What is "Technology" at SUMC?

 

It's:

• Website Design and Maintenance
• Audio/Visual Services
• E-mail Administration
• Electronic Media
• Personal Computer and Network Support
• Education

 

I began my role as the Technology Director at SUMC this past June.  Since then, we have launched our new website and centralized events calendar, setup the visuals for the new contemporary and youth services, and standardized the staff e-mail addresses.  If you are reading this, you must be somewhat familiar with the website, and I hope you find the content and features easy to use, informative, and useful.  The support I have received from the staff and members has been outstanding - it makes my job easy!

 

In the upcoming months, we hope to offer more features to the website and through other media, to further strengthen the community of faith we share within our SUMC family.

 

 

One of my missions in this role is to provide some opportunity to share learnings regarding technology with our members.  Technology in itself can be a wonderful tool to keep us informed and better connected - but it can also lead to a great deal of frustration and confusion in doing even basic tasks with computers - reading/sending e-mail, typing letters, ordering products on-line, etc.   And, we see constant reminders in the news about cases of internet identity theft and the perils of letting our youth engage in online chatrooms without supervision.  

 

During the Winter 2009 Wednesday Night Fellowship Program I led a basic personal computer course.  In this course we started at "square one" - no prior knowledge or experience with computers was needed!

 

The curriculum for the "Where Do I Start" course was:

 

January 14th

Survey of Participant's Computer Experience and Desired Learnings

Getting the Boring Stuff Out of the Way - Some Basic Nomenclature and Understanding of How PC's Work

 

January 21st

Wrap-up of Hardware

File and Folder Basics - Using Windows Explorer

 

January 28th

The Internet - What Is It and How Do I Use It (Safely)?

 

February 4th

Understanding E-Mail - Setting It Up, Using Attachments, Managing Spam and Viruses

The World of Online Commerce - Understanding How to Safely Buy Stuff Online

 

February 11th

Open Q&A/Clinic Session

 

February 18th

Open Q&A/Clinic Session

 

Future classes will be held, based on popular demand - contact me if you are interested in learning about a particular topic.

 

Meanwhile, let me offer a few basic internet safety tips:

 

1. Anti-virus software.   Always make sure you have properly installed, and current, firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware on your PC's.  Norton and McAfee are two of the big names in this field and have excellent products.   Another great program (and a bit less expensive) is the Zone Alarm product.   The adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" really applies here - it is much much easier to prevent problems with virus infections than to fix them later.   There are also some free firewall and anti-virus programs that seem to do a good job - Webroot makes a free version of their firewall, and Avira makes a nice free anti-virus package.   These are available online for download - just google "Webroot" or "Avira" to find them.

 

2. Try to avoid opening any e-mail if you don't know the source. This is how most PC's get virus infected. If you do open the software, don't open any attachments.   The criminals out there are getting better all the time about making their scam e-mails look legitimate.   For example, if you get an e-mail from your bank that you aren't sure about - call them and verify that it is legitimate.

 

3. If you have children at home, it is always a good idea to set some clear expectations around their use of the internet.   The various "social networking" sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace) sometimes get some bad rap, but with careful adult oversight, these can be a safe part of your child's social interaction with their peers.

 

 

Finally, I'd like to list a few of my favorite websites - in no particular order:

 

www.toptenreviews.com  This is a great website for comparison shopping for software, but they also provide great reviews on electronics and lots of other stuff.

 

www.youtube.com   Okay, there is a lot of really mindless stuff on youtube, but it is also a great source for playing (and downloading to your RealPlayer software) a huge collection of music videos.

 

www.godtube.com    Similar to youtube, godtube.com is a great place to find your favorite spiritual music and videos

 

www.amazon.com   Amazon is not only a great place to buy products online (get their Prime membership for $79/year and get free next-day shipping on all your purchases), but they have some really good product reviews as well.   And, SUMC is part of their Vendor Associates program, so SUMC receives a percentage of all purchases - at no extra cost to you.   You must enter the Amazon site via the SUMC amazon link for SUMC to reap this benefit.

 

www.snapfiles.com   A great place to find all types of low-priced and free software.   Always be careful when downloading and installing any computer files.   Make sure your anti-virus software is running and up to date, and that you have backed-up any important data files.

 

 

I'll be adding to the list over time - if you have found any really useful sites, please let me know and I'll post them here.

We've gotten some very helpful feedback from our recent survey regarding the website, and other media we use at SUMC.  We've already incorporated some of those suggestions (e.g. on-line prayer requests).   I hope you will always feel free to contact me at any time if you have any questions about the SUMC website, or anything else I can help you with.

 

In particular, if you have any thoughts regarding information you would like to see covered at one of the Wednesday night computer classes, please let me know.

 

Yours in Christ,

 

JD Wynne

May, 2009

 

 

Have any questions, comments, or suggestions regarding Technology at SUMC? Just contact the church office or send an e-mail to:  technology@saladoumc.org