Cheap Technology for Children's Ministry

Funoodles

2007-07-05T17:48:00.000-07:00

While not strictly technology, Funoodles can do great things for you children's ministry program. Well maybe not great things either. We recently held our annual VBS production. This year we did Noah. Our is a four night program where the first hour is spent in class doing crafts, snack, learning etc. The second hour is watching a musical drama. This is where some real creative minds try to make the story real for the kids. I am usually part of the set crew for this. The best way I know of for doing the inside of Noah's ark is to use scaffolding. The problem is how to make scaffolding not look like scaffolding. Enter the funoodle. We used 50 funoodles to achieve a more authentic look. We got the kind with the hole in the middle and, using a razor knife, cut to the core of the funoodle. We then got some brown paint and slathered it on using a rubber glove. We didn't try for any kind of even coating. In the end its the unevenness that really makes this work. All that was left was to open the funoodles and place them around the piping of the scaffolding. They hold themselves on. What we didn't cover with funoodles was covered by brown duct tape. This really completed the look and gave our scaffolding a rustic, non-scaffolding look.

Somehow since I began doing VBS, I have used funoodles every year for something. One year I used them to build a small cartoonish fence. Another year used one split in half, along with a head band to be the 'plank in one's eye'. The best thing about funoodle is they are cheap. I like cheap.

Podcasting

2006-11-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia definition of Podcast - A podcast is a multimedia file distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers

Magazine Correlation
You can go to a newsstand and buy a magazine. This is similar to placing an audio file on your web site. Someone could go there and download it.

You can also subscribe to a magazine subscription. This will get a magazine delivered to your home each month after it is printed. A podcast is similar in that once you subscribe the content is automatically downloaded to your computer as it becomes available.

Does it require an iPod?
No. A podcast is typically an MP3 file that can be downloaded to your computer. It can be played on any MP3 player, burned to a CD for listening in the car or simply played right on your computer.

What is required?
1. A recording device
2. Software to edit and make an MP3
3. A place on the internet to put your file
4. A file describing the feed used for subscriptions

Recording Devices
Typically a recording device means you should get a simple microphone ($5-10) for your computer. You can go as cheap as you want. If you plan on making things more complicated, you can also go as expensive as you want. Some of our minister are doing a podcast using a simple digital voice recorder ($39 at Walmart) and it work just fine. If you are going to use your computer and a cheap mic, you will need software to make your recording. I suggest Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.com). It is free and fairly easy to use. Most podcasting help site will suggest it.

Editing and Encoding
If you need to edit your recording or you want to mix your recording with other recording you will need an audio editor. Again I suggest Audacity (did I mention it is free?). When you are done editing or recording, you can use Audacity to export your file as and MP3. This will reduce the file size by at least 10 times making it easier for users to download. To export as an MP3 file Audacity requires the LAME MP3 encoder be installed. There are instruction on the Audacity site. The LAME encoder is also FREE.

A Place on the Internet
Most Churches these day have a web site where you can host (place) your files. If not there are many site on the internet where you can do it for free.

Subscriptions
You can talk to the webmaster at your Church to see if they can support podcasting. If not you can use Blogger (http://www.blogspot.com) to do most of the subscription part.

A subscription file has many names; Feed, RSS Feed, XML file and others. This is just a text file that describes the content and location of your site. This can be automatically generated by some sites or can be hand coded. Blogger automatically codes it for you.

Once you have your feed, people can add your feed to their feed reader and their subscription will have begun.

As an extra I suggest once you have your feed you get a feedburner account (http://www.feedburner.com). They will make sure you feed is formatted for all of the various readers out there including iTunes (probably the most recognizable reader for most people).

Animation Factory

2006-11-15T08:26:00.000-08:00

I am always on the look out for something cheap or free I can use for my videos. Finding stuff to engage children is difficult. Well I ran across Animation Factory. While it’s not free, there price is reasonable. They have various membership levels but I only see one worth the price for my needs. The platinum level is about $100 per year. What this buys you is unlimited access to all of their materials. The first day I signed up I download about 50 items.

What they offer includes:
• Animations (animated gifs)
• Email Stationary
• Media Elements
• Tiled Backgrounds
• Backdrops
• PowerPoint Templates
• Video Backgrounds

They offer various sizes of most items and still variations of some for posters etc. They offer MPEG, QuickTime MOV and Windows Media WMV video files. The WMV can be directly brought into Windows Movie Maker (see previous post) and other video editors.

