Teaching Theology in a Technological Age (PDF)

The iGeneration has learned to adapt rapidly to technological change. Tech-savvy students multi-task with consummate ease, accessing email on smart-phones, researching assignments on tablets, reading a book on Kindle, while drinking a flat white and listening to iTunes in the background. How does the tertiary educational curriculum meet the learning needs of students whose attention transitions rapidly between mediums and messages? The complexity and pace of modern technological change has left the theological educational sector gasping, as it struggles to devise pedagogically engaging online distance learning materials in traditional disciplines and teach units with significant relational and pastoral components. The technological benefits are vast, the instant availability of information unprecedented, and the opportunities to provide theological education to groups marginalised by the tyranny of distance and time enormous. How should the theological sector address these challenges and opportunities? Although the benefits are massive, the media is replete with stories of the casualties of technological change, including cyber-bullying, internet predators, the psychic damage from trolls, addiction to gaming, and issues of body image, among others. How should the theological sector, drawing upon its scriptural and teaching heritage, come to grips with the deficits spawned by the technological revolution? What is the theological, pastoral, social and pedagogic responsibility of theology teachers in nurturing this new generation? Teaching Theology in a Technological Age draws together in an inspiring volume a series of cutting-edge essays from Australian, New Zealand and South African scholars on the learning and teaching of theology in a digital age.