Geocache Challenge in Texas State Parks - Texas Parks and Wildlife [Offi...

This is a nice little video that kind of explains what geocaching is and you could use this to show people that don't know what it is.

Geocaching

This was by far my favorite thing we did in class. I love to go out and explore and that's just what geocaching is all about. I am glad we were introduced to this technology because I am probably going to invest in one myself. I think I could use in P.E. and take students on a hike or a walk to find different caches. I think students of all ages would love an activity like this.

After class I was able to borrow the GPS and went out and found two more caches. The hiding spots are very unique and you really have to keep your eye out. I cant wait to get out and find more.

Clickers

Yesterday in class Dr. Diers introduced us to "clickers." Clickers are a unique way to interact with the students and get their opinions. With using clickers you can poll the class or ask them questions about the content to see if they know their stuff.

In P.E. I would be able to use clickers. I could give students different options to do different activities and have them click in what activity they would want to do. If we are going over football rules I could give them a scenario of a football game and they would click in the right answer based on the rules of football.

I think clickers are a fun way to engage and interact with the students. I also feel like clickers could provide a good conversation starter. After you take a poll of the class, you can then ask the students to share with you or someone they are sitting next to and explain why they clicked in their answer they put.

Smart Board

Today in class we played around with the smart board. When it was my turn to play around with it, I chose to mess around with dissecting a frog. This would be very handy in biology class when the students are getting ready to do dissections. This is pretty handy in the classroom: there is no mess to clean up, you can identify different parts of the frog, anyone can do it, no one can accidentally cut themselves, no students will be throwing parts of the frog at each other, and etc.

There were many handy tools on the smart board and I think a lot of schools will have them in the future.

Cool School Tools

We have been asked to select our top ten school related websites.

1. Edublogs-student and teacher blogs-Teachers can get feedback from students, Teachers and students can come up with new ideas.

2. Edheads-various games including virtual surgery-activities like these can help improve fine motor skills.

3. iTunes-I would let students listen to music as they run or do activities.

4. Mystudiyo-I could use this to create quizzes for my class

5. PollDaddy-I could take polls and figure out what the students think, and find out things they liked or didn't like. Or even vote on activities they would like to do.

6. Teachertube-I could show health related videos

7. Team Treks-Students would be able to work on their team building and cooperation skills

8. Webnotes-Students could use to the web to review class notes

9. Youtube-I could show different videos related to P.E. (like the one I have below).

10. Gaggle-an email for students and teachers-I could use it to communicate with students outside of school if they had questions

Wiki

I wasn't to sure what Wiki was when we were dismissed from class, but now that I have had more time to look at it I am more familiar of what it is. I have found a cool Wiki for P.E. teachers that I would consider joining, but I think if more P.E. teachers joined this and managed it more it could be a really good Wiki.

Some of the things included in this Wiki are: activities, body functions, skills and techniques, evaluating, and more. You click on a specific level of P.E. and once you click on it it will give you these categories for that level of P.E. So if you are looking for some activities for a standard P.E. class you can go to this Wiki and get some ideas of some activities. Also, if you have a good idea yourself, you could add your own activity if you join this Wiki. So if a bunch of P.E. teachers joined this and managed it frequently, it would be a great Wiki.

XerGames PE - Middle School class in progress

This is something that I would like to do more reasearch on, but this looks like a pretty fun P.E. class!

Group WebQuest

For our group web quest, us P.E. majors came up with the idea of "summer Olympics." It is designed for elementary students and gives them a chance to compete in games that mimic some Olympic events.

In the Olympics, many countries from around the world come together to compete as a country and as a team. Since there are so many countries out there we gave students the options to explore them and pick a country that they would like to represent. Once they picked a country they would make a flag to represent their "country" and team. They also would be asked to explore the different events in the summer Olympics so they were familiar with the events if they weren't already.

Then students would compete as "countries" against other "countries in the Olympic events. Rewards would be given to the individuals for winning an event, but since a big part of this lesson would be team work and teams would be rewarded for showing good team work and cooperation.

This lesson would develop students research skills and teamwork and cooperation skills as well. As a future educator I believe those are some important skills to develop.

QuestGarden

I have found a very cool P.E. webquest at questgarden.com. It is for elementary students and is called "Winter Olympics."

