Thomas Technology facilitating the interaction between theology,

church and society in the world of education

CICT-COCTI |Brixen

About

In general• Thomas: Dutch acronym• Founded in 2002• www.kuleuven.be/thomas: a high quality

framework to enable collaboration between all those committed to religious education

• Based on the Roman Catholic Religion Curriculum• Hermeneutical-Communicative Model

Board of Directors• Chair

o episcopal vicar for education• Financial partners

o Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies (KU Leuven)o Flemish bishopso VSKO (Flemish Secretary for Catholic Education)o Interdiocesan Office for Catholic Religious Education

• Representatives fromo academic staff of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studieso ‘Pastoral Theology’ research unito inspectors of primary, secondary, tertiary and special school religious

educationo high school lecturerso pastoral workers at schools

Key aspects• active role in Catholic religious education• powerful instrument of scientific communication• service to the catholic church and society• keep contact with alumni/ae• challenged to follow up on developments in religion,

church, and society• learning medium in the academic teachers’ program• new ICT-instruments / databases to generate new

research• PR-instrument• Political discussion

Interactiveplatform

Main categories1. General information2. Primary education3. Secondary education4. Special education5. Higher education6. Pastoral

Information exchange, discussion & tools

• Provide general informationo Official guidelineso Flemish bishops on religious educationo Roman Catholic Religion Curriculumo Opinions

• Facilitate user interaction and content sharingo Databases (photo, video, prayers, poems, Q&A, …)o User input is reviewed and labelled with keywords from the Roman Catholic Religion

Curriculum

• Tools to aid teachers and educatorso Course action plano Communitieso Assessment tool for Catholic identity within schools or user-generated groups

The hermeneutic communicative

model

Objectives• Feeding religious thoughtfulness: broaden the

hermeneutical horizon through databases with strong confessional impulses

• Examples:

o Music databaseo Movie databaseo Poem databaseo Links databaseo Database of daily updated periodicals and radio and television

broadcasts

Objectives (2)• Attention to the plurality of religious

perspectives

• Examples:

o assess the capacities of students at the beginning of each school yearo Hermeneutical knots (or conflicts of interpretation) for all religious-

pedagogical documentso Attention to all ideologies in religious-pedagogical documents

http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/for-richer-for-poorer-till-death-do-us-part/#12845

Objectives (3)• Introduction to the power of the Christian

tradition

• Examples:

o Strong theological fileso Biblical sheetso Post teacher trainingo Attention to spirituality: prayer book

http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/bijbelfiches-binnengaan-in-het-koninkrijk-gods/

http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/gebedenboek/

Objectives (4)• Supporting the development of one’s own

ideological identity

• Examples

o Religious diary (MyThomas)o Post-critical belief scale

http://thomas.theo.kuleuven.be/algemeen/pkg/resultaten.php

Methodological support

• Course action plan• Competency matrices• Methods, examples:

o Bibliodramao Godly Playo Pecha Kuchao Kamishibaio Meditationo Interreligious learning

• Support the identity of the religion teachero As a witnesso As a specialisto As a moderator

http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/bonny/

Context of religion courses

• Course evaluation instrument between teachers and inspectors

• Pastoral at school• Catholic school identity• Mourning at school• Reflection evens

http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/traject-voor-zingeving/

Research based• Hermeneutic-communicative model• Interreligious learning• Catholic identity research

http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/identiteit/

Technology, site analytics

Technology• PHP Programming language• MySQL Database backend• Custom made CMS (content managment system)• Role based access model (administrators,

moderators, members, visitors)• Hosted at the university data center in Heverlee

o One of the largest websiteso +50 GB of webspace

Visitors• 5,000 unique visitors / day• 30,000 pages / day

• Visitors by countryo 77% Belgiumo 21% The Netherlands

• > 32,000 registered accounts• > 15,000 newsletter subscribers

Strong theological files

• 41 files on current & topical events to give teachers the necessary theological background for use in courses

• 116 extensively documented files on religious-related subjects for primary and secondary education based on the hermeneutic-communicative model

• 8 thematic modules for higher education• 34 film sheets• 28 biblical sheets

Confessional impulses• 1,433 photos• 450 videos• 408 prayers• 212 poems• 719 links• 25,000 references to radio and television impulses• 1080 announcements• 745 Q&A items• 1309 liturgical celebrations

Interactive instruments

• 29,000 course action plan documentso 4,130 course projects publicly shared

• 12,000 community item posts• 46,155 participants to the Post-critical belief

scale

Future?

• Contento Continued updates on a monthly basis

• Initiative to provide new impulses foro Primary school education

• Tools & instrumentso New community systemo Updates to course action plan instrumento Research Catholic Identity

• From a technology perspectiveo Improved search optionso Labelling contento Mobile device compatibility

English content• English content can be found here

o http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/mary-magdalene/o http://www.kuleuven.be/thomas/page/for-richer-for-poorer-till-death-do-

us-part/

Questions? Follow us!• www.godsdienstonderwijs.be• Thomas@kuleuven.be• facebook.com/godsdienstonderwijs• twitter.com/@thomas_1432

Thomas 2013Prof. Dr. D. Pollefeyt | Jan Verkoyen