I think I may actually be done with this coarse! It’s been a long and strange trip, but I’ve made it though safely with all limbs still attached. My brain is a little scrambled, but I think I’ll make it. I think I have learned a lot of useful information from this coarse. Some of the tools I don’t think I’ll use much if at all in my teaching, but it’s nice to know it’s out there if I need it. I would like to keep a blog next year. This has been really fun to write about my experiences with the different things over the past weeks. Thanks Shelly for offering this coarse and keep up the good work. By the way, you did a great job with the poetry the other week at North.
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“I believe technology is a driving factor in the pedagogical paradigm shift. The role for educators has transformed from instructors to that of facilitators, knowledge architects and co-learners. It’s an exciting time to be involved in education. How do you feel about being an educator in the 21st century? “-Posted by Chad Outten As I browsed through Ning, I came to this blog post. I was looking for anyway this site would help me as a Health and Physical Education teacher. This one quote or question really seems to sum up what this class is all about. I don’t know if I agree with him, but it seems fitting to what we have been doing these past months. I hope teachers aren’t becoming unneeded in this new world. It seems that with all this technology, why does a student even need us anymore. They can learn what they need to know with a few pushes of keys or a few clicks of a mouse. Anyway, enough of that. I didn’t see that much benifit to using Ning for me. It didn’t seem as easy to use as Classroom 2.0 for some reason. Classroom 2.0 actually had a few entries having to do with PE. One was a post about a 5th grade class trying to raise awareness about Health and fitness by making workout videos which they posted on teachertube. It was a good program and I may actually use it in my classroom. The other post was from a lady who was trying to get teachers involved in putting PE related videos out there on the web for others to learn from. Some schools that may not have PE programs or home schools may be able to use this info to better teach and prepare their students in both academics and Health and PE. She got quite a few responses from people who are going to help. I think there needs to be more out there on my subject and maybe when I get some time I can use these new tools I have learned to use to put info out there for the world to see. How cool would it be to be an international teacher from my own gym here in Georgia! Page flakes was actually really fun to play with. I think when I have more time I will get into this application more. It’s a little hard to devote much time now with school winding down and a 5 weeks old at home. Anyway, I think this tool is a great addition to my new bank of neat ideas to try next year for my class. I think I am going to try to create a page with interesting health and fitness flakes, sports links and videos, and anything else I can find that relates to my field. I can then release my pagecast so my students can view my page. Each unit I can update and give the history of the sport we are covering as either a link to another site or I can write it out on a sticky note. From that page maybe I can creat a blog for my students so they can talk about what they see. I think this can be a very neat tool for me! http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pA6mvq72TPgwoWnTL5QJ_Ag This is a link to my google doc that I created. I used the spreadsheet tool and found it very easy to use since I am familiar with Microsoft’s product Excel. I think this is a neat tool for teachers to have. They can poll the students about topics in class, teachers can collaborate with each other on curriculum planning and many other things. I think I could use this for kids to log miles for an after school running program. Having an online place to keep track of your progress and see where everyone else is may be a good motivator. The Document tool looked similar to Word in Microsoft and I think it would be pretty easy to use as well. There is just too much to watch on Youtube. Everytime I go to that site I spend way to much time there. I love how they entice you with other videos that are similar to the one you just watched. This task was pretty fun. I found a couple of great videos on Youtube on Physical Education. One was a video on the importance of PE in schools which hit hard with me. The next was a video of a teacher teaching a lesson in his gym. For the how to video I found a good one teaching how to throw a spiral with a football. For my fun video I watched a sports blooper video and those never get old to me and there are a ton of them! Here are two of the videos from Youtube.
I also explored Teachertube. I had never been there before and found a lot of great videos on Physical Education. My favorite videos were of a guy who puts together 5 minute workouts for kids and does them to fun music. Here is one of his videos. Download Video: Posted by Freddie at TeacherTube.com. I thinkt that podcasting is a great way for people to be able to teach and express themselves in today’s world. Who would have ever thought 10 years ago that a little PE teacher in GA could post a recording of himself and potentially have the whole world hear it almost instantly? The internet and it’s new technologies are really making it so everyone in the world can truly have a voice to be heard! There are many ways you can incorporate this tool into your classroom. Here is my first attempt at a podcast! I actually subscribed to a podcast a few years ago. I found a great podcast that put together a really good workout mix of music and timed it to a certain beat count for different workouts. It was really good and free. I didn’t really understand the whole podcasting world then. Since then I haven’t messed to much with podcasts until now. I liked the physical education casts you had on the class site. They covered a ton of different topics such as diabetes, obesity, and motivation. I also downloaded a couple of video podcasts on ITunes. I typed in physical education and found some really neat shows. One was how to teach juggling and the other focused on dance and how it’s important to get men involved in dance to show younger boys in physical education that it is OK to dance without the stigma of being a wuss. I think that now that my eyes have been reawaken to this tool I will use it a lot more to get ideas for my classroom. I can also see how this would be really fun for students to be able to create their own podcasts for a class project. Great tool! This was an interesting site. I had no clue that such a site even existed. I think it’s a great thing to be able to put your goals out there for everyone to see. I have done it myself yet, but I plan to do so. I feel that once you actually get your goals out of your head and on to paper or the Internet, it helps. Suddenly you feel that you are truly committed to what you set out to do since it’s out there in the world for people to see. Nobody wants to be a failure, so by putting yourself out there for others to see it is a great motivator. It’s also really nice to see how many people out there with the same goals as me. Sometimes it’s easy to feel alone on your adventure of fulfilling your goals, but with 43 things, you have a community cheering you on to victory. I realize that not everyone will feel the same as I do. Some people may not like to put themselves out there. I think this is a really neat tool with lots of potential. Well, Shelly I know that you didn’t want to hear this, but I hate books! Just kidding. I am not a real big reader though unless it is required. I can see how this site would be really neat and helpful for those who do enjoy reading a lot. I did search for a book written by Ron Clark and it was neat to see peoples reviews and thoughts about the book. I think it would be a fun activity to get your students to write reviews on the books that they read in class. It would be a little harder to monitor this but, I think the kids would like doing it. Great tool! Delicious is a very neat tool. I like that you can always have access to your favorite sites from any computer. I hate when I’m on another cpu and I remember that I don’t have the site I’m looking for saved on that computer. As a teacher it is nice to be able to do some searching at home and save the good sites and still be able to find them at school as well with out having write them down and risk losing that info before I can use it. Also, I think it is another great way for teachers and other perfessionals to share the information and knowledge that they find. The best teachers are the best borrowers! My delicious site is: http://del.icio.us/BrownUGA1. |
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