One of the places where I get the best tips about news, books, curriculum, videos, and other items of interest to progressive Christians is on Facebook. Here are 22 of my favorite pages you might "Like", and groups to "Join." You'll find many great people on these groups who you should also know, so poke around and meet some new folks! And if you know of a great group or page I missed, please add a comment below with the Facebook link.

Anyone who spends a lot of time on a computer has likely encountered the problem of how and where to store website addresses, bits of text, names of books or movies, and all of the other "stuff" one comes across on a daily basis. The bookmark or favorites tool in your browser works fine for websites you use regularly and occasionally, but they really aren't generally well-designed for holding a lot of entries. Storing notes in Stickies clearly has space limitations, and To Do applications are generally ill-equipped for data storage and retrieval. 

There are countless other tools that have been developed for storing and searching your "life-text," and many of these are quite good. For example, the products from Devon Technologies are just superb, if you're a Mac user. I've previously written about Instapaper, a free service that works pretty well for saving web addresses, and (until recently) I used that on an almost daily basis. Evernote, which I've also encouraged readers to check out, is my tool of choice for taking notes, doing drafts of blog posts, storing quotes, keeping lists of books I want to read, and much more. But while Evernote's an amazing tool, it just has never fully grabbed me. Partly, this is because I couldn't justify the cost of the Premium version, and partly it's because I just find it's clunky for certain purposes. But after testing Springpad, an even newer, totally free web-based service, I think I'm about to be a convert.

This article was originally posted on April 14, 2009.

Computers in the (Sunday School) Classroom

A recent segment on NPR's Science Friday featured a science teacher who has her students blog as part of the learning experience. (It's well worth the 45 minutes or so it takes to listen to the entire program.) Since I live in a University community, I've heard students mention the fact that they are sometimes required to use classroom blogs as well. Schools and universities aren't the only ones that can use blogs in the classroom, of course! Sunday school classes, youth groups, Confirmation classes, Bible study groups, or other church groups that meet regularly could use blogs as well to enhance the learning experience. Here are a few suggestions...

These articles by Tim Gossett were originally posted on December 2, 2008 and March 31, 2009.

Start a listserv of your own (Part 1)

Start a listserv of your own (Part 2)

This article by Tim Gossett was originally posted on February 17, 2009.

Do a Data Fast

This article by Tim Gossett was originally posted on February 24, 2009. It remains an important and relevant topic.

Talking with Youth about Sexting

I'll keep this short and simple today: I know you have questions related to technology and Christian education or ministry, and I'd like to know how we can best help you. Do you struggle with email overload? Can't figure out how to hook up one gadget to another? Struggling with understanding social networking? Wish you knew how to stay on top of pop culture? Longing to integrate the web into your classrom environment but don't know just how to do that? Whatever your question is, please leave a comment. I'll be answering them (or finding someone who can) in upcoming weeks.

Pause for a moment to think about all of the ways you have done technology-related education in the past year. Make yourself a list, if you wish (in fact, I'd recommend it.) When churches do any education about technology at all, they often do so without any thought to a larger plan. Yet there are many aspects of technology that are relevant to Christian education ministries. Here's a simple way to think about technology and education, so simple you can write it on a whiteboard at an education committee meeting and everyone will instantly get it:

Education [preposition] Technology

This simple phrase can become a starting point for evaluating your own church's ministries and the ways in which you might move forward. Here are six examples of prepositions that ought to receive consideration.

When I come across a great tool, book, DVD, or other resource that I think will help our readers, I have no trouble sharing it. There is, though, one little tidbit that I've kept to myself. Today, I'll reveal my secret source for great clip art and images--at a price that's truly affordable and way below what most people pay for the same service. Until a few days ago, I'd selfishly guarded my secret source and had never shared this information with anyone except for Sally...for no good reason, I finally realized. So, here it is...