mountain masala

QLab

I'm trying to learn to use QLab - its a multimedia sequencing program such as you might use in a live show to trigger sequential or even simultaneous multimedia events.

The basic version is free and then you can pay for extra features. If I can get it to work it will be excellent for running events, programs, worship stuff.

You can find it here.

Has anyone out there tried it?

paintwing

i havent posted photos of my family. after all, you're all evil stalkers....

so here at last is a photo of the twins who put on white suits to paint a white room with a bunch of other people as part of some adelaide art thing (just before I came back from the US).

apparently it started out arty and ended up artsy.... i think that's ellen on the left and grace on the right... but i could be wrong...

i got home tuesday and i've been washing clothes ever since. just dont talk to me about putting clothes that you didnt know had paint on them in the wash with clothes that you did know didnt have paint on them, and who is to blame - the person who put them in the washing basket or the person who put them in the washing machine with other clothes..... (I'd be the latter person...)

good to be home. and glad that my clothes werent in the washing machine! 

learning with digital media

thanks to mary hess for the link to this study:

“Kids’ Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures”

The book is an online version of a forthcoming book with MIT Press, "Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out: Living and Learning with New Media" and incorporates the insights from 800 youth and young adults and over 5000 hours of online observations.

yawn

great to be back home with the family. and to be an early santa with some gifts. body clock is out of rhythm. a pile of boxes of books awaiting me.

stay tuned for some 'what I learned on my trip' reflections and some book reviews.

arkaos update

i stuck my head in the back of a workshop on technology at the youth specialties conference and found a guy demonstrating a new version of arkaos vj. so i've just headed over to www.arkaos.net and discovered that Arkaos Grand VJ is a free upgrade (well it is for me! it might be because I only upgraded to 3.6 in july).

the interface looks hugely improved. check it out.

(from sydney airport - killing time before the flight home.... yawn. a bloody long trip...)

pete or keith

i'm sitting in the american airlines club in nashville waiting 2 1/2 hours for my flight. a guy walks into the bar... he has a leather jacket and straight brown hair. from the back it looks like pete rollins, given the serendipity of our last meeting I assume that it could be him. before I go over and pat him on the back and say g'day he turns his head and I realise its not pete... its keith urban...

this would be nashville, then...

youth specialties conference

I've spent the last couple of days helping out and meeting people at the youth specialties' national youth workers conference here in nashville. I think there are over 4,000 people here. it's sheer coincidence that its on while I'm here. since I wasn't registered, I borrowed an exhibitor's tag and helped the team in the displays area. youth ministry in the US is clearly BIG business, and the array of mission tour operators, t-shirt and web design companies, christian univeisities and numerous publishers made me feel rather ill after a while.

it's given me the chance to meet a number of people, including Terry Carty who runs the Youth Worker Movement, with 4000 members (go join - its free and you get discount stuff!), and Ed Trimmer who teaches youth ministry at Huntingdon College (among other things!), a Methodist College in Alabama. and buy a few more books. damn. that's the last time!

Plus I got to sign the volume of "The Way of Pilgrimage" that I authored...

this one's for mike and claire

don't you just love christian t-shirts.....

upper room

I spent this morning with Robin Pippin and Sandy Miller from The Upper Room. (I'm staying next door at their "Pathways House"). We had a long conversation about resourcing the spiritual practices of young people, the positive and negative impact and possibilities of electronic media to assist with this, and electronic publishing and Web 2.0 in general. We also talked about how Devo'Zine and The Way of Pilgrimage series are going. They have just released a DVD to introduce the latter to leaders and groups and its very good overall. I think I'll use some bits at NCYC. I've been writing for both of these resources, the former for about 10 years, so I have a strong interest in this particular approach to resourcing youth spirituality. I also talked about what my interests and projects.

We did a quick tour of the Upper Room facilities and I found the bookshop that I will have to avoid (posted another box of books back home today!). Then a quick visit to the Guitar Centre where I picked up an Electro Harmonix Stereo Polyphase pedal (and played a few Martins), lunch at a Caribbean cafe, and then Sandy dropped me downtown.

on the road again.....

just to backtrack, I didnt mention that on monday night dan led a men's bible study at his house. it was a small turnout - three other guys - one from the ex-prisoners program and two who don't go to church. an interesting evening! we often think that people will come to church and then join a bible study. dan approaches it the other way round. he knows that there a people who moght want to talk about God, the Bible and the meaning of life and not feel welcome or comfortable in Sunday worship. so he just invites people whom he gets to know in the community.

tuesday was a cultural and religious experience. i went to a 6 am breakfast with dan and carl, his 'overseer'. carl had been the pastor at krall's church when we first visited. the mennonite churches in the area are looking at joining the larger US Mennonite Conference. We had a broad discussion about church union, homosexuality, team ministry, and supervision of ministers, all before 7.30 am!!!

then dan and joyce we went driving for the day, and along the way had long discussions about growing disciples, since they feel that their church has stalled. it was good to be able to offer some clues and ask some questions.