082 – It’s A Small WELS After All

This week the WELSTech podcast includes more discussion of the book Here Comes Everybody as well as an interview with a software consultant from ProCare Software.

The discussion:

Bonding and Bridging – Martin and Sallie revisit Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody, and discuss chapter 9, “Fitting Our Tools to a Small World”.  Lessons from the chapter illustrate the potential pitfall of congregations focusing solely on closed group, insider fellowship while excluding groups, cultures and ideas outside the “network”.

The interview:

(16:00) Technology heads to daycare – Martin and Sallie talk with Shelley Spliethof, Executive Software Consultant with ProCare Software, about the information challenges daycare and preschool organizations face and how ProCare Software addresses those needs.

• www.ProCareSoftware.com
• Follow ProCareSoftware on Twitter
• Soup to Nuts – ProCare blog

New Technology Showcase:

(29:40) Firefox 3.5 – The latest version of the Mozilla browser

• Top 10 Firefox 3.5 Features from Lifehacker
• Overview videos from Mozilla

Picks of the week:

• (33:50) SparkleBox – A teacher’s treasure chest of free printables
• Diigo – Social bookmarking meets the writable web

Community feedback:

• (40:35) Eric Mueller from St. John in St. Paul, MN is a Drupal fan and is excited to see the WELS.net beta site built on Drupal.  He used Drupal to build both his congregation site as well as the web site for the Science Museum of MN, where he serves as webmaster.
• Jason Schmidt was busy tweeting loads of interesting links including
  • Noteflight for online music notation (Video Overview)
  • Shareaholic Firefox plugin
  • vozMe text to speech tool
  • 6 Examples of Twitter in the Classroom from Emerging Internet Technologies for Education – Sallie shared an alternative view, Twitter with students? from Tipline – Gates’ Computer Tips
  • Diigo Tutorials
• LATTE Missionary Larry Schlomer is having difficulties adding the Through My Bible in 3 Years RSS feed to Google Reader.  Martin suggested subscribing to the audio feed instead.
• Following up on this week’s BWTG episode which focused on creating Facebook Pages …
  • Pastor Dan Walters from Our Savior in Springville, NY added a link to his congregation’s Facebook Page on the WELSTech Wiki.
  • We have 55 fans on the WELSTech Facebook Page.  Help us reach 100!
  • Nancy Thompson from Victory of the Lamb in Franklin, WI shared a tech solution they are trying for online church management – ChurchCommunityBuilder.com

Coming up on WELSTech:

(52:22) WELSTech² continues:

• Episode 083 – Join us for a summer “Picnik” of image editing tips on the latest installment of “Bonus WELSTech Goodness” (BWTG). (Release date 07/13/09)
• Episode 084 – Joel and Jeremy from the Youth Discipleship office share a recap of the International Youth Rally as we take a look at ways we can use technology to reach out to teens. (Release date 07/15/09)

The featured artist:

(53:49) The music of WELS group Corban Creek closes this week’s podcast – We hear Psalm 13 from their CD titled “Could It be Me”

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