around.