Category: Technology

Zork

Technology

Relive Your Geek Past: Play Zork Online

One of the great things about being my age (which I will not say, but should not be hard to guess), is that many of the things I got teased about when I was geeky kid are cool now that I am a geeky adult. TV shows like Psych and Chuck make their money by appealing to lifelong geeks like me. Geeks are so cool now, you’d think everyone in my generation grew up reading Tolkien, programming TRS-80s, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. But I know better. There...

Kids and apps

Teaching / Technology

Catholic School Students Combat Epilepsy with Science

As the father of a child with epilepsy and a teacher in a Catholic school, the following story really touches my heart. Some sixth grade students from a Catholic school in Lake Mary, Florida, are hoping to help people with seizure disorders with their new invention: a seizure detector. Check out the following video for details: There are few things more gut-wrenching than watching your child experience a seizure. Thanks be to God, we haven’t had to live through that horror for quite a few years now. Maybe...

iBrevary iPhone App

Books and Reading / Spirituality / Technology

iBreviary – Using Your iPod to Consecrate the Day

  iBreviary is the perfect app for anyone who desires the pray the Liturgy of the Hours but has a difficult time finding the correct readings in the four thousand pages that make up the printed prayer books.  The four volume set of books that makes up the full text of the Divine Office is beautiful to behold, but is also heavy, cumbersome and costs well over one hundred dollars.  iBreviary, on the other hand, is as light as your iPod Touch or iPhone, fits easily in your...

iMissal

Technology

Catholic iPod Apps – First in a Series

In a recent Twitter conversation with JaredDees and BarbinNebraska, the subject of iPod apps for teachers came up. I don’t use too many apps for teaching yet, but I use several Catholic apps regularly, so I thought it might be helpful to write a series of articles about them. Apps are small programs that can be purchased in iTunes and synced to an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Many of the apps are free, and most that cost money are 99 cents. I download apps to my iPod...

Catholic Education / Prayer / Teaching / Technology

Using Technology to Get Teens to Pray

How can we use cell phones, mp3 players and social networks as tools to get kids into prayer?  That was the question I addressed yesterday in my presentation at our annual diocesan inservice for Catholic teachers. I began with a quote from Jean-Pierre de Caussade: Today God still speaks to us as he used to speak to our ancestors at a time when there were neither spiritual directors nor any systems of spirituality…Religious devotion had not become a science crammed with precepts and detailed instructions.  Nowadays, no doubt,...

Jonathan Sullivan Screenshot

Catholic Education / Teaching / Technology

Free Webinars for Catechists and Teachers

Jonathan Sullivan, the Director of Catechetical Ministries for the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, has posted this excellent introduction to social networks and their implications for catechists. After you watch it, be sure to head over to his valuable website at JonathanFSullivan.com to register for his next free webinar, Catechizing Digital Natives. Thanks to Jared Dees for the tip!

Flanders Field

Books and Reading / Poetry / Technology

In Flanders Field

I’m experimenting with Windows Movie Maker and have created this video illustrating John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields.” The audio comes from Librivox.org and the photos come from the Wikimedia Commons Project. Let me know what you think.

St. Vidicon to the Rescue

Book Review / Books and Reading / Technology

St. Vidicon, Pray for Us!

If you are a computer troubleshooter, you need to know about St. Vidicon of Cathode. He was martyred in the year 2020 when he was electrocuted in order to keep the Vatican broadcast equipment working so that Pope Clement could send his message to the world. Since his death, people throughout the world have prayed for his intercession to combat those terrors of technology, Murphy’s Law, the Imp of Perversity, and Finagle. His story is recounted in St. Vidicon to the Rescue, a novel by Christopher Stasheff. St....