There's a post on the Logos Blog about Logos in the Classroom. Actually it's a commercial for a 15 minute talk by Senior VP Dale Pritchett, which itself is basically a commercial aimed at Seminary professors to convince them to replace their single classroom textbooks with the full Logos Digital Library. If you have the 15 minutes you should listen. If you only have about 7, do a quick read of the PDF transcript.
I have two simple observations to make.

Upgrade the audio please

The audio is probably over compressed. It's either that or the audio is the result of several takes and a bad patch job. Dale comes into various sentences sounding completely different and it seems with different breathing patterns; almost as if they've taken two or more clips and sliced and diced them into one speech. The only reason I mention this is because I found it annoying to listen to. I'm tempted to say it's over compressed because I've experienced the same phenomena with other Logos media. Michael Heiser's excellent lecture "The concept of the Godhead in the Old Testament" was plagued in it's Camtasia format with horrible over compression that introduced all sorts of nasty audio artifacts into the speech. It's worth downloading the MP3 on that one instead of listening to the stream.

Yes, But...

I agree wholeheartedly with the principle message of Mr. Pritchett's speech. But I also see a problem

This has been my fifth year teaching Principles of Spiritual Warfare at the Emmaus Biblical Seminary in Haiti. [links: 1 2 3] I'd like to invite you into the classroom and let you experience the adrenaline rush of teaching and the outrageous Joy of learning.

It seems to happen every year (five years running now). The class starts a little slowly as I try to feel my way around to determine where the students are and what they know. But in this instance slowly is nearly catastrophic. As the first week progresses I find myself increasingly behind schedule. And the farther behind I get, the faster, it seems, the end of the module approaches.

As of now I'm at least one full day of hard study behind. I don't like being behind though not nearly as much as I dislike being ahead of schedule. Being ahead of schedule gives me the distinct feeling that my students aren't "getting it" perhaps because they're not engaging me with questions. While being behind makes me realize I'm going to have to skip something and potentially something that may be very important in the long term.

Yesterday I mentioned that I really hadn't fallen into a rhythm with my translator Guenson. I am grateful for the many of you who are praying for this and I am equally happy to report that today was much better.

Finishing up worldview

We began with a devotional from Psalm 68:1-3 which highlights the power of God and then moved into completing the segment on worldview. After just a touch of review we discussed some specific examples concerning how the unbalanced supernaturalism of Haiti and the minimal supernaturalism of North America bring their own set of problems to our churches.
In Haiti as a general rule superstition is indiscriminately mixed with truth and trying to find the dividing line between one and the other is not often easy. The result is that some pastors think they know something of Spiritual warfare but by and large they do not; their perceptions are just as skewed as their American counterparts but in the other direction. Moreover the outright hopelessness which saturates so much of Haiti tends to transform the way evangelism and subsequent discipleship ministry is done here.

A very brief history of the demonic

Following the block on world view we delved into a very broad (and not very deep) overview of how the demonic was viewed not only by the Bible's human authors but on into early church. Tertullian for example (ca 160-225 AD) believed that everyone had a demon assigned to them; as a result it was fairly common to bring new believers through rites of deliverance from the demonic.

Thinking Like a Christian: Understanding and Living a Biblical Worldview asin: 0805438947

Thinking Like a Christian: Understanding and Living a Biblical Worldview : Teaching Textbook (Worldviews in Focus Series) author: David Noebel,Chuck Edwards asin: 0805438955

Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today's Competing Worldviews author: David A. Noebel asin: 0936163003

I bade farewell to a friend today, Bob Ewell who works with the navigators was here teaching principles of discipleship to the pastoral students at Emmaus Biblical Seminary. He had finished his two week module and was racing back home to be at another function on Friday. I pray he makes it.

I however was just starting out today. People here keep asking how the first day went and my answer is rather consistent: I'm not sure. Nothing went wrong, that's for certain but I haven't really clicked with my translator Guenson either. I will soon, I'm certain of that. I've worked with him before and he's very talented. The first day for me is a bit staccato. First there are brief introductions, then we go over the syllabus and eventually we try to start the class while I ask some questions and try to get a grip on where my students are at.

For the first portion of my Spiritual Warfare classes I start with some basic world view principles. North American Christians typically have a more naturalistic or perhaps I should say, minimally spiritualistic world view. Haitian Christians however have grown up in a culture that is saturated with spiritism. The reality of the matter is that North American Christians think too little of the demonic while Haitian Christians think too much of it. Neither is Biblically balanced and I try to fix that during the course.

Rated: 4.5 out of 5

Logos Lesson Builder is a software package that was built on the Logos engine, but marketed separately from the Logos Library System. Its purpose is to allow small group leaders to create worksheets for lessons using the templates provided. In addition to providing all the tools needed to create, file, and publish, you are also given copies of many of the InterVarsity Press Lifeguide Bible Studies (covering most of the Old and New Testaments) that you can pick and choose your Illustrations and Questions from. If fact, there is no need to edit them at all if you don't want to. If you do choose edit them, you are able to copy only what you want to copy, change the order, insert your own material, and even add leader notes that will only print on the leader's copy when printed out. Or you can simply start from scratch if you prefer not to use existing material. If you do use the included material, you are allowed to produce up to 10 copies of any one lesson without having to pay a royalty. (My understanding this cost is only a few pennies per copy over 10 copies but I haven't confirmed this...)

There are several "styles" to choose from for the look and feel of the lessons, and you can create your own if prefered. I found the choices somewhat dated but usable. When you choose a style and publish, instead of printing, you have the option of exporting to a file such as RTF or HTML...

There is also a small sample collection of clipart included. It would appear that one could purchase full collections of clip art, along with unlocking additional prebuild lessons in the same way the Logos Library System could. I do not know if the additional titles can still be unlocked. The additional collections are: