Al.com reports on a Catholic school video journalism class:
Students in McGill-Toolen Catholic High School’s video journalism class are getting hands-on experience with real-time news: they produce segments which are aired daily on the school’s closed circuit television system.
The school channel has daily announcements as well as anti-drug commercials which the students produce. On Thursdays, students tape interviews with the school’s president, the Rev. Bry Shields, who said the segments foster better communication.
“Corporately, every organization thrives on frequent communication,” said Shields. “It is particularly helpful in a school community for both faculty and students to hear from the head of the school on a regular basis. For the students, it provides them the opportunity to become more confident in their ability to speak in public and to gain technical skills in producing a broadcast.”
He said the questions from students concern “the life of the school, political and social questions, and questions about the Church and about the understanding of our faith.”
Happy Catholic Schools Week! To celebrate, I’ve put together a list of 101 resources that no Catholic educator should be without. From Twitter users to bloggers, from social networks to teaching tools, it’s all here in one convenient spot. Share the love, spread the news, and tell the world about Catholic Schools!
Now it’s your turn. What have I left off the list? What are your essential resources for Catholic teachers? Leave your suggestions in the comment area.
If your students come from stable economic backgrounds, they might find it difficult to understand the plight of the poor. Often, students have a stereotypical view of those in poverty and fail to grasp just how difficult it is to live with a low income. Urban Ministries of Durham has created SPENT, an online simulation in which participants try to survive a month without going broke. After applying for a job, they must deal with health issues, cranky landlords, grocery bills, and more. At every step, pop-up circles inform you about how these different challenges take their toll on the working poor in America.
Though it has its shortcomings (being locked into only a few choices, for example), overall it’s an effective learning tool. I’d estimate it would be appropriate for students in grades 5-12.
Give it a try and let me know if you think it would be worth using in your classroom. And here’s a hint before you begin: brush up on your typing skills.
Using a YouTube video with your students is like turning on a light in a dark room: the little moths just can’t resist. Their eyes snap up to the front of the room, their voices become hushed, and suddenly you have their full attention. From Susan Boyle to Rebecca Black, YouTube videos are the perfect jumping-off point for classrooms discussions about culture, morality and contemporary life. For the next thirty seconds or three minutes, you have a powerful and compelling way to connect students’ real lives with the Catholic faith–if…your school doesn’t have YouTube blocked; if…your broadband connection is working fast enough.
In this first of a series of articles about using YouTube in the Catholic classroom, I am going to show you how to download YouTube videos to your hard drive to avoid the following common YouTube problems:
School filtering that blocks access
Inappropriate videos appearing in the YouTube sidebar or after the video is over
Commercials popping up before or during the video
Videos that are no longer on YouTube
A slow connection that causes the video to hang
These problems will be a thing of the past once you learn the quick and easy method of downloading videos from YouTube.
How to Download YouTube Videos
There are several ways to get videos from YouTube to your own computer, but I’m going to show you what I think is the easiest way, though the set up may be a little complicated if you aren’t used to customizing your browser.
First, you need to be using Firefox as your web browser. What I’m going to show you doesn’t work with Internet Explorer or Safari, but Firefox can be customized with special add-ons that are unavailable in other browsers. If you don’t have Firefox, it can be downloaded for free at Mozilla.org. The rest of these instructions assume you are following them using Firefox.
Once there, click the green “Add to Firefox” button on the left hand side of the page. The add-on will begin downloading, and after a few moments you will receive a message warning you to only install add-ons from people you trust. Go ahead and click the “Install Now” button.
Once you have installed the add-on, you will be prompted to restart Firefox. When Firefox restarts, you will see a page that tells you the installation succeeded. That’s it!
NOTE: Easy YouTube Downloader is also available for the Google Chrome browser. You can download Chrome at Google.com/Chrome and you can get the Easy YouTube Downloader extension at the Chromeextensions.org.
To download the video, click the small arrow next to “Download As” and select “MP4 360p.” A window should then pop up asking you where you want to save the file. Choose a location, click “save,” and then watch the video download. It’s that simple.
NOTE: The higher the number next to the “p,” the better the quality of the video, so feel free to choose the highest quality available. However, be sure to click MP4, and notFLV or MP3. FLV is another video format that requires special software to play, and MP3 only saves the audio.
