By Fr. Ronald M. Vierling, M.F.C., M.A., M.Div.
Computers have opened up the brave new world of cyberspace. Cyberspace is the backdrop in which many persons, particularly the young, live and learn by accessing a virtual windfall of indiscriminate data, facts, and images. This world of cyberspace is composed of a complex array of ‘web sites’ and ‘web pages’ that contain vast stores of information on virtually any topic. The internet offers both amazing opportunities and daunting challenges to those engaged in the vital work of religious education. In this article, I will explore ways in which the Internet can be integrated into religious instruction; and then offer an overview of instructional techniques utilizing online resources that have proven successful in teaching the faith to Catholic youth.
The first requirement for any successful integration of the Internet in religious instruction is to ‘frame’ or ‘map’ the students’ use of the web toward a specific objective. To accomplish this, the teacher must have identified for themselves a specific purpose for the Internet’s use. This goal should be equivalent to the aim of the day’s lesson. For example, if my purpose is to introduce my students to the New Testament, I may have them navigate to pre-selected web sites that offer a virtual tour of the Holy Land, or a site that offers an overview of the political, socio-economic, and religious climate of that time. One must identify a clear purpose whenever the Internet is utilized in an academic setting; anything less is squandering time.
Two techniques which enjoy popularity among educators in ‘framing’ or ‘mapping’ the student experience of the Internet is the scavenger hunt and the webquest. Scavenger hunts are used by teachers to teach academic concepts and to teach navigation skills to students. The customary form of the scavenger hunt involves the teacher developing a series of questions and giving the student a hypertext link to the URL that will answer the question. For example, using the online Catholic Encyclopedia at New Advent, I have my students research why certain saints have been designated as the patron of specific places or whose saintly intercession is to be enjoined for particular intentions. Using Trackstar, an interface that helps instructors organize and annotate web sites, my students will navigate to the linked page in the Catholic Encyclopedia and answer my specific questions relative to that page. Such exercises not only instruct the student where to obtain reliable Catholic information on the Internet, but also serve to teach students how to retrieve and collate that information obtained from online sources. The synthesizing and analysis of information which will follow is developed further in another web-based learning model, that of the webquest.
Webquests are inquiry-oriented activities, ideal for cooperative learning, in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the web. Webquests are designed to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners’ analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of the information. It has become an important technique for developing critical thinking skills in the learner. Webquests follow a specific format: an introduction which describes the quest to the student. This can be very straightforward, or one can assign roles or a scenario for students to explore (for example, “You are the Postulator of the cause of a candidate for sainthood…”).
The second step is to specify the task that will lead the student to process any information they gather (for example, “your task is to research the process by which a candidate for canonization is raised to the altar for the veneration of the faithful”).
The third step is the process itself that students will use to accomplish the assigned task. Here you are specifying ways for students to organize the information they will be gathering (for example, “each team will prepare a twenty-slide Power Point of their respective findings on the process of sainthood for presentation to the class”).
The fourth step of the webquest model is to provide resources. Here the instructor directs students to the pre-selected web sites the students need to use to complete the task. You may wish to give the students a list of web sites to be used, or annotate each web site, enumerating for the student what information they are to retrieve from each web site or page. It is here that the instructor must exercise particular vigilance. Choose only those sites that contain doctrinally sound material and that do not contain links to other questionable resources.
The fifth element of a webquest is the evaluation or rubric by which student performance or the final student product is to be evaluated by the instructor. Rubistar provides teachers with templates to develop their own rubrics. Rubrics are an invaluable tool for making teacher expectations clear and showing students how to meet these expectations. The effect of a finely composed rubric is a marked increase in the quality of student work and in learning: students know exactly what is required of them by the teacher.
The final component of a webquest is the conclusion. Here the instructor may wish to reiterate the primary objective for the students’ involvement in the webquest activity (for example, “your research of the topic of ‘saint-making’ has enabled you to understand the process by which a man or a woman is raised to the altar for veneration by the faithful.”).
A final but most important consideration for religious educators in integrating the web into religious instruction, and one to which we have already alluded, is the importance for teachers to choose web sites which advance the teaching of the Catholic Church, not undermine it. My own entrance into cyberspace began five years ago. I began to notice that an increasing number of the theology research papers and reports submitted by my students were littered with references as to either why the teachings of the Church were wrong; or how those teachings were consigned to oblivion by the Second Vatican Council. Because I know that Vatican II had done nothing of the sort, I was curious as to the source of the students’ information.
An overview of their works cited provided the answer: all of their ‘facts’ came from web sites with a purported Catholic affiliation but which were, in fact, of the “We Are the Church” garden variety types. This experience motivated me to enter into Internet development as a web author by designing a web site that would offer my students a safe Catholic environment in which to do their theological research. Hence, Internet Padre was born. The almost 4500 links to articles and web pages contained in the Internet Padre database have been screened for their representation of authentic Catholic teaching.
Pope John Paul II has reminded those involved in the task of evangelization that the goal of Catholic education is “to put people not only in touch but in communion, in intimacy, with Jesus Christ: only He can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity.” Today we are fortunate to live in a time where we have at our disposal many instruments of communication for spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Internet is only one such instrument for teaching the faith. In this article I have outlined only a few strategies for using the Internet in religious classroom instruction.
The full potential for the uses of the internet in the work of catechesis has yet to be achieved, its potential circumscribed only by the ingenuity of religious educators and catechists.
Fr. Vierling is an instructor of theology at Lansdale Catholic High School (Archdiocese of Philadelphia) and is Webmaster of Internet Padre and Learning the Faith: Catholic High School Theology Online.
