Videos in Logos resources

Reimar Vetne
Reimar Vetne Member Posts: 165 ✭✭
edited November 20 in Resources Forum

I have been intrigued with the recent use of videos in Logos resources - with the release this week of the Pastorum 2012 conference, and the upcoming Logos Mobile Education resources.

It would be great to get some SDA professors in front of a camera as well.

I am currently writing the first volume in a series of New Testament textbooks that I plan for the Adventist church, hopefully to be published by Andrews University Press (they like the idea, but need to see my first manuscript before they commit). I plan to complete volume 1 on the Gospels in one year (Summer 2014).

It would be fun to record some lectures as videos to complement the textbook. I wonder if Logos allows other publishers than themselves to include videos in resources.

Comments

  • Filipe Moreira
    Filipe Moreira Member Posts: 114

    Recording some video lectures by some SDA professors would be indeed really nice. On a sidenote I commend you for writing this series of textbooks on the New Testament. I feel we, as a church, can do a lot more in terms of New Testament scholarship than what we have already produced. I feel we don't have much in terms of NT excluding Revelations right now.

  • Reimar Vetne
    Reimar Vetne Member Posts: 165 ✭✭

    Thanks for your encouragement, Filipe. Our church has traditionally had a strong scholarship in OT and in biblical archaeology. Outside Revelation our NT scholars have not been quite as prolific as our OT colleagues, except for Tom Shepherd who has made quite a Mark (pun intented) in Gospel scholarship.

    With exciting trends in scholarship at large such as a reappraisal of the Jewish roots of Jesus, and the new perspectives in pauline studies, where among other things the unbiblical dichotomy between law (as something negative) and grace (as something positive) has correctly come under critism, it is indeed a good time to an Adventist. Our members and pastors need to be brought up to date on a lot of issues, and so I believe the time has come for our own series of textbooks, and I have for a while felt a calling to help out.

    To whet your appetite, here is the Table of Contents for the volume on the Gospels:

    Unit 1 Introduction
    Chapter 1: Introduction. Purpose is to show the students/readers how much they've got wrong/how little they know about the real Jesus og the gospels

    Unit 2 The teachings of Jesus
    Chapter 2: The kingdom of God
    Chapter 3: Salvation
    Chapter 4: The future (eschatology)

    Unit 3 The gospels
    Chapter 5: Historical reliability of the gospels
    Chapter 6: The synoptic gospels
    Chapter 7: The Parables
    Chapter 8: John

    Unit 4 The Jewishness of Jesus
    Chapter 9: Geographical, physical, cultural background
    Chapter 10: Different Jewish groups at the time of Jesus
    Chapter 11: Jesus’ relationship to the law (with rabbinic parallels)
    Chapter 12: Typical Christian misreadings
     
    Unit 5 Being a disciple of Jesus
    Chapter 13: Learning from the master teacher (Matthew)
    Chapter 14: The self-sacrificing cost of discipleship (Mark)
    Chapter 15: The social radicalness of being a disciple  (Luke)
    Chapter 16: Knowing Jesus intimately (John)

  • Matthew C Jones
    Matthew C Jones Member Posts: 10,295

    I have been intrigued with the recent use of videos in Logos resources - with the release this week of the Pastorum 2012 conference, and the upcoming Logos Mobile Education resources.

    In a more generalized vein, I wonder about the uniform quality of the videos. I did not get the Pastorum 2012 videos but I did see a forum post about the videos being small. I hope all videos in Logos can be displayed in full screen mode and are of high quality. I encourage anyone making such videos to insist on these two characteristics; High quality & Full screen.

    Thanks for allowing me this digression. I just want all resources to be enjoyable & useful. 

    Logos 7 Collectors Edition

  • Lynden O. Williams
    Lynden O. Williams Member, MVP Posts: 8,973 ✭✭✭

    With exciting trends in scholarship at large such as a reappraisal of the Jewish roots of Jesus, and the new perspectives in pauline studies, where among other things the unbiblical dichotomy between law (as something negative) and grace (as something positive) has correctly come under critism, it is indeed a good time to an Adventist. Our members and pastors need to be brought up to date on a lot of issues, and so I believe the time has come for our own series of textbooks, and I have for a while felt a calling to help out.

