One of our main goals in Physical Education is to motivate students to live an active lifestyle and enjoy physical activity. It has become apparent that integrating technology into our lessons will help us achieve this goal. After reading the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S) it is evident that my colleagues and I are just scratching the surface in terms of incorporating technology.
Standard 3 – Model Digital Age Work and Learning.
b. collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.
My colleagues and I have discussed the possibility of setting up a district wide blog highlighting student achievements in physical education from around the district. This blog could have numerous functions. It could inform parents and students of our expectations in Physical Education and discuss the many benefits of living an active lifestyle. We also discussed including newly created lesson plans on the blog and technologies that have been integrated into these lessons. I think it is cool that our teachers are looking for a common place to discuss all the happenings in PE. In our next district meeting we are going to discuss ways to make this blog a reality. I plan on taking the lead in the formation of the blog and monitoring the progress and activity on the blog. Taking on this role is exciting but also intimidating as I have never run a district wide component like this. I will be looking to many resources (colleagues, Walden PLC, technology services) to help me with this project.
Standard 5 – Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
c. evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning.
I have taken on a role within my department of finding new ways to integrate technology into our curriculum. Our PE department agrees that it is imperative to include new technologies into our program to increase student motivation and maximize success. I will continue to use the many resources provided to me through my Walden classes and the many technological resources available to me on the web. To increase my current knowledge on this subject I will also attend various professional development seminars available to me like the NYS AHPERD conference.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteI like the thought that you have about doing a district-wide blog. I feel that it lends credibility to our subject area in a manner that can be understandable for parents. Often times, when a student is not performing well in class, particularly when they are failing, the parents either convey to their child that they should not be failing phys. ed. because it is inferior class or that we are being to strict on our assessment because “nobody could possibly fail phys ed.”
I would love to hear what you guys are doing to integrate technology. I have been doing this with assessment aspects although I find it difficult to incorporate it for students. The focus of my colleagues and me are to ensure maximum activity time is the focus so when I try to consider technology I feel like it takes a back seat to activity levels.
RICH
Mike,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like to me that you are well on your way to dicovering ways to integrate technology into your classes. I know from experience that it is difficult for PE teachers to find new ways to make this happen. Hopefully, we will be able to share ideas in the future about how to make this happen.
I noticed you mentioned the FitnessGram in one of your other blog comments. I was curious to hear your comments about it because our State just implemented it this school year.
Mike,
DeleteI like the idea of creating a blog or website to make your class more accessible to your students and parents. As I was reading your response, I was wondering if your curriculum includes health, as in diet, in addition to physical activity. Maybe a way to integrate technology for your students and raise awareness of your parents would be to have the students create their own fitness blog. Perhaps creating a class site that has the links for the student's blogs would increase the students motivation as well as allow the parents to see what they are learning at the same time. I was thinking of having them blog about their daily calorie intake or just a description of their meals, how many steps they have taken, their heart rate at certain times of the day, or some other sort of activity. The only class time would be to help them create their blogs and email you the addresses. From there, the technology activity would be homework. This type of activity might be just what you need to raise the students awareness levels about their own health as well as make your curriculum more transparent to those that visit your page.
Good luck to you. As a fellow elective teacher, I have heard the same phrase you mentioned, "How can you be failing that class?" You are right! The implication is that the class should be an easy A without much effort. I am confident that making a public site or blog will take away some of those comments as the rest of the community begins to see all that is involved.
Mary Jones
Tracy,
DeleteI feel that the FitnessGram program has been a success in our district. It is a easy program for the students to follow and provides them with a significant amount of information about living an active and healthy lifestyle. Our students have worked hard to achieve numbers in the healthy fitness zone. We feel that the fitness tests are age appropriate and do a nice job testing the health related fitness components.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteWhen we teach our fitness units we discuss the importance of dieting along with being physically active. This topic was always covered more extensively in health class so we never really got to in depth with diets. Health class has since been reduced significantly in our district due to budget cuts so we have tried to pick up more of the nutritional piece in PE class. Your suggestion of linking student blogs to my blog is a great idea. Calorie intake and working heart rates are two topics we have tried to include into our fitness curriculum.