Capstone+Article+Kristi+Jenkins

Capstone Article Kristi Jenkins

By Kristine Neumayer Jenkins, Director of Faith Formation This year, parents in our Faith Formation ministry here at St. Cecilia, in Fort Myers, FL, have been using free, readily available technology to create podcasts that help other parents share the Gospel with their own families. After meeting in small groups to read and reflect on the coming Sunday Gospel and their children’s Pflaum Gospel Weekly lesson, a parent uses a cell phone to call a toll free number and record a summary of their insights. They also use the cell to take a photo of a Gospel illustration. I then combine the uploaded audio and video on the website [|www.yodio.com], and post to our Formation blog at [|http://saintceciliaformation.blogspot.com]. Before the non-class Sunday, other parents visit the blog and listen to the 2 minute Gospel podcast to help jump start their conversations with their own children before or after Mass.
 * “Parent to Parent Podcasts: Using Technology to Help Families Discuss the Gospel”**

There are a few steps in preparing and recording the podcast. First, using a quiet office while their children are in class, a group of 3-4 parents read and reflect on next week’s Gospel as it applies to their own faith. They then re-read the Gospel and discuss how it applies to their family, children or parenting joys and struggles. After everyone has had a chance to share, they begin the third part of the preparation: deciding what to focus on for the podcast. One parent is nominated to record their ideas, and he or she calls the toll free number and follows the prompts. They speak into the cell phone in the usual way, and their part is done! The process takes about 20-30 minutes, depending on how comfortable the parents are talking with each other.

Our program uses the Pflaum Gospel Weeklies as our primary text. We meet twice a month in a class setting, and expect parents to review the Gospel Weeklies with their children on non-class Sundays. This project helps parents remember to discuss the Gospel and complete the Weeklies on non-class weeks. It’s also building community among parents in the program, by giving them a shared experience in meaningful conversations and discovered similarities.

At the beginning of the year, I created a schedule that assigned parents to work on the podcast in groups of three. Each parent was scheduled at least once. We even created a podcast at a catechist meeting so that our catechists would understand the process. There is a certain amount of time needed to help walk the parents through the process since each group is new to the experience. I found it helpful to recruit one of the “first recorder” parents to be there and help new groups walk through the process. She explains what they are doing and answers questions, but does not participate in the podcast.

The reaction from parents was initially hesitant, as they thought “podcast” meant they would be taped as a “talking head.” We’ve been running this project for two months now, with a total of five possible Sunday podcasts. Technical difficulties derailed two of those, but parents have enjoyed the faith sharing so much that they were not very disappointed by being “offline”! In addition, most of the comments I’ve heard so far are centered on their experience of preparing the podcast. One mom had reflected on the long version of the Gospel, but the short version was proclaimed at Mass. She emailed me because she was so surprised how much that changed the tone of the Gospel message, and it also began a conversation about why and how a parish chooses a certain version of a reading.

Thus far, so early into the process, the parents are clearly reaping benefits from the small group faith sharing more so than using the podcasts on non-class weeks. I expect that to change as we become more consistent in posting, and they develop the habit of checking the blog on those weekends. Other than the time invested in coaching the parents, there has been no cost to the project. It’s an exciting technological avenue to help form the faith of individual families and our parish community outside a traditional classroom setting.

--- SIDEBAR INFO - TECHNOLOGY USED: __Yodio__ - [|www.yodio.com] – is used, with a cell phone, to create the audio podcast. __Blogspot__ – [|http://saintceciliaformation.blogspot.com] – our current ministry blog is used to post podcasts for family home use. __Personal Cell Phone__ - from the DRE (or a parish/parent phone can be used with passwords)

POSSIBLE PHOTOS FOR ARTICLE Parents on a cell phone, with Weeklies in hand Screen shot of a podcast from blog --- Back to Kristi's Capstone Proposal

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