Revisiting electronic scriptures

Some time ago, MMM did a great post on electronic vs paper scriptures and I joined in the discussion, as well. I’ve had some subsequent thoughts, particularly after the recent Leadership Broadcast on missionary work in which Elder Perry announced a significant increase in electronic media use by missionaries in the future.

The topic came up in a seminary teacher’s training meeting I attended last weekend, and our CES coordinator indicated that there is no policy on electronic scripture use in the seminary classroom. It’s up to individual teachers to decide how to use them (or whether to use them at all).

Here are some thoughts that came up in the discussion we had, and some of my own thoughts, as well:

1. Most young people in the United States are going to encounter electronic scriptures at one time or another. And they will learn how to use them whether we teach them how in church or not. They are just smart that way. Those scriptures may be on a Kindle or a smart phone or an iPad or a laptop, but they’re going to run into them. They may use them for personal study, in church (because the electronic gadget is easier to carry than the scripture block), in family study or somewhere else. But most will learn at least how to access the scriptures. 
2. There is value in teaching young people the best way to use the tools at their disposal. Although they may stumble upon the features of whatever scripture app they have, there’s some value in showing them all it can do. I don’t know that seminary is the place to do that. Maybe it’s better taught at home in FHE or in Sunday School or somewhere else. 
3. Young people will sometime need to learn how to use their electronic devices for scripture study without being distracted by other things on the electronic device. There’s little doubt that initially they will be tempted to do all sorts of things with a hand-held device: text, play games, surf the net, etc., when they should be reading the scriptures. In that way they are no different from me! And part of that maturing process is learning to control the urge to surf when they should be studying. In the end, it will be tough to force someone to learn that lesson, and yet they will still need to learn. 
4. Even though missionaries will use electronic media, there is still a place for paper scriptures. Some may be “old school” enough to want to study from them for the same reason some of the oldsters I know want to: the feel of paper on skin is important to them; marking them is easy; seeing the notes made while marking is easy; seeing where a verse is on the page is important in remembering it, its context and its placement in the book. (Just because calculators are ubiquitous, we still teach kids to add, after all!) 
5. Even if missionaries use electronic tools, they’re still likely to teach from paper scriptures. I imagine we’ll still be giving away paper copies of the Book of Mormon for years to come, and there’s some value in a missionary’s knowing his or her way around it. Even if missionaries have some version of an iPad with videos and other media for teaching, it’s easy to imagine they’ll also use paper scriptures when teaching. And missionaries who serve in outlying areas without easy high-speed connections or without easy re-charging facilities will benefit from paper “back-up” scriptures.

We had some teachers in the four-stake training that have their kids use electronic scriptures regularly. And we have others who have them check them at the door. The class I team taught this past quarter was all paper (except me; I taught with my electronic version).

 

We have a new mission president in our mission and he is a former CES employee. He was finishing a zone conference in the same building as our training, and at the request of our coordinator, the new mission president stopped by with his wife to say hello. He had time for one question, and a sister asked about electronic vs. paper scriptures. His answer was interesting. It was off-the-cuff, so I doubt he was trying to make or state firm policy, but here’s what he said:

 

Yes, missionaries will have some electronic tools in the future – some device loaded with videos and other media for use in teaching. But he assumed they would still use their paper scriptures when teaching the lessons.

 

He also shared that at the mission president’s seminar he’d just left the final speaker was Elder Hales, who recommended that all 173 mission presidents and their wives buy a new set of scriptures for use on their missions. This is not the first I’ve heard of a general authority giving that advice. He said he still brought with him his old beloved scriptures (and since he’s a CES employee, I assume they’ve been well used in teaching for quite some time), but that he and his wife each have a new set, following apostolic counsel. His wife pointed out that Elder Hales was not the only one who spoke of the value of getting new scriptures in their training.

 

In the youth Sunday School class I taught last Sunday (the day after my seminary training), some of the youth used electronic devices and some used paper scriptures, and some had both. As it happened, I had them use their hand-held devices to look up some definitions for our lesson, and we talked about features of the paper and the electronic scriptures as part of our lesson. It’s easy for me to be ambivalent in Sunday School since I am not their regular teacher.

