Sunday, November 30, 2014

C4T

My first C4T was  Mr Robinson. I chose him from the list we were given. Mr Robinson is known as the PE Geek and once you visit his blog, you will see why. The blog post I read was about a project he put together for his students. He got the idea from a show and made it his own. Each group of students was given a box of random sports items and had to make up a game using them. I thought that was a great way to bring creativity in the gym. 

The next person I chose was Dylan Blain. The post I read into was about a new app he was looking forward to using called Sportsplan. This app will let you create drills digitally so you can present them to your students or team that you may be coaching. To me, the drills looked simple to understand and I feel it's better to have more than one way of demonstrating a new task. Many people learn differently and this is another way to teach the same material. Dylan's Blog

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

C4K Summary Post

My first student in November was Aubrey. She didn’t really like the project she had to do, but she did it anyways. I explained to her that I liked that. I liked that she did a project she had no interest in and did a fair job at it. She discussed how surprised she was to discover that in the whole movie, The Hunger Games, everything happened underground. I told Aubrey I was interested in seeing the movie now and will more than likely watch it. She did well on her spelling and grammar.
Next, I had Quziyah. She did a daily activity using poplet. Her poplet was focused on one word that was in the center. All of the other words around it were synonyms for that word. I told her she did great on her creativity and that I learned new synonyms for the word she used. She seems like a bright child that loves to learn new things.

Lastly, I had Archita. In this blog, she talked about Halloween and how her sister liked to play tricks on her. I told her I could relate to that because I have two younger brothers that I use to tease when we were younger. She loves candy and had fun trick-or-treating with her family, although, her sister does scare her at times. Archita's Blog 

Monday, November 24, 2014

Post #14

John Klein’s article, Teaching Our Children Can Be a Profession, has many controversial questions for educators and anyone interested in that field. There were some things that I personally did not agree with, but then there were some that made great points. Three problems that I saw were choosing the best prospective teachers for our schools, seniority among teachers, and teachers being seen as a profession.
When administrators look for teachers, they need to find the best choice available. No one should be hired just from knowing their family, or maybe because they are an alumni of that school. Teachers have to have a solid knowledge base if they intend on getting a good job. I agree that it’s a problem that administrators need to take way more seriously.
The column discussed that newly hired teachers are normally the first to be let go in the incident of letting go teachers. This means that teachers that are tenure get to keep their job even if they aren’t the best one for the job. How is this right? I don’t agree, obviously. I believe the best way to handle a tough situation like this is to evaluate how the students are doing in the classes and go from there. You may have hired a great teacher last year, who had a successful year with his/her students and just fired that individual because they are new in the program.
Lastly, teachers need more credit. We spend so many hours with students. Students that love to learn, look forward to new objectives, and are a joy. We also teach the students that are disruptive, bully other students, and simply can’t wait to leave because they hate school. Teachers are looked at as a joke. Any time I tell someone I am going to be a teacher they always say, “You aren’t going to make any money”. When did it become about the money. Educators don’t simply wake up and say, “Hey, I think I’ll teach because it’s fun”. No. We know what we are going to make and realize it’s not about that. We want to make a change. We want students to be more successful than what we were. People don’t look at teachers as professionals. Well why not? I don’t feel like it’s right for lawyers and doctors to be the most respected professionals. Yes, they are greatly important and very critical, but how did they obtain their knowledge? A teacher is responsible for that. All teacher deserve much more credit than what they receive.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Post #13

List at least three technologies you could use in the physical education classroom and then explain how you would use them.

Heart rate monitors
pedometer

Blood pressure monitor
blood pressure monitor

For my blog post this week I chose three technologies I think would be very beneficial for students who take P.E. Every year students participate in the Physical Fitness Assessment to see where they fall in being physically fit. This is essentially how I got my idea for this post. I would like to create an assessment that students would use to track their blood pressure, heart rate, and weight. Students would be assigned a numbered pedometer that they would have to keep up with for the entire assessment period. Turning the pedometer back in would benefit their grade and if they do not, they would lose a significant amount of points. The reason for this is funding. I need to reuse the pedometers over the years. The American Heart Association has a program called Heart360 and I have created my own account to demonstrate how it works. Here is the link Heart360: Cortnee Meyers. Students will create an account and will make it view able for me to check on their progress. Twice a year, we will do a two week assessment. Every day, students will come in and check their blood pressure. Once they do, they will record it in the iPad’s we have available on the Heart360 program. Hopefully, we will have at least five to work with. When students input their blood pressure, heart rate and weight, it will show if their health is bad, fair, good, or excellent based on weight and age. We will have a scale for students to measure their weight. Every day for these two weeks, two tables will be set up. The first table will have five blood pressure monitors. The second table will have iPads for recording information. Once every one has done this, we will do other activities that the American Heart Association suggests for establishing a healthy heart. Here is a list of activities: developing jump rope skills, basketball skills, hula hooping, and jogging.
jump rope for healthy heart

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

C4T

Summary for 1st post
In my first post, I was able to tell Coach Nathan who I am and why I was commenting on his post. His most recent post was long and had what he had been doing in September. He was a keynote speaker at a seminar on integrating technology into Physical Education. He also talked about being able to collaborate with other teachers and how much he enjoyed it. I think he is going to be a great resource and someone I can learn from.

Summary for 2nd post
I really enjoyed this post. The teacher seemed to have so much enthusiasm. She referred to knowledge as food and as long as we get the healthy stuff, that's all that matters. I especially liked this because I feel many teachers think there is only one or two ways students should learn and that's not true. There are dozens of ways to deliver a lesson and when determining the best one, you should think about you students. She has also created parent education sessions so parents can learn the same technologies their children are learning. What a fabulous idea. Parents could then help their child if they had any questions and could also encourage them to do better work.

Summary for 3rd post
My third post was done by Ms Andrea. Ms. Andrea's post related to thinking outside of the box and teaching our students to learn this way. My favorite thing she said was about making a choice to either stay in the box or get out, and if you do get out of this boxed in way of thinking/teaching, throw the box away. That is so true and I felt like it made perfect sense. I've seen many teachers try to get students to think outside of the box when they teacher is actually still in it. It's crazy, but it happens.
think outside the box