Give them a look: http://www.animationfactory.com

Steady... Cam

2006-07-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

After spending the last two weeks sifting through video, made by others, of kid’s camp, I have come one conclusion. Tripods are extremely important! When I made the camp video last year it was me shooting the footage. Nearly ever shot I made was by using a tripod. I am not the most steady of camera shooters to begin with so for me its a must. I make every effort to not make anyone watching the video feel sick from the motion.

Today I ran across a sight that seems to fit this blog... Cheap! The web site is steadycam.org. This guy came up with a device to keep cameras fro moving erratically. The basic parts are only $14. If your not only cheap but also lazy you can order a kit that this guy makes for $39.95 + S&H (S&H = $14 in the USA). It is pretty basic concept and not original to this guy. Usually these things cost a lot of money. It is basically a weighted device that you mount your camera on to, like a tripod. The weight hanging from the camera helps prevent and jerky moves on your part. Just take a look at his sample videos for what I am talking about.

I'm not above it (guilt)

2006-03-27T07:33:00.000-08:00

Each year our Church sets aside money to provide scholarships for kids who want to go to camp but can't afford it. Each year it seems tougher to provide this assistance. Our member's have been generous enough to help out. I created what was intended to be a funny-sad video to bring the point home. I think it ended up being a little more sad then funny. At time it may just be sad enough to be funny again. Take a look and let me know what you think.

http://media.altamesa.org/iwannagotocamp.wmv

Cheap Video for Worship

2006-03-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

Below are links to website that offer downloadable videos. The videos are mostly sermon illustrations. There area few that target children. They are low cost (usually under $20) and immediately available for download. I have used SermonSpice quit a bit for our Church. They also offer a free video each month. I almost always get the free video just in case.

If you have another source let me know.

http://www.kidology.org
http://www.sermonspice.com/
http://www.bluefishtv.com/
http://www.imagevine.com/index.htm
http://www.meatloafmedia.com/
http://video4worship.com/
http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/

My Laptop

2006-03-03T06:14:00.000-08:00

Last year, as our summer camp was approaching, my wife, the CM, informed me that I was going to be doing the video for our camp. I had done videos for her in the past using our home computer. The thought of carrying that thing to camp was not appealing. I figured this was the ideal time for me to get a laptop for home use.

I decided on a Toshiba Satellite. It has a 1.5 GHz processor, 1GB of Ram, 80GB hard drive. Now what I really need was a firewire port to connect a camera and a USB port to connect an external hard drive. The icing on the cake was an S-Video output. My Toshiba has all of this plus an SD card slot for my digital camera memory card.

I'll side step here to explain why I wanted to use an external hard drive. Most laptop hard drives work at approximately 4,500 or 5,400 RPM. From previous video work I've done, I found that having a drive running at 7,200 RPM has fewer, if any, frames dropped. This has to do with how fast the video can be moved to the hard drive. Most video people will suggest a second hard drive for capture of video.

I had no problem using the laptop to fully produce the 40 minute camp video. In fact I even used its DVD burner to make the 100+ DVDs. I don't recommend burning 100 copies of a DVD from your laptop. Find someone or some place with a duplicator and let them do it. I was budget strapped. It took about 20 minutes per copy.

Since making the video, I have used the laptop to make other videos. I also use it to show PowerPoint shows to the kids at Church. Remember I said it had a S-Video output? I actually use it to connect to TVs. I have used the laptop to record and mix audio for our annual VBS production.

I realize that laptops aren't really 'cheap'. A laptop is such a versatile piece of hardware, due to its portability, its worth considering. You can store all of you music there and play it on demand. The same goes for videos. At camp we used one to show PowerPoint of the song lyrics we sang. You really can do most things CM's do on their office computer, on a laptop. If you get the choice of one or the other, pick a laptop.

