construction

“Sure wish I could talk to a real person…”  she muttered.  The recording ignored her and replayed the same options.  She listened a moment longer, but neither relevant choice nor tangible champion interceded.

“Forget it!” She snapped the phone shut and walked away.

Our world interconnects, but grows virtual, a caricature of genuine life.  True, a plethora of information astounds us.  And, the convenience certainly woos us.  But, most websites shout, “Shut up! We talk, you listen.”  We enjoy the web’s speed and reach, yet also crave the old fashioned market place.  There, we talked.  We listened.  Friends actually heard us.  We built community.

Fortunately, the Lord sends the Body of Christ to push back.  Regina’s Orality work draws people together.  And now, my work takes an Internet problem and makes it a feature.  We’re converting the MAF-Learning Technologies website from a one-way billboard to a two-way discussion known as a “blog.”  Our worldwide team – including you – will finally have a place to really converse about God’s work through Learning Technologies.  More details soon.

Coordinating the efforts of a worldwide consulting team that spans multiple cultures poses daunting challenges.  Jetting about the globe for meetings breaks budgets when done too frequently.  And, jet-lag wastes the first few days while everyone figures out what planet they’re on.

Online technology seemed like the ideal solution, but just how to accomplish that eluded us for quite awhile.  After serious time and energy investments in a couple abortive attempts, we finally settled on a freeware wiki called, DekiWiki.

Now, links from the MAF Learning Technologies website point to our ProjectWiki (see button on the Projects tab).  On ProjectWiki, we display summaries of projects for several of our ministry clients in the same place that we actually work on them.  Any viewer may comment on a project and, involved partners can collaborate directly on project development from anyplace in the world via the Internet.