    To whet your appetite, here is the Table of Contents for the volume on the Gospels:

    Make sure that Logos has the opportunity to publish it. This is stuff that I would be interested in.

    Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Reimar Vetne
    Reimar Vetne Member Posts: 165 ✭✭

    Definitely, Lynden. Assuming Andrews University Press will take on my project, since they have started publishing a lot through Logos I don't think there will any issue with making it available here.

    I am more curious about the possibility of publishing video lectures through Logos. I would completely understand it if Logos for quite a while wants to restrict videos to their own productions, to test out this new avenue and iron out any wrinkles in the technology. And to give their own Mobile Ed products a flying start with exclusive use of video streaming from inside Logos.

  • Lynden O. Williams
    Lynden O. Williams Member, MVP Posts: 8,973 ✭✭✭

    Reimar, my experience with Logos has been, if there is a demand, they will rise to meet the challenge. Find out from your students, if they are interested in one or several videos, similar to what Mobile ed is presently doing.

    Have Logos put them on pre-pub. They can be good for distance education, and someone may be able to earn credit after completing the required course work.

    Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Lynden O. Williams
    Lynden O. Williams Member, MVP Posts: 8,973 ✭✭✭

    Ats, has a list of schools offering six or more courses online. See no reason why IATS cannot do the same. Put the videos in Logos, have the students complete the course work and receive credit.

    Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Randy W. Sims
    Randy W. Sims Member Posts: 2,272

    I wonder about the uniform quality of the videos. I did not get the Pastorum 2012 videos but I did see a forum post about the videos being small. I hope all videos in Logos can be displayed in full screen mode and are of high quality.

    FWIW, I posted about small Pastorum videos, but that was only on Android tablets (and fixed for the next beta). I hadn't seen any other posts about small videos, but may have missed it. They do look good on the PC screen at any size, including full screen; no pixelization or anything. The only flaw is a little bit of stutter or ghosting of movement occasionally which I'm not confident enough to claim is either in the encoding or the playback, but I haven't seen that type of artifact in Amazon Instant, YouTube, or Netflix so I'm leaning toward the encoding. It's not major but it is noticeable. And occurs both streaming and downloaded. Overall I'm enjoying them. Definitely worth the $25.

  • Matthew C Jones
    Matthew C Jones Member Posts: 10,295

    Definitely worth the $25.

    Good to hear your report. Now I will look forward to Logos based videos. I guess Pastorum is also worth $35 (now that I cancelled my Pre-Pub and it has shipped.) 

    Logos 7 Collectors Edition

  • Reimar Vetne
    Reimar Vetne Member Posts: 165 ✭✭

    Some readers of the Logos forum balked at the price of the upcoming Logos Mobile Ed. It is certainly inexpensive compared to accredited college courses, but that is not exactly an apple to apple comparison.

    Maybe a better comparison is with academic-level video courses from companies like the The Great Courses (formerly The Teaching Company).

    An excellent 12 hour video course on the Book of Revelation by Dr. Craig R. Koester costs $60 for 12 hours, which equals $5 per hour of lecture.

    http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=6433

    Logos Mobile Education in pre-pub charges $999.95 for 57 hours, which equals $17.50 per hour of lecture.

    That is more expensive than the Great Courses, but the Logos offering does include integration with the Logos electronic library, so the learning experience will be more active and deeper.

    If Martin Weber could get some Adventist professors in front of a camera to produce video lectures, I hope the pricing could be somewhere between the Great Courses and the Logos Mobile Ed, making it accessible to a wider audience. Maybe $99 for a 12 hour course would be a sweat spot.

    So Martin, go and charm Richard Davidson, Roy Gane, Jacques Doukhan, Jon Paulien, Tom Shepherd, George Knight and others to smile and teach to a camera!

  • Lynden O. Williams
    Lynden O. Williams Member, MVP Posts: 8,973 ✭✭✭

    So Martin, go and charm Richard Davidson, Roy Gane, Jacques Doukhan, Jon Paulien, Tom Shepherd, George Knight and others to smile and teach to a camera!

    [Y]

    Mission: To serve God as He desires.

