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.