Here are a few tech elements from our midweek program that worked well…and one that did not.
ProPresenter Remote:
We use ProPresenter (and recently upgraded to ProPresenter 6) and the ProPresenter Remote App. It is easy for a student or volunteer to use, and since it is wireless they do not have to sit in the back of the room. I also use it while teaching. I could let someone else do it but it is a nice visual of the current and next slide for me while I am teaching.
Race This! Vol 2:
We usually play one game per youth gathering, and if I can find a game that gets everyone involved, I will use it. This week we used several videos from Race This! Vol 2. Race This! has 10 different style race games, they are video files with three animated racers. Click here to download a free sample from the Simply Youth Ministry store. Quickly and easily drag and drop these files into a ProPresenter playlist (they work great in PowerPoint and Keynote too). I add the races to a presentation in random order so students do not figure out a pattern. To play, I ask students to choose their racer by standing on the left side, right side, or middle of the room…winning racers move on and choose again. If you want to grab your own set of Race This!, click here to get 20% off!
Graphics
I am not a graphic designer, but I know some great places to get free graphics for sermon series. Here’s a previous post with several links to free graphics. We downloaded graphics for our most recent series from one of these sites.
WI-FI FAIL
The tech fail this week was our Wi-Fi. We were using our ProPresenter remote trough our church’s open Wi-Fi network. Sometimes this works…this week it failed (the remote disconnected and would not reconnect) and I knew better but was too lazy to walk to my office to grab our AirPort Express. I do not understand Wi-Fi networks enough to explain why this happens, but the bottom line is I like to setup a local network in our youth room using this $99 AirPort Express and all my Wi-Fi enabled devices just work. Our IT guy does not like it, but I love it. Remotes and Apple AirPlay are buggy over a big network (infact I cannot get AirPlay to work at a hotel or Starbucks). When I setup my own network, I add a password. This ensures I’m the only one on the network. I do set it up and take it down every week to make my IT guy happy.
I just have a couple questions, hoping you might be willing to answer. When you set up your Airport Express in the youth room, did you connect it to the internet? Or was it just the local connection between devices that you needed?
How big is the youth room? Does the Airport Express cover a good amount of area?
Last, have you ever used it to project wirelessly?
thanks!
Shawn
I do hook it up to the internet but you don’t have to. Our youth room is big but wide open, coverage is good. I have used it to project. Buy one from Best Buy, if it does not work well in your room you can return it. Hope that helps.