  • Martin Weber
    Martin Weber Member, Logos Employee Posts: 545

    Reimar, Logos Mobile Ed offers great potential for the SDAs, given our extensive educational system--stretched as it is for funds to sustain all its curriculum with live teachers. I am having conversations here with top leaders here about possibilities, and also with church leaders in the field (chaplain leaders right now) for those who might teach courses. Logos’ philosophy is: “Put them on a plane and we will record their video and get it integrated with their curriculum into the Logos ecosystem. I can’t say much in the open now, but I have no doubt that Logos will be a major contributor to SDA education. Not right away, perhaps, but in time.

  • Martin Weber
    Martin Weber Member, Logos Employee Posts: 545

    Reimer, maybe you could be one of the SDA presenters.

    Like I say, everything is too early for specific plans, but Logos will shortly be the dominant player in academic Mobile Ed, and I believe SDAs will have our own benefit with that. No question about it!

  • Martin Weber
    Martin Weber Member, Logos Employee Posts: 545

    Important point, ST. They have a special uniform studio set for ME and everything is being done top notch. Logos has a way of doing things right. Dr. Heiser (OT guru at Logos) has both taught and taken classes by conventional academic video, and he has led in crafting a superior interactive educational experience that fully leverages the 36,000 volume Logos library.

  • Martin Weber
    Martin Weber Member, Logos Employee Posts: 545

    Dr. Heiser is an authority in the OT roots of the Messiah. Four years ago during a visit he had a hallway conversation with me about the Son of Man in Dan 7 being a divine messianic figure in ancient Hebrew tradition. That lost some steam in the 1stC AD when Christians exploited it to promote Jesus as the divine Messiah.

    That conversation made me want to be work at Logos, and four years later that dream came true and I am here as your rep to serve the SDA market.

     

  • Martin Weber
    Martin Weber Member, Logos Employee Posts: 545

    I'd also love to see all those guys you mention come to town and record ME classes here at Logos. BTW as far as pricing, you are correct that access and integration into the huge library of Logos is computed into the value of the cost. What Logos is doing is unique.

  • Martin Weber
    Martin Weber Member, Logos Employee Posts: 545

    Well guys, it was great to drop in and chat but I'd better get back to my title acquisition quest.

  • Reimar Vetne
    Reimar Vetne Member Posts: 165 ✭✭
  • JohnB
    JohnB Member Posts: 1,085

    I wonder about the uniform quality of the videos. I did not get the Pastorum 2012 videos but I did see a forum post about the videos being small. I hope all videos in Logos can be displayed in full screen mode and are of high quality.

    FWIW, I posted about small Pastorum videos, but that was only on Android tablets (and fixed for the next beta). I hadn't seen any other posts about small videos, but may have missed it. They do look good on the PC screen at any size, including full screen; no pixelization or anything. The only flaw is a little bit of stutter or ghosting of movement occasionally which I'm not confident enough to claim is either in the encoding or the playback, but I haven't seen that type of artifact in Amazon Instant, YouTube, or Netflix so I'm leaning toward the encoding. It's not major but it is noticeable. And occurs both streaming and downloaded. Overall I'm enjoying them. Definitely worth the $25.

    I noticed the stutter as well. It seemed rather odd as the sharpness at full screen was excellent on my PC. My video card is not the fastest around but not that bad. Nether was my internet download speed a limiting factor. Very odd.

  • Edwin Sully PAYET
    Edwin Sully PAYET Member Posts: 251

    I think Dr Paulien did a some Cds videos on Revelation.

  • JohnB
    JohnB Member Posts: 1,085

    With exciting trends in scholarship at large such as a reappraisal of the Jewish roots of Jesus, and the new perspectives in pauline studies, where among other things the unbiblical dichotomy between law (as something negative) and grace (as something positive) has correctly come under critism, it is indeed a good time to an Adventist. Our members and pastors need to be brought up to date on a lot of issues, and so I believe the time has come for our own series of textbooks, and I have for a while felt a calling to help out.

    As a lay-member I feel that text books also available to lay-members in a digital format at a reasonable price are very very long overdue and I very much look forward to putting in a pre-pub order when they get written!

  • JohnB
    JohnB Member Posts: 1,085

    I think Dr Paulien did a some Cds videos on Revelation.

    Yes Jon did "Simply Revelation". Four lectures over 2 DVDs (supplied with the ppt files) totaling 3 to 4 hours

    So did Roy Gane "Alter Call" , Four 45/50 min lectures on one DVD that he describes as a 'companion to his book of the same name'.

    I still have both sets.