 

Our ward’s seminary has a tradition of paper scriptures, and I don’t think I’ll do anything to change that. As for me, I think I’ll buy a new paper Book of Mormon for lesson preparation this year.

 

Ok, it was a bad idea...

I blogged last week about e-scriptures and their use in classes. I was so motivated by a post at Middle-Aged Mormon Man (who has a WAY bigger readership than mine). In my post, I spoke in favor of e-scriptures (mine are on a Kindle Fire, and I love them that way, thanks, very much). And I wrote about the kids in the Sunday School class where I sometimes substitute (including last Sunday).

And here’s the dumb idea:

I’ve actually had an idea while writing this post that I’ll try when I substitute next Sunday. I think I’ll put a table in the room where we have class, and ask all the student to put their scriptures (electronic and otherwise) flat on the table in front of them. That way I’ll be able to see whether they are staying in the scriptures or not. Of course, whether their minds are in their scriptures or not is another matter, and I won’t be able to see that…

What I did was I finally let sink in what MMM was saying in his post, and I stopped by the library and picked up a few paper copies of the Book of Mormon. In class, I announced that it would an e-free day for students (I still taught from my Kindle, because that’s what I was prepared to do, and I just had this idea on the way to class, and I was not at all troubled by the double standard for students and teacher, and neither were they.)

So everyone but me used paper scriptures. No one texted during class. No one surfed the web. And no one really cared. (In fact, one student – my son’s best friend -- observed that if I was trying to get the class to be quieter, I wouldn’t be able to tell because there were too many independent variables – not only had I outlawed e-devices, but my son was not there, so this young man wouldn’t be chatting with him during the whole lesson. Fair enough, I said. I wasn’t trying to reduce chatter, just get people to use their paper scriptures.)

There was little difference in the discussion. All the kids participated just as they had before – some more willingly than others. All read. All laughed at my corny jokes (my son was absent, remember?).

But I was glad not to have their attention divided between me, their friends, their other extraneous thoughts AND their e-devices. At least one distraction was eliminated.

I should, in fairness, point out that as I told my very supportive daughter about my lesson, she asked with just a tint of saracasm in her voice, "So, did you drag a table in for them to put their devices on?" Even she knew it was a bad idea...

Digital vs. Analog Scriptures

My blogging friend MMM has blogged about paper vs. electronic scriptures, and it’s engendered a lot of comments from his faithful readers. I’ve been intrigued by the subject, and I’m even more intrigued by my own behavior.

Until December 26, 2011, I was a dyed-in-the-wool, paper-only, don’t-take-that-quad-away-from-me scripture reader. I proudly carried my little brick (my eyes are still good enough to use the “standard” format) with me to church each week, to family scripture study and to my personal study and lesson preparation.

On December 26, 2011, my world changed, scripturally speaking. Santa brought my wife a Kindle Fire for Christmas, and I liked hers so much that I went out and bought one for myself on December 26. (My lovely wife hid her annoyance at my doing this, for which I continue to be thankful.) I found the Kindle Fire easy to use, easy to read, and it was super-easy for me to mark, bookmark, cross-reference and study the scriptures. I have not turned back.

This surprises me for several reasons:

1. A number of years ago, our stake president told me he’d been counseled by a visiting authority to get new scriptures every couple of years and start marking them anew. The visiting authority held that by using scriptures with old marking (and I’m paraphrasing what I remember my SP’s saying about the visiting authority said, so I might be getting this a little wrong), we rely on old learnings. By marking a fresh set of scriptures we see things with new eyes and we will notice things we did not see before. Even as I was formulating how I could say how silly I thought that was, my SP told me he wasn’t really thrilled by the counsel, and how he was very slow to follow it (a highly unusual move for him, by the way). That is until he lost his scriptures a few weeks later and had to buy a new set. And then he found what the visiting authority had said was true: he was learning new things, seeing things in a new light, as he studied his new set of scriptures. I heard all that and still didn’t trade in my well-worn scriptures for a new set.