IconizeMe

2006-02-23T06:49:00.000-08:00

I am a fan of the old TechTV shows 'Call for Help' and 'The ScreenSavers'. They were total geek shows. Their company was bought out and eventually everyone got sacked. About a year ago some of them started a podcast. The podcast was basically the same as their old shows, but without the demonstrations. It was pretty cool. On their site ( http://twit.tv ), they have basically a blog like this with comments. I noticed that the head twit, Leo Laporte, had a cool cartoon-like graphic of himself for his profile icon. Later on another podcast (http://commandn.tv, similar geek thing) they did a spot about a site called IconizeMe ( http://www.iconizeme.com ). This site did exactly what I was looking for. They take a photo and make what amounts to a caricature-like image for use as an icon or blog profile picture, etc. They charge $40. Other sites offer a similar service. You just need to like the way a particular artist does their pictures. You could do a similar thing using Photoshop, but a hand drawn version is really nice. What better imaging for a kid than a cartoon image. I had them do one of my wife, the CM, and combined it with her logo from LogoBee. I have them working on one for me also. You'll see it here on my blog when its complete.

LogoBee

2006-02-22T19:30:00.000-08:00

Here was our problem. How can we find a logo for the Children's ministry that isn't taken from the same source of clip art as everyone else is using. A very typical CM logo is 'the hand' or more appropriately the hand print. Not that anything is wrong with 'the hand'. If you are looking for it, you can find it as a standard template in Microsoft Publisher (Kid Stuff Newsletter). We wanted something a bit more distinctive. This meant paying a professional.

The first thing I did was a quick Google search for 'logo'. The number of returns was amazing. I started searching through them to see about what we could expect to pay and what degree of freedom we'd have to make changes. I finally settled on LogoBee ( http://www.logobee.com ).

For under $300 they designed six logos based on our input. From those six we picked one and began to refine it. They were easy to work with even when we suggested something we ended up hating. They removed it... no problem. Best of all the entire process took under two weeks. The first six design were ready for us to evaluate in just five days.

Sorry if this article is too much of a commercial. I feel this was a reasonably priced item, service was fast and were completely satisfied with the output. It was a good experience so we thought we'd pass it on.

Woot Anyone?

2006-02-15T12:55:00.000-08:00

Maybe you’ve heard of this. The web site is http://www.woot.com/. It is a neat concept. At midnight, Monday through Friday, they post an item for sale. It can be anything from a blender to a High Definition television. There price is usually quite competitive. Shipping is ALWAYS $5. The sale goes on until their supply is depleted. Once depleted, you have to wait until midnight again.

There is a special event now and then called a "Woot Off". It lasts for 24 hours. Once one item is sold out they place a new one on sale.

Be sure to run whatever item they are selling through Froogle to be sure you can't get a better price elsewhere. I used them to get a 20 GB MP3 player for my car. It was a pleasant experience. Also check the 'condition' field, they do sell some items as reconditioned.

Beware: The people that run the site can get racy in their language at times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woot.com

Microsoft Photo Story

2006-02-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

Soon after I started this blog I got a tip from my sister (goddess of knowledge, college homework helper, guidance coucilor, coding genius, bigger nerd than me). She told me about Photo Story. I wanted to wait until I gave it a try before posting anything on it. Today I downloaded it (5MB). I grabbed a bunch of pictures from a recent lock-in and added to the project, selected a track of music and hit finish. All told including the download, it took about 20 minutes total. The actual rendering (making the movie in its final form) of this this two minute movie took just under one minute. I am impressed.

I highly recommend this to Children's Ministers. I know you have little time. You probably have lots of pictures and there is nothing better than the kids to let other know about your ministry. This is quick and will make YOU look like the genius.

There various options won't get in the way of a novice. On the other hand you can do a fair bit of customizing if you choose. The program will, if you want, correct for contrast, color and red eye. You can add captions, change the transitions, change the time a picture is displayed and narrate. You can output to many different formats depending on what you want to do. Give it a try!

Download it FREE from Microsoft:
Photo Story 3

Papa John's Movie Maker and Photo Story Site:
http://www.papajohn.org/PS3-Intro.html

My sample movie:
subZone Lock-in

You can afford a PA System

2006-02-06T13:05:00.000-08:00

We host an evening program at Church called Bible Hour. This is a combination of praise, drama, and puppets. This program is hosted in a large room. This is not a modern large auditoium or drama area, but rather a large classroom. A few years ago we needed to upgrade our PA system. We wanted to be able to handle microphones as well as music (in stereo). At the time PA systems were about $250. Speakers were extra. The entire budget for this program annually is only $500. We decided to be invetive and and use a prepackaged stereo with surround sound speakers. Today you can get these for around $100 at Walmart or Target. Just be sure the system has the capability for an external audio input. That would be the red and white RCA type jacks. I purchased my son a system like this for about $70 for Christmas. The nice thing about some of these new cheap systems is that you can use them to play CD and DVD directly. It's all included in that price for the surround sound DVD player. Depending on the size of room you have you can upgrade the system to a higher powered system for a while before you have to consider buying a real PA system.

