Getting on the Web
LUCIA HTML/ComputerAudio Workshop
The HTML Publishing Workshop sponsored by Lutheran Communications in Asia (LUCIA) took place at Break Through Youth Village in Hong Kong from November 26 to December 2, 1997. More than 20 people from Asia gathered for the workshop and all participants learned a new language: the language of Internet Home Pages.
November 26, 1997: Up in the green hills of the New Territories of Hong Kong twenty-one Lutheran communicators gathered to make their entrance into today's new media--the Internet. In "Break Through Youth Village," the venue for the event, a "cyber-cafe" waited, equipped with 15 computers all connected to the Internet 24 hours a day. The participants would soon be able to try their hand at developing Home Pages to be "broadcast" over the World Wide Web.
Dr. S. Suviseshamuthu (Suvi), one of the Indian participants, spoke of the time many years ago when he attended a workshop to learn how to operate a radio, and to enter into the world of radio broadcasting. While he has great experience with radio media, he came to this workshop to hear, see and learn about the medium of the Internet. We ever-cautious Lutherans have been observing the Internet from afar to see whether it can be tamed or not. It has taken some time, but for the participants of the workshop it was time to grab the reigns and see what they could do.
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Takashi Yuguchi teaches about
making audio files for home pages |
Bjorn Christenson explains about HTML |
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The workshop started off with an address by Dr. Lam Tak Ho, president of the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong followed by a brief orientation, self-introductions and supper. Following supper, the first classroom session began, led by Bjorn Christenson, who assists the Japan Lutheran Hour with the maintenance of their Home Pages. He led them in learning the basics of the computer code needed to create Home Pages, HTML (hyper-text markup language). The volume was a bit overwhelming, but everyone was still fresh, eager and ready to absorb all that they could. By 10:00 PM, most people were getting pretty anxious to get some of the information out of their heads and onto the computers in the cyber-cafe...but that would have to wait until the next morning.
The next morning, November 27, the real adventure began. Everyone worked at their own pace to try to use what they had learned the previous night. Some had previous experience with the Internet, while others were quite new to the medium. All worked together to try to make some progress into creating a "Web presence" for their churches or organizations. They were a diverse group of eight women and thirteen men from ten different counties: Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, and Japan. They began with an empty page, and a little knowledge of how to make headers, bold or italicized text, of how to insert images and to lay out their pages. From there it was a matter of each individual's imagination and of the information they wanted to broadcast over the Internet. The entire second day was spent in the computer room and time disappeared quickly--soon it was again 10:00 PM and the day was done.
November 28, the third day of the seminar, began with breakfast and a bus ride down to the Lutheran Media Centre of Hong Kong.
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Recording Studio at the
Hong Kong Lutheran Media Center. |
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The Lutheran Media Centre was the coordinating body for the workshop, putting together all of the local arrangements. The participants met the staff, saw the facilities, the recording studio, and the "voice mail" computer, set up to recieve telephone calls, play messages, and record the responses of the callers. Two of the staff went into the recording studio and demonstrated a drama they had written of Moses before Pharaoh and his magicians. Grabbing some refreshments and boarding taxis, the participants made their way to the next stop on their tour, the Tausheng Publishing House. There the director, Peter Chan, brought greetings, as well as Rev. Josephine Tso of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hong Kong, whose office is in the same building. They answered some questions from the participants about the Hong Kong turnover, the work of the church and the publishing ministry taking place at Tausheng. Then it was back to the mountains of the New Territories to the Lutheran Theological Seminary. There the participants heard more from Dr. Lam about the seminary and the church in Hong Kong. It was encouraging to see his positive attitude as he spoke of the cooperative spirit among the different Lutheran church bodies of Hong Kong. The participants had lunch at the seminary, some time to walk around the mountain and an afternoon off before another session at the computers that evening.
November 29 started in the classroom with a session on computer audio led by Takashi Yuguchi, director of the Japan Lutheran Hour. This was an area of interest to many of the participants, as many of them are involved to some extent in radio and other audio-related ministries. Takashi spoke of how sound can be digitalized and translated so that it can be "understood" by the computer. He explained how to work with the sound files which were created, to make the sound fade-in and fade-out, to cut out sections of the sound file, etc. Finally he spoke of the way sound files are placed on the Internet. In the evening, the participants were led in creating sound files and editing them. Some people were even able to get audio on the Internet pages they had been creating. A tired group slept well.
December 1 started off with a morning classroom session: a little deeper exploration into creating Web Pages and a question and answer session.
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Ellen Mak, Peter Lai and Pearl Chiu Hui-wen
work on their home pages. |
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The afternoon consisted of more hands on work, and the atmosphere began to get a little intense as some of the participants realized the end of the workshop--and the opportunity to ask directly for help in creating their home pages--was soon approaching. In the evening, Rev. Walter Winters, the director of international ministries of the International Lutheran Laymen's League, gave a good balanced overview of the world of the Internet, directing the focus from the computers screens to the real purpose, the ministry of spreading the Gospel. He spoke of how the Internet can be used to reach people, and of the importance of "marketing" your home page. Winters was formerly the treasurer of LUCIA and the director of the Philippine Lutheran Hour.
On the morning of the last day, December 2, there was an introduction of the extensive Internet ministry being done at Break Through Youth Village, as well as a tour of the facilities. The rest of the morning was spent at the computers and packing up as the participants prepared to bring their Internet knowledge back to use in their own ministries. God's kingdom is being extended, even into the world of cyber-space!
| Click HERE to see what the participants thought about the workshop! |
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