Youth Ministry Geek » Fun

David Crowder Crowd Source Christmas Video | Youth Specialties

Chris — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 23:11:14 +0000

Over at YS we did a little experiment. We told the 4000 youth workers at NYWC in Atlanta to all record a David Crowder Band song and then upload it to YouTube. The genius that is Brad Sitton then took all the footage and made this incredible video out of it.

Enjoy! Merry Christmas!

Announcements are Boring

Jon — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 02:33:03 +0000

Everyone knows it. Announcements are boring. So a few years back we decided to spice things up. We had just held a huge student conference and had brought in the improv comedy group CPR. The students went nuts over the improv. So why not combine the most boring part of the service, with something entertaining? Improv Announcements were born. The video is from a while back, and it combines 2 improv games. The first game is called The Alphabet Game. Contestants have to go in order giving sentences that start with letters of the alphabet (All I want is to get through this game. But first we have to talk about the upcoming event. Certainly don’t want students to miss the theme night. etc.) The Second game is called mouse traps. This one is self explanatory, so I will explain it anyways. Contestants have to make their way across a mousetrap minefield, barefoot and blindfolded. As you can see from the video, students now enjoy announcements.

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Set World Records at Your Next Event

Jeremy — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:13:08 +0000

I was watching some podcast Brian Brushwood was on when I first discovered RecordSetter.com This is a online, user-generated world record site. (I almost feel foolish writing anything else because I know your brains are already spinning on this one.) It’s easy. After signing up, you post a video as proof. They review it and then confirm you made or broke the record.

After hearing about this, one of our students immediately went and broke the record for number of times saying “pretty” before “good” in one breath. He was beaten soon after by a girl from Canada, but rest assured that he considered it a matter of national pride to get this record back in American hands!

So, we hosted a world record event and set a bunch of great ones that are being verified as I type. As a fun promo for the event our staff broke several records including my own world record:

Geek Is… [VIDEO]

Chris — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:57:31 +0000

I loved watching this video. It brought back a lot of great childhood memories. I guess I’m really a geek.

Blizzard’s senior vice president of creative development, Chris Metzen, delivers a rousing dissertation to a packed audience at BlizzCon about what it means to be a geek. Beta is the new alpha.

Geek Is… [VIDEO].

Friday Fun: Twitter Tracker

admin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:48:14 +0000

I don’t know about you, but I’m very excited that Conan has taken over the Tonight Show. And one of his bits is my pick for Friday Fun. He has started a Twitter Tracker to track all those fascinating celebrity tweets.

Check Out the video:

And if you want more Twitter Tracker, check out it’s site: Twitter-Tracker.

You can also follow it on Twitter: Twitter.com/Tw1tterTracker.

Happy Friday.

Update Twitter, Facebook and Myspace with one click!

admin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:24:03 +0000

I have to say that of all the tools I have found, Ping.fm dulls the pain of updating mutiple social networking sites better than anything else. If you have friends and students split between twitter, myspace and facebook, the chore of updating statuses and tweets gets tedious at best. What I was looking for several months ago was a place I could go to make one post that would push to all those places. Ping.fm does just that. I log in (or click the button on my iPhone) type my status/tweet and viola, it’s done. It appears that I am taking the time to update all those places without taking the time to update all those places.

And the best part? It’s simple. It doesn’t try and cram 900 features into what should be a text box and a post button. It’s only real feature besides its accessibility and compatibility is that it allows you to group your statuses, blogs, etc. and choose which group any particular post applies to before sending it out.

Did I mention that it works with EVERYTHING? By everything I mean Jaiku, Tumblr, iMeem, WordPress, del.icio.us… a total of 30 social networking platforms at the time of this post.

I find that it seems like I am always recommending this to friends, acquaintences and strangers looking at my iPhone, and couldn’t believe I had not shared it here. Basically, if you have more than one platform for connecting with people online, you have to start using ping.fm period.

Bill Gates at TED

Chris — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:52:56 +0000

I think the stuff that comes out of the TED conference is some of the best on the net. If you’re not familiar with TED it’s a conference and the name stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. The talks are diverse and I almost always find them fascinating. One of the best parts is they are almost all around 20 minutes, so you can get through one quickly.

This years TED conference is going on right now and here’s the talk Bill Gates gave. The title is How I’m Trying to Change the World Now. It’s worth a watch:

If you liked it I recommend subscribing to their podcast (link opens iTunes). Or if you’re an iPhone user they have an app too.

Favorite Superbowl Commercial

Chris — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 05:36:18 +0000

I had a hard time picking my favorite Superbowl commercial this year. None of them were in the same class as Apple’s 1984 ad, but I think this is definitely in the running. It made me laugh.

If you wanted to view them all Hulu.com has them posted. It was a great game, but you know that people will still be talking about the commercials in the morning. If you want to engage your students about these commercials check out this great download from Walt Mueller over at YouthMinistry.com, it a set of questions to help think about them critically. Could be a great thing for Small Group this week.

Check them out here: Superbowl Commercials at Hulu & Discussion Guide

Free TV Online

POLL: You and Technology 2008

Chris — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:17:54 +0000

Billy Graham on Faith and Technology

Great Tech Podcasts

Jeremy — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:12:46 +0000

I love tech podcasts. Whenever I’m at the gym, in the car, or doing yard work you can bet I’m listening to one of my favorite personalities talk tech. Here are a couple of should-not-miss podcasts centered around our favorite pastime: technology (insert Napoleon Dynamite song here). Please leave your own in the comment section.

TWIT (This Week In Tech) is the grandfather of all the tech podcasts. It is a panel discussion style moderated by Leo Laporte. You might remember Leo as the host of The Screensavers on Tech TV (aka ZDTV). You’ll catch regulars like Patrick Norton (also from The Screensavers) and John C. Dvorak giving their commentary on the week’s tech news with some of the most important people in the industry.
Macbreak Weekly is another podcast on the TWIT network that discusses the week’s mac news. You’ll hear from regulars like Scott Bourne, Merlin Mann, Andy Ihnatko, and Alex Lindsay in another panel discussion moderated by Leo Laporte.
Cranky Geeks is a panel-discussion style video podcast moderated by John C. Dvorak. I would call this podcast the tech version of Car Talk. It’s cranky feel makes it both informative and entertaining.
Webb Alert is a daily tech news roundup hosted by Morgan Webb (from X-pay on G4, aka TechTV). This video podcast will give you the day’s tech news in a headline news style quick bullet point format.

These are a few of my favorites, but the net is not short on great tech podcasts. If you just can’t get enough stop by Tekzilla, Tech Five, Apple Phone Show, Girls Gone Geek, and Systm.

Teens In Tech