With the external input you can attach a mixer. The mixer will allow you to connect microphones, a CD player and MP3 player, a DVD or just about anything else you have that produces audio. Just pump it all through the stereo. The mixer you can get for under $100. I like the Behringer brand for being good quality and low price. At the time we did this we used a brand called Mackie. It was a few hundred dollars and great quality. If we did it over again we'd have gone with the cheaper version. It just wasn't avaiable a few years ago.

We were able to capitalize on microphones when our worship team upgraded. We were able to get four wireless microphones for nothing. You can also use wired microphone. They can be as cheap as $100. I know it doesn't sound cheap. In reality, for our group we can get by with one wired microphone for introductions and narration. The group isn't so large that we mic all of our actors or even the leader (but his voice does carry).

Data Cables

2006-02-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

Here is a good source of frustration for non-techies. I hope I don't confuse you further. In the end it's all about pushing around bits of data. Different connection types are used to capitalize on their features. Most things that Children's Ministers will connect to a computer will be either USB (Universal Serial Bus) or FireWire. FireWire must be a low life of some sort because it has many aliases including i.Link (Sony) and IEEE 1394, the original committee specification name.

USB

USB, which stand for Universal Serial Bus, comes in two flavors; 1) Version 1.0 and 2) Version 2.0. The distinction between the two is typically only made for version 2.0. Version 1.0 is just referred to as USB. All new computers have version 2.0 as standard connectors. They look exactly the same. Luckily Windows added a feature that let's you know when you plugged a Version 2.0 device into a Version 1.0 connector. It will give you a little warning that the newly connected device could perform faster blah blah blah.

USB 1.0 had a data rate of 12 Megabits per second. It seemed pretty speedy at the time. Version 2.0 came along and offered 488 Megabits per second. In fact there are now three data rates for USB. The lowest is used for Keyboards and mice. The second is the old USB 1.0 standard. Finally, the high speed version mentioned above. This is the enabler to allow connection to external hard drives and downloading pictures from your camera. USB is now the most common type of connector on most PC and Macs alike.

USB hubs are small boxes that allow you to connect more USB devices than the number of connectors your computer could originally handle. Think of it as one of those devices you use to turn your electrical outlet in three. Most hubs require their own power source. This means you'll need another electrical outlet.

FireWire

This is an IEEE specification from the 1980's. It was revived and renewed in the 90's and ultimately released by Apple in 1995. This version contains 6 pins. The Sony version or i.Link contains only four pins. The two pins lost by Sony were to provide power. The nice feature of FireWire is its data rate or how fast it can push bit down the wire to your computer. It can do this at a rate of 488 Megabits per second. This was by far the leader and the only way to go for digital video until USB 2.0 came out.

A typical use of FireWire by you would be to connect a camcorder or external hard drive to your computer. The camcorder end of the cable is quite small and usually only contains four pins. The end you connect to a computer or external hard drive is much larger and is shaped like a rectangle with a triangle on the short end end.

Flash Drives

2006-02-01T12:20:00.000-08:00

With prices starting around $20 for 128 Megabytes, these are the most useful tech devices in recent years. I know your think they aren't so great and in many ways your right. Memory sticks or Flash drives or USB drives aren't really that special. They are glorified floppy disk. (Do you even remember floppy disks?) The difference is even the 128 MB version I mentioned above hold the equivalent of 92 floppy disks. Also they fit in your pocket. Everyone has at least one USB (Universal Serial Bus) connector on their computer. USB has become the standard for a huge array of devices. You are thinking "So What?" This means they aren't going away very soon. They are also smaller and more resilient than the old floppy disk. They had a ton of form factors. I put some pictures of various Flash drives at the bottom.

To give some perspective, I always carry my memory stick with me. I have a 1 GB memory stick. That is a little less than two CD's worth of information in my pocket. I have all of my lesson plans, videos, music, pictures, PowerPoint files and other documents on the stick. If I ever need it I just pull it out. When you need to give someone a file at a meeting just pop it out and point them in the direction of the file.

