Strategy for playing "Come, Follow me"

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rknelson
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Strategy for playing "Come, Follow me"

#1

Post by rknelson »

In preparation for the new youth curriculum “Come, Follow Me”, our Stake President gave an assignment to me as the Stake Technology Specialist. Here is what he requested:“We spoke informally the other night about the increased need we will have for video in class rooms with the new youth curriculum. Would you put together a plan (include estimated cost). For the following:

Assume each youth class (YM, YW, SS) wants to use a video in their lesson in all the buildings. How should we make this possible? Keep an eye to the future when, at some unknown time, every class may want to show a video. We may not be able to afford the future now but it is nice to think this way.

We meet with the Bishops on November 15th. It would be nice to have an idea of how we could do this by then. Not the full plan but an idea.”
I note this from lds.org:(https://www.lds.org/youth/learn/train/faq?lang=eng )“How ca​n I show videos in class?
Most of the videos suggested in the outlines are available for download (some are not, because of copyright restrictions). A downloaded video can be shown on a portable electronic device. If a video is not downloadable, you can show it over the Internet using your meetinghouse’s wireless Internet connection, if available.”
In our stake we have 5 buildings. One building has 7 Megabit internet download speed, the rest have 15 Megabit speeds or higher. All have pretty good wireless internet coverage throughout the building.

While some instructors have a laptop or tablet and are technologically savvy enough to stream/download and play videos in the classroom, others would require equipment and technical assistance to do this.

Approaches that come to my mind include:
  • Purchase equipment like tablets (expensive, and difficult to manage)
  • Purchase Rokus and connect them to TV’s (more TV’s may be needed?)
    • Stream the videos on Roku (Is there a plan to ensure the “Come, Follow Me” referenced videos, will be available on the Mormon Channel or another church channel?)
    • Use the Roku to play videos using the Roku USB Channel. Train teachers to download videos on a USB Thumb drive.
  • Newer high end HD TV’s will play videos from a USB thumb drive, and I suspect this will migrate to cheaper smaller TV’s soon, but that does not seem common in the market today.
  • Every couple of months have one person download all videos referenced in Come, Follow Me, author a DVD with a menu for each lesson topic, and burn about 8 copies for each ward in the stake. (Still might need more TV’s, but could be played on laptops in small classes.)
  • Mount a WIFI streaming TV on the wall in all youth classrooms (Just trying to think out of the box, but theft, vandalism, and cost would be a problem)
Our Stake President seems willing to allocate some budget funds to a reasonable approach, even when it might involve items normally supplied in limited quantities by the FM Group.

I really appreciate this forum and am interested in your suggestions and thoughts.
TinMan
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#2

Post by TinMan »

In our ward we have decided the most cost effective way to accomplish this is the DVD route. (Our building does not have Wi-Fi everywhere, only in selected locations. like the bishops offices. Long story.) One of my counselors is going to download all the videos for the whole year onto DVD over Christmas break unless the Church comes out with a DVD for us before then, and provide one for each teacher to keep and view at home if they need to. We have 3 TV's with DVD players in the library. Each one of us in the bishopric has a laptop that can play DVD's. That allows us at least 7 ways to play them. We will encourage the leaders with their own laptops to bring and use them, but if not, our personal ones will be available to borrow. Yeah, watching them on a dvd on a laptop is not ideal. But many of our classes only have 4 or 5 kids in them, so they will survive.

We are going to ask ward members who get a new laptop or portable DVD player for Christmas if they will donate their old one to the Library. Perhaps we can build up enough usable players over the coming months.

PS: We swear: Someone at Costco works for the Church and is watching. There is a Samsung 24 inch monitor on sale right now for about $200 to $250.00, that has all the connections including thumb drives. We are talking to the other units in our building about possibly using some left over budget money to just buy several on our own and not wait for the FM group to have enough budget to help us out.
russellhltn
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#3

Post by russellhltn »

TinMan wrote:There is a Samsung 24 inch monitor on sale right now for about $200 to $250.00, that has all the connections including thumb drives.

I suggest you check and verify that you can play videos from the thumbdrives. When I was last shopping for DVD recorders, I found a number that had the USB connection only to find they only supported still photos (such as from a camera) and not any video formats.
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bates68
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No updates :(

#4

Post by bates68 »

I am very interested to see what solutions are presented here.

