Design Philosophy

This brief document introduces the overall concept or design philosophy of our "Distance Discipleship" (DD) / "Distance Education" (DE) project.

Download this "Course Development" software

First and foremost, the aim of this project is to assist current and future Christian leaders to grow in spiritual depth, to develop Christ-like character, not merely to accumulate theological knowledge. To pursue this aim, we have chosen to use the term "Distance Discipleship," so a better acronym is "DD." In order to truly disciple people, we must emphasize mentoring in a person-to-person, and whenever possible in a face-to-face mode.

The mentor is concerned with the process of spiritual and moral development and the application of lesson content to real-life situations even more than the aquisition of knowledge. All modes of delivery of our courses have provision for mentoring. Considering our target audience, our budget and the budget of those we intend to deliver the finished package to, we decided that our system should be "light-weight" and easy to develop and maintain courses in many languages all over the world. The tools for development should produce easily-maintained standard HTML and JavaScript, and should also be free or very inexpensive. This should eliminate the desire to "pirate" - illegaly copy software that requires the user to purchase a license.

We have incorporated techniques that can be used with all segments of our target audience:
1. Those using an internet-cafe or a learning center with high-speed Internet access,
2. Those with stand-alone high-speed Internet access,
3. Those with no computer, no Internet access.

Most DE packages are aimed at segments 1or 2. WebCT, for example, is targeted only at people who have fast, inexpensive Web access. Older technologies such as University of Phoenix Online educates students who have stand-alone (segment 2) Internet access. The more modern "MOOCs" (Massive Open Online Courses) transmit factual knowledge for huge masses of students, but provide virtually no personal interaction or mentoring.

We aim to deliver our DD package over the WWW or over a LAN in a learning center with several workstations on a per-lesson basis in open HTML format and JavaScript, or in printed form. By using the browser-webmail interface, or a personal notebook for segment 3, we can deliver our courses efficiently and effectively to national Christians all over the world, assisting them in the task of FILLING THE WHOLE EARTH WITH THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE GLORY OF THE LORD by evangelism, discipleship and church planting.

For our discussion questions and group video calls, we've now decided to use Skype Groups, a good all-in-one app that's easy to use: if you create a Skype moderated chat group name indicating your course, Skype generates a link, and you must add that link to our login Javascript for the appropriate course. Our discussion.js script then receives this link and places it in the lessons. Skype moderated chat groups have a 'mute all' option, and the host can mute individual guests to avoid "feedback squeal" and background noise, but then guests must unmute themselves to speak. If you create an unmoderated Skype chat group, there is no 'mute all' option. Users can share screens to display the lessons or other material. Skype no longer requires a Microsoft account: you can use any email address or your smartphone number to create a Skype account. Its web version can sometimes be rather sluggish, so I recommend installing their apps if you have a slow internet connection. The free version does not have a time limit for video calls, but it has a limit of 25 participants for video and 100 participants for group chat. Microsoft's business model is to earn money from selling software, not by selling your profile info to advertisers. You are their customer, their software is the product.

Rocket.Chat is also good for group chat discussions and it includes Jitsi Meet to make video calls that lets the host 'mute all' other participants and link to YouTube Live and YouTube recorded videos. It is open-source software, so there's no spyware or tracking of your browsing. You can use Rocket.Chat and Jitsi on the web from a PC, but smartphone users must install their app. You can also use Webex Meetings: the host should install the app for settings to manage guests, but guests can join Webex video meetings from their browser, or install the Webex Meet app. The Webex free version only allows up to 50 minutes per session. Slack is rather complicated, their free version only allows 1:1 video calls, but you can install the Jitsi or Webex plugins for more users. Zoom's free version is limited to 40 minutes per meeting. Up to June 2020, it had big security problems: its software was developed by three Chinese companies and some of its employees and servers were in China, but now Zoom has migrated all its software and servers to Oracle in the U.S.

Google Meet integrates with Google's Calendar, Contacts, and Gmail, so the host should have a Google account but guests don't need a Google account. It's entirely web-oriented, no apps to install. Its chat option is just a narrow sidebar and it doesn't let the host 'mute all' guests, but the host can point to a guest's thumbnail and mute him or her. Google's business model is to earn money from advertising, so it builds profiles of its users to send you ads, mainly to your Gmail address. I recommend against using Facebook Groups because of FB's tracking your web browsing even when you're not using FB, then they build your user profile and sell it to advertisers who aggressively market to your email address. (To reduce this tracking, use a different browser only for FB, then close it.) Also, Google, Facebook, and their subsidiaries practice decidedly leftist, anti-traditional-Christian censoring. You are their product, their advertisers are the customers.

Then register your own website domain at Amazon Lightsail for $3.50/month, or at Wordpress.com for $4/month. Then you can add Jitsi Meet or Webex.com video conferencing, the cloud-based Slack group collaboration board that can include Jitsi Meet or Webex, the LearnPress online learning plugin for Wordpress, the BuddyMeet Jitsi Wordpress plugin or the Webex plugin for Wordpress, the myBB.com bulletin board software plugin for Wordpress or as a stand-alone app, or Disqus.com if you prefer a cloud-based discussion board, all for free. There are lots of alternatives!