At the recent plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the use of new technologies of the digital age to spread the word of God.

With that in mind, for the first time in my life as a catechist, this evening I will be having my students create Powerpoint presentations rather than posters!

For the last few years, during the Jesus unit, I have had my classes work at Jesus Learning Stations, fromwhich they prepared posters to teach about Jesus to the rest of the class. This year, I’ve decided to do something very different.

It turns out that I have access to 3 laptop computers: my own, a work laptop, and my daughter’s laptop. With 10 students, I can easily form groups of 3 or 4 and have each group work with a laptop to create Powerpoint presentations that teach about Jesus. I will have 3 groups (I rearranged the material from the previous 5 learning stations into 3 groups):

• The World of Jesus and the People of Jesus
• The Words and Actions of Jesus
• The Death and Resurrection of Jesus

As you’ll see from clicking on each of the above, I am providing a resource packet to each group with all of the information they need to create their presentation on their assigned topic. I will be telling them to imagine that they are going to be explaining who Jesus is to someone who’s never heard of him before.

Before they do any work on the computers, however, they will have to show me a hard copy of their plan. I have created the “templates” for each of their PowerPoints and will provide hard copies of the slides they need to complete…each slide includes a header that asks a question they need to answer using the information from their resource packets. Each group will divvy up the slides they are to complete and then will get to work. Here are the slides:

• The World of Jesus and the People of Jesus SLIDES
• The Words of Jesus and Actions of Jesus SLIDES
• The Death and Resurrection of Jesus SLIDES

This week, they are to complete their slides which I will take home and combine into one presentation. Next week, we will show the PowerPoint presentation and each of them will “narrate” their slide.

The one “fly in the ointment” is that the clip art gallery on each computer does not have much in the way of Christian clip art so I’m going to need to spend some time this afternoon downloading some clip art that will be readily available to them (the classroom does not have wi-fi access) so that they can “dress up” their slides.

I’m excited and nervous about this new venture. I’m so accustomed to working with paper, scissors, and glue, but I’ve been curious about how to use technology in the classroom so I think this is a perfect opportunity. Pray that we meet with success.

Any pointers and suggestions are most welcome!

Tomorrow, Friday, October 16, I will be speaking at the Chicago Festival of Faith on the topic of the Catechetical Message of Scripture.

Then, it’s off to Portland, OR, for their Catechetical Conference at which I will deliver the keynote address and offer a workshop, both relating to The Catechist’s Toolbox.

And then, of course, it’s back home for Monday evening’s session of religious education with my 8th graders! I hope to finish walking the young people through the Bible, setting the stage for our unit on Jesus. We will also be distributing their Confirmation packets, which includes everything they need to do as part of their preparation for the Sacrament.

Please pray for me and I’ll be praying for you that we may effectively proclaim God’s Word wherever we go! Have a great weekend!

No class tonight because of Columbus Day. I was thinking yesterday that it will be unusual to have a Monday night off. Then, I was looking at the Chicago Blackhawks’ schedule and saw that they are playing a home game tonight and I thought to myself that it’s unusual for the Hawks to play a home game on a Monday night…but at least I’d be home to watch the game on TV.  Then, at 10 pm last night, I got a phone call from my brother Tom asking me if I would like to join him at the Blackhawks game Monday night!

YEA, BABY!

Anyway, as it turns out, my brother Tom was out for dinner with NHL referee Kerry Fraser who is on the Advisory Board for an organization called Catholic Athletes (”Cathletes”) for Christ (CAC). Kerry has been officiating NHL games for almost 30 years and is the NHL’s most senior referee. Tom thought I would enjoy meeting him so apparently we have a pass to the Referee’s room following the game! (Hey, if you’re not gonna get a chance to meet some players, at least meet a ref for Christ!)

Go Hawks! (guess I’ll have to refrain from booing the ref tonight!)

Cincinnati, here I come!

I’m privileged to have the opportunity to do a couple of workshops at the Ohio Catholic Education Association conference in Cincinnati this week. I’ll be speaking on The Catechist’s Toolbox and Living the Mass.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you about how your first few weeks of teaching are going! Send in your comments.