What’s Next?
In future articles I’ll be discussing what to do with the videos once you’ve downloaded them, and I’ll share some of my favorites and how I use them in Religion class.
You can keep up with all the articles in the series by subscribing via email or through RSS readers like Google Reader.
Be sure to leave a comment and let me know how these instructions worked for you.
People are looking for your school online, and they want to interact with you. So says Jonathan Sullivan of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois in his webinar titled 9 1/2 Social Media Strategies for the Church. Does your school have a Facebook page or Twitter account? If not, why not? If so, are you using them effectively? Jonathan’s tips are an excellent resource for Catholic schools and parishes who want to get more out their social media endeavors. If you missed the presentation, not to worry–Jonathan recorded it and posted it on Vimeo, which enables me to embed it here below:
On the same day CNS reported Pope Benedict’s announcement of a 2012 synod on the theme of “new evangelization,” my wife surprised me with an iPad for my birthday. In keeping with the spirit of the Holy Father’s announcement, I’d like to share a few iPad apps that might interest Catholic educators. The following apps are designed to be used with the iPad, taking advantage of its large screen and WiFi connectivity.
iCatholic [Free] – CatholicTV is on the forefront of new evangelization, and their iPad app is just another example of the kind of high quality work the Archdiocese of Boston is producing. The iCatholic app allows the user to read CatholicTV’s monthly magazine. You can download the entire magazine, or read it as it streams into the app page by page. Either way, you’re in for a visual treat as the full color photos and artwork brilliantly illustrate the content. More than just a monthly preview of upcoming programming, iCatholic delves into relevant topics of interest to today’s Catholic.
As I perused the November 2010 issue, I especially appreciated the article on how those with Celiac Disease deal with their allergy to the communion host. My sister has been diagnosed with Celiac Disease for over 30 years, and I was captivated by the stories of other Catholics who have learned to adjust to life without gluten. The November issue also covered baby boomers, the liturgical year, and cyber security.
The app takes full advantage of the iPad’s connectivity. Articles are enhanced with web links and videos that can be opened with a simple double tap. Neither the videos nor the links take you out of the application. Instead, they open in a convenient pop-up tab that can be expanded to the full screen.
All in all, every Catholic educator with an iPad should read iCatholic. But if you don’t have an iPad, don’t worry. The same content can be viewed online at CatholicTV’s website.
iBreviary Pro [Free] – The Liturgy of the Hours is one of the most beautiful but complex prayers available to Catholics. The Divine Office brings out the sacredness in each moment of the day and unites us in prayer with the whole Church. In order to pray it fully, a person usually needs a thick prayer book called a breviary, along with a fairly sophisticated understanding of the liturgical year. Someday we may have an adult Catholic population that is knowledgeable enough to maneuver the ribbons and rubrics of the Divine Office, but until then, the iBreviary app is a godsend.
iBreviary makes each day’s prayers available against a beautiful parchment background with no need to move ribbons or flip back and forth between sections. Available in English, Italian, Spanish, French and Latin, the free app uses official texts and also provides the daily Mass readings, not to mention an impressive collection of prayers and blessings.
While nothing can replace the feel of an elegantly bound prayer book, the visual appeal of iBreviary enhances the reader’s experience of using the iPad to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. It’s unbelievable that an app this beautiful, useful and comprehensive should be free. There is no reason for any Catholic iPad owner to avoid downloading iBreviary.
Free Wallpaper – One of the first things I did after charging up my new iPad was change the main screen wallpaper. One of my favorite images is Sassoferrato’s Mary, and it makes a beautiful background for the app icons. The following picture links to the 1024×1024 image (799kb) that I use for my iPad. If you like it, feel free to download it. The best way to say thanks is by subscribing to Catholic School Chronicle, either by RSS or by email. I’d also appreciate it if you could tell all the Catholic educators you know about the Chronicle.
If your students come from stable economic backgrounds, they might find it difficult to understand the plight of the poor. Often, students have a stereotypical view of those in poverty and fail to grasp just how difficult it is to live with a low income. Urban Ministries of Durham has created 
People are looking for your school online, and they want to interact with you. So says 
