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Digital Literacy Toolkit

Digital Literacy Toolkit

Lifelong Learning by VTS

  • Home
  • Context
    • New Ministry Context
    • New Media & Digital Literacy
    • Advocacy
    • Wider Conversations
  • Research
    • Four Domains of Practice
    • Impact
  • Literacies
    • Navigating Hybrid and Digital Cultures
    • Convening Hybrid and Digital Community
    • Maintaining a Posture of Experimentation
    • Cultivating a Spiritually Wise Digital Habitus
    • Creating and Curating Faith-Based Artifacts
    • Connecting Media Theory to Theological Reflection
    • Presenting Authentically and Pastorally Online
  • Resources
    • Assignments
    • Teaching Activities
    • How-To-Guides
  • Who We Are
  • Contact

Research

We interviewed digitally innovative teachers & leaders in seminaries and other ministry formation organizations to identify themes, locate assets, and build consensus about the future of training ministers for culturally competent communication and leadership.

36


RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS INTERVIEWED

17+


HOURS OF RECORDINGS ANALYZED

83


INNOVATIVE EDUCATORS IDENTIFIED
One of our most pressing research questions when we began this project was about the kinds of skills theological educators should be helping their students to develop. Though we shared a bit about the experience with colleagues in the academy, we were mostly reaching practitioners.

That changed in 2015. The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations challenged us to share what we were learning with colleagues in other seminaries and training institutions—and to learn about their vision for the future.

The result was an exploratory qualitative study in which we interviewed 36 leaders representing 14 different organizations. It’s obviously a subjective matter. The interviewees’ disciplines often seemed to shape their answers, as did their level and type of involvement with faith communities outside their ministry training institution. That’s why we interviewed so many respected leaders: to try to build some kind of consensus.

Then in June of 2016, we brought together study participants to get some feedback on our conclusions about these new learning objectives for effective ministry in our networked society. With our guest facilitator from the Wabash Center for Teaching & Learning in Theology and Religion, we reviewed our findings and refined the conceptual definitions of the literacies. Further analysis, conversation, and wordsmithing have led us to include seven literacies in this Toolkit.
Click here to download the research protocol we used for this research project.

SCOPE OF RESEARCH

In addition to identifying seven digital literacies for ministry, our research yielded a conceptual way to understand the interrelated yet distinct domains of practice that are part of this broader conversation. Currently, we are conducting further research to validate the operational definitions of these digital literacies for ministry and how they are connected to effective ministerial leadership.


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  Download Color PDF Download B&W PDF

PRESENTATIONS & POSTERS

Artifacts from presentations and posters that our team has presented at various academic and practitioner conferences.
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PUBLICATIONS

Bibliography of the publications that our team has produced related to this work, and when possible, links to or pdfs of those publications.
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PODCASTS & VIDEOS

These media resources document aspects of this research and its impact on theological educators.
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Contribute to the Research

You are invited to participate in our ongoing research on the Digital Literacies for Ministry by participating in a survey. This survey research will help us learn about faith leaders’ attitudes about and experiences with the digital literacies for ministry we identified through an earlier study. If you would like to participate in this survey, or if you are unsure if you would like to participate but would like to learn more, please visit the link below.

Participate in the Survey


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