By Cheryl Statham, member of Prince of Peace, Johnsonville, and the Worship and Spirituality Ministry Team

(Part 2 of 2 articles)

The first part of this article, published in the September issue of Partners in the Spirit, gave information on how to set up a computer room physically. This part will deal with what happens after your computer room is up and running.

What do you do next? How do you integrate the computer room into your normal Sunday school curriculum? What programs are out there and which ones are worth the money? Do you train the teachers to use the programs or do you have only one or two people responsible for running the room?

How you settle these questions will be different depending on your own church's situation. However, there are some options to consider.

Programs

Sunday Software has an excellent line of CD-ROMs that cover a wide range of Old and New Testament stories, as well as some programs on the Bible itself. These are geared for middle-to-upper secondary level students for the most part, and most are beyond the understanding of most K-third graders. Programs for younger children can usually be found in the Augsburg Fortress catalog and at local Bible book stores. Before you buy from anyone, check the return policy. If the program isn't what you expected it to be, you will want to be able to return it. Remember, too, that you need to buy a CD-ROM for each computer that will be running the software or you will be violating copyright laws.

Teacher Training

Whether you train all of your teachers to use the room or have just one or two teachers designated to run the computers depends on your congregation’s situation and on your teachers’ computer comfort level. Either way, the teachers must be familiar with the programs and be able to integrate them into the desired lessons.

To become familiar with the programs, your teachers need to spend time on the computers playing with the programs. This works best if you schedule a special meeting for teachers where the only thing they will be doing is getting comfortable using the machines. Allow at least two hours for this so there is plenty of time for teachers to explore all of the programs’ options.

Integrating the Computer Room into the Schedule

Integrating the computer room into your lesson schedule will again take place in different ways in different Sunday schools. If you are using the rotation workshop model (see September Partners), the computer room can be added to the workshops if you have a CD-Rom program that can supplement the lesson you are teaching. However, even with the traditional Sunday school format, a computer room can be integrated easily into your weekly schedule.

The important thing to remember is that a computer room is always to be used as a supplement to your regular lesson, not as a replacement. All sessions in the room should begin with the teacher giving a short lesson, emphasizing the major points of the story and explaining how the computer program they will be using ties into that lesson. Then, and only then, the students can be allowed to start running the program. Remember also to allow a few minutes at the end of the time to go over the major points of the lessons once again.

Hopefully these articles will give you some ideas on how to proceed if you are interested in integrating a computer room into your Sunday school program. There are several books on the subject that are available in catalogs if you are interested in learning more. Good luck!

(For more information, contact Cheryl Statham at mstatham@ptd.net.)