When you plug one into you computer you can access it the same way you would any of your hard drives. Another benefit over floppies or CD's for that matter is speed. Depending on the technology of the USB connector you plug into you can move data at speeds approaching 480 MB per second. This mean you don't need to copy the file off to your desktop for a smooth presentation.

Want more info on Flash drives? Check out this wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_drive

Video Editing

2006-01-31T14:05:00.000-08:00

This subject draws some fierce cringing by most people. It just sounds difficult. It isn't... really. I have to warn you that if you are a true video professional this article isn't for you. If you plan to make video your profession this isn't the place. What I will talk about is putting some video together for your children's classes.

Software
How much do you want to spend? In video you can go from virtually free to tens of thousands of dollars. I have no interest in the high end. I am not producing feature films that will be played on 40 foot screen in high definition surround sound. Let's look at the cheap and easy.

Windows Movie Maker (WMM)
This product is FREE and is already on your computer if you own Microsoft Windows XP. In fact if you have the Service Pack 2 update, you have the latest version (2.1). This is an easy to use product. Most functions use some type of wizard to guide you through the process. The left hand task bar has an easy 1-2-3 menu.

1 - Capture Video: This is where you hook up your camcorder to the computer and get all of the video information off of it. You can manually select what is captured or let WMM capture the whole tape in one fail swoop. WMM will break up all of your captured video into scenes for you based on when you hit the pause button when you recorded. If you already have video on your computer you want to use you can import it in this step. It is the same for audio music and pictures.

2 - Edit Movie: This is the place where you drag scenes onto the video storyboard. Alternatively you can change to the timeline view to perform cuts and fine adjustments. In between the items you placed on the storyboard you can add transitions. These perform functions like fading from one scene to another. Try out different transitions to see what you like. You can always click on the transition and click delete. If you don't add a transition the clips will play one after the other. To add video effects like slow down or speeding up or adjusting the brightness just drag an effect on top of the video piece on the storyboard. You can also add titles and credits at this step.

3 - Finish Movie: Here is where you will save it to your computer or a CD or send the finished product back to your camera tape. To make a DVD you have to save it to a your computer using the DV-AVI setting. At this point you will have to use another program to actually make and burn the DVD. If you are going to use your computer to play it back through a projector just save it as 'Best Quality for playback on my computer'. The saving of the movie at this point will take a bit a of time depending on what is in the movie. This is called rendering. It is always the longest part of the making the video process.

Here are some links for Windows movie maker for tutorials and downloads of extra video effects:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/default.mspx
http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net
http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/Tutorials/Index.aspx

I have also used Sony's Movie Studio. It's is the younger brother to the full professional version of Sony's Vegas. It costs near $100. It works more on the timeline and allows the layering of video and audio. It's a little nicer package than WMM with more features. I used it to produce a 40 minute camp video and had no troubles at all integrating pictures and video and music.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=977

Basic Stuff

2006-01-30T14:18:00.000-08:00

What do need in the room? It seems real basic but after hearing someone tell a paying audience of Children's ministers they should buy a $900 rack-mountable DVD player, I had to start this blog. That was the one imperative I came away with. People you do not need a $900 dollar DVD player. I was surprised he didn't get laughed out of the room.

Our basic setup:
1. TV 27 inch ($200)
2. DVD/VHS Combo player ($70 Walmart)

You can now play the older VHS tapes, DVDs and compact disks using the TV as the output. Use one cable between the combo player and the TV.

To be honest we mount our TVs on the wall. This prevents them from walking off. The mount with optional VCR/DVD holder was $150. You want someone knowledgeable to install the mount. You don't want it falling down on some kid's head.

We have one room that can be split in two with a room divider. Since it is really a double room we placed identical setups in both rooms. That way they can be run independently. We usually use the room without the divider. To be able to show the same program on both TV's at once I took the output from one of the VCR’s and ran it to a splitter (less than $5 at Radio Shack). One output from the split ran to TV one the other ran to the input on VCR 2.

I'm no expert

2006-01-30T08:59:00.000-08:00

I'm not an expert in audio/ video installation. I don't do it for a living. I don't make videos for purchase. What I hope to provide are some low cost alternatives that you can use in your ministry.