134 – Doing Our Research

This week on the WELSTech podcast the topics of ministry-oriented internet research and logo design share the stage.

Lighting of the MS River bridges in Natchez, MS

The discussion:

Pay attention to the research – Martin and Sallie discuss various methods for keeping up with emerging trends, especially in regard to their effect on church and school outreach.

• Pastor Tim Wagner from Abiding Peace in Elgin, IL shared a Chicago Tribune article about ChurchRater.com
• PewInternet.org
• Barna Group
  • A recent Barna report – Most Americans Consider Easter a Religious Holiday, But Fewer Correctly Identify Its Meaning
  • Barna RSS Feed
• Set Google Alerts on desired search terms
• Learn more about Google Reader on our past Bonus WELSTech Goodness (BWTG) Episode #79

The interview:

(14:27) Designer Spotlight – Graphic designer Steven Stelter, lay member of Grace in Seattle, WA, shares tips with Martin and Sallie on great church web design and what to expect when working with a graphic designer.

• StelterDesign.com
• Steven’s logo set on Flickr

Ministry resources:

(35:27) 30 churches on Facebook (and four observations) from Communicate Jesus

Picks of the week:

• (37:22) Moodle Tool Guide for Teachers from ed-tech blog Cat’s Pyjamas
• Ubuntu 10.4 Lucid Links for netbooks

Of interest:

• (44:05) Watch archives of MLC & WLS graduation and call services on WELS Streams > Video
• FinalWeb Training in Milwaukee, WI and New Ulm, MN
  • FinalWeb for Teachers – July 19 – bit.ly/fw4teachers
  • FinalWeb for Dummies – July 20-22- bit.ly/fw4dummies

Community feedback:

• (45:40) Teacher Ryan Rosenthal from Faith in Fond du Lac, WI shared news from the WI Educational Communications Board that all WI schools have subscriptions to Soundzabound.com
• Alyssa Dunning recommended online music streaming site, Grooveshark
• Perry Lund from Grace in Oskaloosa, IA commented on Accordance and SMEStorage from episode #132 and shared a link to the new iPads in Education Ning
• Maren McPeak likes Toodledo for cross-platform task management
• David Schumann from Peace in Janesville, WI is looking for children’s online Bible resources for summer enrichment.  Check out KidsConnection.tv.
• Martin recommended Pictaculous for easy color scheme creation from a logo image.

Coming up on WELSTech:

(57:18) Episode 135 – We’ll wrap up our discussion of Shane Hipps book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture, focusing on chapter 8. (Release date 06/09/10)

The featured artist:

(58:47) We close the podcast with the music of Koine (www.koinemusic.com) – Draw Us To Thee from their CD titled “Church Bells”

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