Author Archives: Karyn

Next Holiday

Thanksgiving is over, and our eyes are turning toward the next big family holiday. Our Sundays will be filled with Advent traditions, and the countdown to December 25th has begun. But don’t miss celebrating one more wonderful holiday that commemorates another miraculous provision of the Lord. Chanukah is just around the corner! You may already know some things about this 8-day celebration, the Feast of Lights, but over the next two weeks I’ll recount more of the history and traditions (and a little bit of Hebrew!) as we count down to the first night of Chanukah in 2009–Friday evening, December 11th!
Zebra Menorah: Chanukah!!

Psalm for Thanksgiving Day

שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת
בְּשׁוּב יְהוָה אֶת־שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן
הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים׃
‏ אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ
וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה
אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם
הִגְדִּיל יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה׃
‎‏ הִגְדִּיל יְהוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ
הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים׃
‎‏ שׁוּבָה יְהוָה אֶת־שְׁבִיתֵנוּ
כַּאֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב׃
‎‏ הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה
בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ׃
‎‏ הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ וּבָכֹה
נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ־הַזָּרַע
בֹּא־יָבוֹא בְרִנָּה
נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו׃

Psalm 126

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Tim Bulkeley on “Degrees of Presence” in Distance Education

Tim Bulkeley, Tyndale Carey Graduate School, was one of the presenters in the SBL session on Distance Education. His comments about Degrees of Presence are applicable to anyone teaching a distance course. He’s placed on his blog his notes in a few posts, which I’ve linked to below. I’ve also placed the links on my SBL 2009 Pedagogy page for continued reference.

Statement generated as result of workshop “In Search of a Theology of Celebration”

I’ve been mentioning the workshop “In Search of a Theology of Celebration” in a few posts. The BioLogos blog Science and the Sacred has another post about this workshop, along with a link to a statement signed by the participants.

BioLogos blog Science and the Sacred
In the recent post, “Exploring the Truths of Scripture and the Truths of Nature” a small snippet of the statement was quoted:

Many voices in our current culture assert that there are irreconcilable conflicts between science and faith in Christ. We, the undersigned Christian pastors, theologians, scientists, and other scholars, respectfully disagree. We have learned much from each other during these days of communal prayer, presentation, discussion, and worship, but we also recognize that we have much more to learn and many others from whom to learn. We affirm that the truths of Scripture and the truths of nature both have their origins in God, and that further exploration of all these truths can enrich our joyful and worshipful appreciation of the Creator’s love, goodness, and grace. We commit to exploring these important issues further.

The full statement, available for download from the BioLogos Web site, includes the names, affiliations, and endorsements of the workshop participants.

“Examining our Exams” links added

Below are links to material from my SBL session entitled, “Examining our Exams: What to include, exclude, and revisit for Biblical Language Exams.” These links have been added to my SBL 2009 Pedagogy page (link in toolbar above). A summary of my presentation, as well as links from other presenters will be added soon.

These materials are, of course, just samples and will continue to be refined. Leave a comment with a suggestion or description of what you do in your own classroom!

More links for SBL Distance Learning session

I’ve updated my SBL 2009 Pedagogy page with the following links from Taylor Halverson:

Taylor Halverson, Brigham Young University
Effective Uses of Discussion Forums for Biblical Studies Courses at a Distance (20 min)

Michael Fox discusses his commentary on Proverbs

Michael Fox discussed the second volume of his commentary on Proverbs with a group of bibliobloggers gathered at a dinner hosted by John Hobbins at the Deutsches Haus in New Orleans. Great food, fellowship, fun and discussion. The evening benefited Jericho Road, a charity rebuilding community after Katrina. I’ll post more about this fine evening later.

Taking the Distance Out of Distance Education

Today I was one of the presenters in the following session:

22-201 Academic Teaching and Biblical Studies
11/22/2009 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM Room: Studio 9 – MR
Theme: Distance Learning: How to teach traditional topics in a non-traditional format

I’ve posted links to some of the resources mentioned in my portion of session below. An updated list (including material from the other presenters) will be kept on the SBL 2009 Pedagogy page of my blog. Check back again to find more material as we (the five presenters) update the links.

Online Tools:

  • Moodle: Open Source community-based tools for learning
  • Elluminate: web, audio, video, and social networking solutions for teaching, learning, and collaborating
  • LearnCentral: social learning network for education, sponsored by Elluminate

A few of the tools mentioned by Brooke Lester:

  • Wetpaint: A site solely for creating wikis
  • Diigo: Social bookmarking, highlighting, and commenting of web pages.
  • Netvibes: Bringing feeds to a central location from blogs, from wikis, from Diigo, from Twitter, from Yahoo Pipes, and so on.
  • Yahoo Pipes: Grouping, filtering, ordering RSS feeds from anywhere.

Check his resource page for more links and tutorials to use these resources.