austraLasia #2480

Exploring an idea - and asking your involvement

ROME: 15th August 2009 -- From a variety of viewpoints, the 43rd World Communications Day message from Benedict XVI (this year's) is one of the best such messages in 43 years of papal teaching on communications matters.  It is succinct, power-packed, in that sentence after sentence is full of redolent ideas and images; it is provocative, and addressed largely to a young, digitally-savvy generation.  It would be a pity for the message to slip by without finding ways to increase its impact in the course of 2009.
    You will find, if you click on this link, that you are taken to a section of Bosconet that holds a series of lesson plans based on that message, The lesson plans are real in that they are in use for real groups - at the ongoing formation and student of theology level.  And of course, if the lesson plans interest you in any way they are free to plunder as you will; at the very least they may spark an idea or two for adaptation to other levels.
    But that is not so much the point.  When you go to those lesson plans you will find that you are presented with more than just a plan - a number of the resources and materials in use are also readily available to you, (and more will be added) and it is all compactly held within a simple, small website of its own.
Producing something like this is extraordinarily simple - if you have the content, of course. Getting it into this kind of useful shape is literally a matter of a click or two - and as you might expect from this author, it can all be done with free and open source programs (which, incidentally, will work well on Windows in this case though they work better on Linux. 'Nuf sed!).
    The idea, and the involvement requested is this.  A number of us are working on another project along these lines - one which would ensure that a very wide variety of lesson plans along these lines, meaning readily available, online, digitally up-to-date, coming out of real situations.  But we are aware that there is a big wide world of Salesian activity out there, and there are bound to be people around our region preparing classes that touch on a whole range of 'communications' issues and materials.  We are thinking especially of the levels of formation, from prenovitiate onwards, but it does not have to be just that scenario - you may be teaching communications concepts at secondary school level or to adult groups in parishes or whatever.
    If you have any of this kind of thing, would you be prepared to share it?  A starting point would be to let me know directly, and then by email or Skype, we can work out how best to do it.  I would offer to get your material into the kind of format you can see, and indeed explain to you how to do it yourself as an added bonus.
_______
 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2009 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there.  Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at http://sdl.sdb.org

Title: australasia 2480
Subject and key words: SDB General  Communications
Date (year): 2009
ID: 2000-2099|2480