Raphael The Religion and Philosophy Web Site at the ACA Virtual Center

Raphael
Newsletter of the Religion and Philosophy Web Site at the ACA Virtual Center

Volume 2
Number 2
August 2002

Highlights of this issue:

ACA Humanities Faculty Learn Macromedia Flash

The Appalachian College Association sponsored a workshop for ACA humanities faculty on Macromedia's Flash program at Cumberland College on May 30-June 1, 2002. Jay Neal, Director of the duPont Instructional Technology Center at Ferrum College, led the workshop.

Macromedia's Flash program is designed to produce web-based animations and applications that feature high levels of interactivity and yet are very conservative in their use of internet bandwidth. Because of Flash's powerful ability to render animations and its efficient use of bandwidth, the program is ideal for producing web-based instructional aids.

Participants at the ACA Flash Workshop May 30-June, 1, 2002. FRONT ROW (L to R): Jay Neal (workshop leader), Brian Pennington, Markie Clements, Mitch Baker, and Wes Golightly. BACK ROW: John Wineland, Garland Young, Bob Dunston, David Howell, and Charles Jones.

Eight ACA faculty representing six different ACA schools attended the workshop. In attendance were Mitch Baker from Lee University, Bob Dunston and Garland Young from Cumberland College, Wes Golightly and John Wineland from Kentucky Christian College, David Howell of Ferrum College, Brian Pennington of Maryville College, and Charles Jones of Union College. Also in attendance was Markie Clements, Director for Teaching with Technology for the ACA.

The workshop introduced participants to the basics of the Flash program. But the workshop also featured tutorials especially geared toward employing Flash in the teaching of the humanities. All of the participants brought a special project that they animated using the skills in Flash that they learned in the workshop.

Here's a tip--Want to try out Macromedia Flash for yourself? The newest version of the software, Macromedia Flash MX, is available for a free trial download at the Macromedia web site. The trial is a fully-functional, 30-day version of the software. If you like what you see, one of the cheapest ways for an educator to obtain Flash MX is from Micro Warehouse-Education, where the program retails for $89.95.

ACA Collaborative Grants Update

Care to take an interactive tour of the Apostle Paul's journeys across Asia and Europe? Learn about the many ways the image of "wilderness" helps us to understand the Hebrew Bible? Take an intensive, multimedia tour of central Jordan? Brush up on your Hebrew and Greek using some cool new tools? You can do these things and more by following the progress of three collaborative grants in the field of religion currently funded by the Appalachian College Association.

The Virtual Karak Project has been featured in this newsletter before. This multi-disciplinary project focuses on the Karak region of central Jordan. The project participants engaged in on-site field work last summer. This summer they are analyzing the results of last year's research.

The seven members of the Biblical Languages Lab grant project have continued to update their set of online helps for students of biblical Hebrew and Greek. This summer, their work has concentrated on interactive quizzes and reviews.

	The team of the Text and Context collaborative grant has two new members this year: Brian Pennington of Maryville College and Chris Heard from Milligan. Last year the group worked on learning pathways related to the journeys of the Apostle Paul and the concept of wilderness in the Old Testament. This year the group plans to add pathways for the Qu'ran and Isaiah's Immanuel prophecy.

All three of these grants are being funded by the Teaching and Technology Stage II grant program of the ACA due to the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Register Now for ACA Tech Summit 2002

Register now for the ACA Tech Summit 2002, to be held October 24-26, 2002 at the Adelphia Centre at Millennium Park in Johnson City, Tennessee. The annual ACA Tech Summit seeks to support the work of ACA faculty through:

supporting and highlighting innovative strategies for teaching and learning
providing opportunities for collaboration within and across disciplines
acquainting faculty with the most recent technologies and new uses for old technologies for higher education.

Now in its 5th year, the ACA Technology Summit continues this tradition of bringing faculty together to demonstrate their creativity and share their enthusiasm. Features this year include: Birds of a Feather Luncheon and meetings, Strands, several NEW Faculty Awards, Pre-Conference Discipline Activities, Hands-On Workshops, vendors, good food, and the best faculty in the country! You can go to the ACA Tech Summit web site to find out more about this great professional development opportunity.

You'll want to register for the ACA Tech Summit right away. Register online at http://www.acaweb.org/TechSummit/currentregistration.asp.

Featured Web Site

Holy Land Photos Web Site Offers Free Images of Sites in the Ancient Mediterranean World

The HolyLandPhotos.org web site offers free images of sites in the ancient Mediterranean world to the general public. The site is the work of Dr. Carl Rasmussen, Professor of Biblical Studies at Bethel College. The site is geared especially toward teachers and students of the Bible. Unlike many other image-related sites HolyLandPhotos.org invites users to download the images on the site for their own personal use.

Herod's theatre at Caesarea (set up for a modern concert)

Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem)

Images courtesy of HolyLandPhotos.org

The site gives permission for college and university professors to use the images in their own presentations and even to load the images on their own web site as long as the user provides attribution for the image's source.

The site currently boasts 390 photos of 44 different sites in the eastern and central Mediterranean. At present, most of the images come from sites in Israel and Turkey. But the images from these areas are numerous and of high quality. And all of them are of significance to those teaching biblical studies. Some are photos of sites frequently seen on the internet or in textbooks (e.g., Jericho, Caesarea Maritima, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre). Others are equally impressive to students but not as often seen in such high-quality color photos, such as a group of pictures of Herodium in central Israel or of Iconium and Lystra in central Turkey.

This is a site still under construction, so those of you looking for a complete web encyclopedia of images related to biblical studies will have to wait a bit longer. For example, images of some of the most important sites related to the New Testament have yet to appear on the site (Ephesus and Rome, for example). Still, HolyLandPhotos.org has quickly become the most comprehensive and user-friendly site dealing with images in biblical studies on the internet. And the author regularly updates the site with additional images. Bible teachers, add this one to your bookmarks.

Call for Contributors and Ideas

The religion and philosophy section of the Virtual Center needs your ideas and contributions. You can help by:

making suggestions regarding the types of materials you would like to see on site
submitting materials for posting on one of the sections of the site
send the site manager information about special events on your campus related to the study of religion or philosophy (lectureships, grants and awards, faculty publications)
submit links to be published on the webliography maintained on the site
information for feature articles relevant to the stated purposes of the site as listed below.

You can submit materials for the Religion and Philosophy Virtual Center by emailing the editor to submit materials.

What Is the Religion and Philosophy Virtual Center?

The Virtual Center, sponsored by the Appalachian College Association, is a set of webs designed to serve as teaching tools for faculty in the various ACA colleges and universities.

The purposes of the religion and philosophy section of the Virtual Center are:

to serve as a teaching resource for teachers of religious studies and philosophy
to provide opportunities for collaborative work in pedagogy in religion and philosophy