The class divides up into two teams and competes in series of games such as: scooter hockey, curling, speed skating, and a torch relay. This would be a great team building experience and it would definitely keep the kids busy. If I become an elementary teacher I could use this webquest, especially if the Winter Olympics were going on. I think the students would really enjoy something like this.

Another good idea would be to let them come up with their own country and flag. Elementary students have some of the most creative minds and I think it would be interesting to see what those kids could come up with; maybe making the flag could be an art project they do in art class.

Presentation aided by PowerPoint

I thought my presentation went alright. I wish I would have practiced a little bit more but for the most part I thought it was successful. I thought my PowerPoint was good and that I did a good job using it as an aid instead of as my presentation. I elaborated on what was on the slides, the slides were easy to see and read, and there wasn't too much information on any slide. Putting the words together is the hard part and I need more practice. The more I practice the easier it will flow.

So far I have seen some interesting presentations aided by PowerPoint and I am anxious to see more and go on more virtual tours.

My Virtual Tour

I have a couple ideas on what I what I would like to do for my virtual tour presentation. I am very interested in baseball so one of my ideas is breaking down the steps of swinging a baseball bat. The baseball swing may seem like an easy concept but after being broken down there is a lot to it. My other idea is how to tie a tie. I think knowing how to tie a tie can be essential to everyone. If you are a lady reading this you are probably asking yourself, "When am I ever going wear a tie?" A couple reasons ladies might want to know how to tie a tie: first, if you have a son someday you might need to tie a tie for him or teach him how to tie a tie; second, maybe you meet a guy who becomes your boyfriend/husband and he doesn't know how to tie a tie, you might want to teach him if he doesn't already know how. For men it is important to know how to tie a tie because when you go into an interview you are going to want to look as professional as possible and many people choose to wear ties.

Any opinions on what topic to choose?

Technology Advances in the P.E. World

It has come to my interest to research and find more about the technology advances in the P.E. classes. I have heard about P.E. classes using Dance Dance Revolution and Nintendo Wii for physical activities. I know when I was in high school we had a T.V. and DVD player and used them to do kick-boxing. Technology has made advances gaming consoles and are now being used in P.E. classrooms. I would like to research and find out: how many schools use some sort of video gaming for physical activities; if its going to continue to grow; how schools actually use them; and the positives and negatives of using video games in P.E. classes.

Using PowerPoint

Today in class we talked about how to use PowerPoint effectively. PowerPoint can be a very useful tool if you use it effectively. Some things to think about when making a PowerPoint are background, font size and color, and the information put on the slide.

When making a PowerPoint you want to use a background that isn't to distracting, but not to boring as well. You want to use fonts easy to read, and avoid using all capital letters. Also, you want to use a font color that is easy to read as well. When making a PowerPoint you want to avoid putting to much information on one slide. You want to put key terms or points and then as a teacher talk in depth about your key points or terms. Do not read right off the PowerPoint-give your students time to read the slide and then talk about it.

Other things to consider: using graphs can also be useful; Animations can be used, but over using them can cause distractions.

Can Wordle Be Helpful?

In class, we introduced ourselves with this thing called wordle. Wordle can be found on the Internet and what you do is insert a bunch of words about a topic. For our class we were asked to do a wordle about ourselves, so we inserted words that could be used to describe or tell something about us. You can use a word more than once and the more you use that one word the bigger it will be on your wordle. You could say, the bigger the word the more importance it has for the topic.

At the end of class we were asked to come up with ways wordle could be helpful in the classrooms. As a future P.E. teacher wordle could be useful tool in numerous ways. One way could be introductions to a sport that we would be getting into. As a class we could use wordle to come with words to describe a particular sport. Another useful way to use wordle would be student introductions like our class did. Students would get a chance to share something about themselves and get to know each other a little better. Maybe students would find common interests with other students and make new friends. Another way I could use it is have the class come up with healthy activities they could do outside of school. This would give students ideas of activities they could do outside of school and help them maintain healthy lifestyles.

Not only do I think wordle could be used in any classroom, I think it could be useful in any classroom. Wordle is quite a bit different then a normal power point, and wordle would create more classroom interaction. I think many students would enjoy wordle and would give them ideas from other classmates they might no have thought about.