Study Journal 6

--------------Nov 19

It is amazing how prophets repeatedly will predict things to come way a head of their time. The article about the computer in the church from 1980's was that way.

The tools and steps that were made 30 years ago, and 500 years ago, are things that we needed to have happen to be able to do the things we do now with technology in the church. It may mean that the things we do now are only small steps compared to what is to come.

Social Media can be a distraction. But it also can be a huge help in sharing the gospel. The church is always on the forefront of technology and as we follow instruction from church leaders, many times its only later we later see how happy we are that we followed. This is very relevant to technology in the church.

--------------Dec 01

Church and Translation guest speaker

Translation suite used to help in church transaction

Database of past translation, machine translation

World Studio, travel studio, Microsoft translation

Studio programs help 30% faster in translation

Important for computer scientists, the users need to understand why they need it, how it will help. Make it easy

Sometimes you need to sell your products to your customers so it will be used. - This is an important idea that is faulty of many products that have come and gone. Its not bad to sell the product to your own team.

Some users got an additional 200% while other got minimal gain, maybe with better training people would be more effective.

Auto-suggest simple, and helps users be more effective.

Simple and helpful features are the successful ones

--------------Dec 03

Facebook, good or bad? Kid brags about crime he committed, then gets arrested

Just because we can, doesn't mean that we should. example: Jurassic park

Child porn vs adult porn. Where is the ethical line? What about virtual child porn? is that ok where child porn isn't?

Evil resides in the hearts of men. We are control the computer, for good or evil. 

--------------Dec 08

Family Search guest speaker

Honesty, Steve jobs admitted to stealing ideas. But his actions changed the industry forever. Which unethical things, do we justify most?

FamilySearch talked with Ancestry. Family Search said wouldn't it be cool if we had record hints? that year ancestry has it, and billion dollar industry. Ethical?

Now the church has record hints, copied. Is it ethical?

Many inventions helped bring our time with FamilySearch 

from microfilm, to OCR tech.

OCR tech has index 182 million records in 4 weeks, instead of 3 years of human indexing.

Pretty soon, the computer should be able to faster and more accurately do our genealogy work. when is that unethical? when is that ok? President Eyring, said we should be careful.

Current Event 6

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/09/wired-church-technology_n_1139551.html

Many churches are adopting technology as a part of their normal service. Many pastors now use digital formats of their weekly program instead of paper handouts which has resulted in some congregations reducing their need for printed paper by 2 million sheets per year. "Hashtag" blank is now often used during sermons. The congregation is encouraged to tweet the about the lessons they hear. There are now even specially made pulpits, built in iPad slots, be constructed for these churches. While for many, these changes are beneficial and ease the learning of the doctrine. For others though who are too poor to afford the technology, start to feel excluded. Trying to guess, what is the fair amount of technology to use, does not have an easy answer. What percent of the members can be left behind to increase the immersion of younger generations? How much money is reasonable to spend in order to include members who won’t change from their traditional ways? Although there is no law or strong religious belief against advancing the technology use in churches, the way it is done must be done carefully in order to be ethical. These churches should provide basic means of participating even for those without expensive electronic devices. In addition, I believe they should have available the basic technical training needed to fully participate during church for those members who are not technologically minded. With these essential needs met, segregation in congregations can be avoided.