2. I’m not a real technophile. I mean, I like my computer and my cell phone, but I don’t have a cell phone data plan, and my phone theoretically has texting capability, but I rarely use it. I don’t want my e-mail in my pocket, frankly. And I don’t feel a need for universal connectivity. And I really don’t want to try to read scriptures or lessons on my cell phone – the screen is just too small for me.

3. I love books. I like going to my public library and browsing the stacks. I like buying books at the airport and reading them on planes. I even found an English bookstore in Shanghai a couple of years ago when I was there on an extended trip so I could find some new books to read. I like the feel of paper in my fingers and the sense of progress as I see my bookmark move through the book over time. It’s not that I just like reading, but I like the books I read, too.

Given all of that, I would not have expected to flip almost instantly to an electronic scripture-studier. And yet I have. I have the very simple and free download of LDS Gospel Library (the free one from the Kindle App store). It allows me to mark in multiple colors, to write notes, and (once I figure out how to do it) to save them to my LDS account. I can slip my Kindle Fire into my suit coat pocket when I go to church. And, like my stake president, I’m finding that visiting authority’s counsel is true: I’m seeing many new things in the scriptures; I’m reading them in a different light since I’m marking them for the first time. Yes, I could play Angry Birds or surf the web during class if I wanted to, but I don’t. I am an adult, after all, and I can make choices about how I behave.

That said, we still encourage our kids (who do not have electronic scriptures; they will get them when they pay for them themselves) to bring their scripture bricks to church and to family scripture study. We encourage them to mark them and to cross reference them. Our son uses paper scriptures in seminary (and has memorized the scripture mastery scriptures). Our kids would love to play with our Kindle Fires during church, but we don’t let them. We are adults, after all, and we can make choices about how we behave.

I substitute in my son’s Sunday School class from time to time. (His teacher tells me I’m the preferred substitute of the class, for everyone except son, that is, who would probably rather have anyone but me there.) I teach with my Kindle Fire in hand. Some of the students have paper scriptures and some (whose parents think differently than we do) have electronic ones. Those with electronic ones sometimes do other things with their electronic devices. Of course, in this group of 15-year olds, there is a pretty constant undercurrent of other things going on, whether it’s a running commentary on the lesson, on whatever else in on their minds, or what is on someone’s electronic device. Because I am a substitute, I do not demand silence. I believe as a teacher I need to earn their attention. Yes, the electronics make that more challenging, and if I were their regular teacher, I might take a different approach.

(I’ve actually had an idea while writing this post that I’ll try when I substitute next Sunday. I think I’ll put a table in the room where we have class, and ask all the student to put their scriptures (electronic and otherwise) flat on the table in front of them. That way I’ll be able to see whether they are staying in the scriptures or not. Of course, whether their minds are in their scriptures or not is another matter, and I won’t be able to see that…)

Our Young Women’s presidency does a cool thing. They have a wicker basket at the door of YW meetings (Sunday and mid-week) which is labeled “Basket of Worldly Cares.” They invite the YW to put all their electronics (and any other distractions) in the basket at the beginning of YW and to retrieve them at the end. That way, the YW can concentrate on face-to-face communication during the YW class or activity. That’s a great idea.

In a recent stake youth fireside, they posted signs at the entrances inviting the kids to leave their electronics put away. The stake YM president explained that they would not need to be checking scripture references during the meeting, and therefore there was no need for any electronics of any kind in the meeting. That worked for that meeting, too.

Personally, I don’t think the answer is to keep electronics away from our kids forever. It is to teach them how to use them and how to learn to turn them off when the time is right. In our home (and we are not a model of all that is right and good, but I can only tell you what we do), the kids sometimes have to take time away from screens – any screens (TV, computer, cell phone, laptop, video games…), and typically when they can use screens, it’s for a limited time and often a specific purpose. They’ve come to accept our approach (though, being kids, they try to get around our guidelines all the time), and I even heard my 15-year old complain the other day that he’d spent too much time on screens and wanted less screen time the next day. That’s a start to his learning to sort that out for himself.

To my fellow congregants, I hope you won’t judge me for using my electronic scriptures. Although I can assure you I’m not playing Angry Birds (I really don’t like Angry Birds, anyway…), it shouldn’t matter to you if I am.

What’s your experience with electronic scriptures?