I have been searching this forum and see lots of talk about the ROKU channel providing content, but is the "Come Follow Me" content available on the ROKU channel?
What about using Google TV? Has anybody had success with this?

Thanks!
rknelson
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#5

Post by rknelson »

Almost all of the "Come, Follow Me" videos are on the Mormon Channel on the Roku. I looked through several lessons and only found one video which was not on the mormon channel and it was a clip from a conference talk. The entire talk was on the mormon channel but I did not find the clip itself. That said, you have to search around to find them. Some are in Messages for Youth, some in Mormon Messages, some in other areas. It would really be nice if the Mormon Channel would have a directory for "Come, Follow Me" with sub directories for Sunday School, YM, YW, then organize the videos by month or lesson. That would make finding them (and navigating to them during a lesson) much easier.
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johnshaw
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#6

Post by johnshaw »

rknelson wrote:Almost all of the "Come, Follow Me" videos are on the Mormon Channel on the Roku. I looked through several lessons and only found one video which was not on the mormon channel and it was a clip from a conference talk. The entire talk was on the mormon channel but I did not find the clip itself. That said, you have to search around to find them. Some are in Messages for Youth, some in Mormon Messages, some in other areas. It would really be nice if the Mormon Channel would have a directory for "Come, Follow Me" with sub directories for Sunday School, YM, YW, then organize the videos by month or lesson. That would make finding them (and navigating to them during a lesson) much easier.
That is a fantastic idea, and for meetinghouses with great ISP bandwidth this will be great. Those of us stuck with telegraph speeds in our meetinghouses are either out-of-luck or must rely on innovation.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
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johnshaw
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#7

Post by johnshaw »

bates68@gmail.com wrote:I am very interested to see what solutions are presented here.
I have been searching this forum and see lots of talk about the ROKU channel providing content, but is the "Come Follow Me" content available on the ROKU channel?
What about using Google TV? Has anybody had success with this?
Google TV supports DLNA and will support the solution we're using in our stake, however, Google TV is extremely expensive compared to other Android based STB(Set-top Boxes) I picked up and Android 4 STB that outputs both RCA and HDMI for under $50 from China... it worked great to view a webcast and will run any Android App - The Apple TV equivalents do not exist and using Apple is more expensive.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
bates68
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#8

Post by bates68 »

rknelson wrote:Almost all of the "Come, Follow Me" videos are on the Mormon Channel on the Roku. I looked through several lessons and only found one video which was not on the mormon channel and it was a clip from a conference talk. The entire talk was on the mormon channel but I did not find the clip itself. That said, you have to search around to find them. Some are in Messages for Youth, some in Mormon Messages, some in other areas. It would really be nice if the Mormon Channel would have a directory for "Come, Follow Me" with sub directories for Sunday School, YM, YW, then organize the videos by month or lesson. That would make finding them (and navigating to them during a lesson) much easier.
Good to know. Thanks for the reply. Your idea about having the Mormon channel have a directory for the "Come Follow Me" topics is really good and hopefully somebody will take notice and add that to the channel.
bates68
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#9

Post by bates68 »

JohnShaw wrote:Google TV supports DLNA and will support the solution we're using in our stake, however, Google TV is extremely expensive compared to other Android based STB(Set-top Boxes) I picked up and Android 4 STB that outputs both RCA and HDMI for under $50 from China... it worked great to view a webcast and will run any Android App - The Apple TV equivalents do not exist and using Apple is more expensive.

What Android STB's did you pick up? What do they allow you do do? I see that you can get the Google TV box for 99 bucks. That is the same as the ROKU that has the USB drive on it. I think having the USB option for people to play videos would be really important to help in cases where the instructor does the prep work at home and has the videos they want downloaded, and as part of implementing the new program I could push instructors to go this route as well to help improve the flow of the class.

I am still undecided on what the best solution really is.

Here are my thoughts so far:
- I think the ROKU has some good options, but it may be a bit tricky for an instructor to find the video they want quickly. I would hate for the instructor to spend 20 minutes to get it working and not have time to actually teach and invite the spirit.
- Google TV seems like a good option since you can use Chrome to browse to lds.org/youth/learn and you could quickly pick the videos.

Both ROKU and Google TV have the USB option which I think is vital.
russellhltn
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#10

Post by russellhltn »

Given that YouTube (which is part of Google) is blocked at the meetinghouse, I'd want to verify that Google TV will work there.
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