Heart of a teacher

I just wanted to share a video that our administrators shared with us today at Westwood during some of our training and preparation for our big day tomorrow, "meet the teacher" I am so excited for this year, because our kids have something to hold their heads up high about, and this video just reminded me even more of why I am in this profession. I get from my old college buddies "why do you teach there isn't any money" or "you like kids" the answer is more like "I love my kiddos". They are my fuel of inspiration for what I am doing. I hope this year goes well for all educators out their and just remember like the video says "it's all about teaching the CHILD" Our principal shared with us today it is not about the new school, because they were worried that the new school wouldn't feel like home, but it is about the people that make this village. Let us all remember that we are here for our kiddos have a wonderful year everyone

Ropes- This is what it is all about

Here is a group of 5th grade boys that I worked with last year called S.T.E.P (Students that Exercise Power), it comes from a ROPES curriculum. Ropes is more than just about climbing 30 foot walls, and hopping out on a line 25 feet up or trying to grab that support bar in mid-air. Ropes has low and high initiatives, which really work on an individual in shaping them into to be responsible, respectful, and understanding of situations that come up. the low initiatives, which there are only some in this video that have to do with building those lines of communication. It teaches them to work through their differences, because the end goal is the same for everyone, and that is to succeed. The thing that really drives the students is like Mr Isleib says "there is a perceived risk by all participants, so that is what drives them into attempting this" The low initiatives really teach you a lot about your students and kids, and even small adult groups. They will surprise you just like you will surprise yourself.

The high initiatives are the even more "perceived risk" for some, because like myself I am not a huge fan of heights, but when it comes to this type of activity I know that it has to be done, and so learning to set up and take down in preparing and cleaning up these types of activities helps you reach personal goals. This will force you to look on the inside of yourself as well as your students, because this has to do with setting personal goals for oneself, and achieving those goals. Once you are up there on your own, it has to do with you and you alone, you have your support system and foundation down below to catch you if you fall, but you are the one in control at this point, the choices you make will help you in your daily growth. So please consider taking this training to become certified the kids love it, and you will love it to, as well as learn about yourself and your kids, and whomever you incorporate this with.

11 tools Post Analysis

I don't think I can say that I have a specific tool that was my absolute favorite, there were quite a few that I enjoyed. I think the wheels have begun to spin even more, it is not that I have not considered adding technology within my classroom. It really boils down to having the resources available, because I have used what we have available at school, whether it is pulling out a projector that we borrow, using the laptop and even videos. I think the door has been opened, now I just have to decide where it is leading me. I enjoyed learning about Photo Story, which was similar to Animoto, but we learn the process of creating one that we can personalize more I think. I also enjoyed learning about google docs and the wikis, as I could see that eventually being a way where we can communicate with our students on certain Health topics or just keeping inform with them without having to give out our mobile number. I also see it as a way of collaborating with other health fitness teachers around the world. I liked Skype, there are so many I enjoyed learning even more about, now I just need to let it all settle and see how things will play out during the school year. I would like to learn a little bit more about the itouch's and just all the options and apps that are available for Health Fitness specifically. I cannot say that there were any surprises just some very informative information that may have cleared up a few things for me and given me some more head knowledge of what they are. We are receiving some netbooks, and itouch's so I am brainstorming on how I want to incorporate those within a classroom of 50-60 students. I think of course it will most likely be for the intermediate grade levels, as far as self-exploration, because of it needing to be developmentally appropriate. But I am definitely ready and open for trying things as long as they do not take away from the students.

Tool 11: Digital Citizenship- Benefits vs. Risks

I would probably be applied with the students in this case, as it seems that my generation was on the verge of a major technological break through. However when I was growing up, I remember surfing the web, and just all the different resources that were available to me, and now they have multiplied. I was never really informed of all the potential hazards that could come along, now I wasn't a naive child either; meaning I knew right from wrong, which now a days does not always seem to be the case, but then there are some students who are gullible, and have trouble distinguishing what is healthy and what is non-healthy, and I am not just referring to Health Fitness. I was skimming over a lot of the topics discussed here, and just from the bonding I have done with my students and parents I would think their safety would and should be NUMBER 1 in all of our minds whether we are the educator or parents. I am a Coach in SBISD, and just like we teach in the gym or outside that safety is the most important factor. Well we need to equip ourselves with tools to help monitor our students and their work, and have securities set up for "predators" that seek out our children. So much can be revealed online, you can find out where people live and phone numbers now a days at the touch of a few buttons. We need to help our students in being able to determine what is good for us and what is bad or can have potential of turning into something dangerous. They talk a lot about Facebook, and I believe there used to be an age requirement, however I know multiple kids from even my school have requested to be my friend, and I simply do not confirm them. That is a huge data base that someone can easily locate your child on. I think number two would be almost in order with one of the websites we were directed to read about on this and that was Etiquette, just like we have rules in our classrooms, homes, schools, public, there are certain rules I think that students and even adults should follow. They mentioned a discussion on bullying online, and I can tell you on numerous counts of when students I knew of were going to fight because so and so was talking about them on myspace, I think pulled these students and told them not only do we know you are "beefing" but we also know you want to fight, but this is just an informal way of talking about someone else which can then lead to something even bigger if not handled. We need to be mindful and respectful of others, because there are also ways we can get in trouble for what we write. Number 3 is definitely responsibilities students need to know about being online. I think there are multiple stories online of when students knew about others being unhappy, and then that person eventually committing or attempting suicide. It is the students responsibility just like it would be in school if they knew about something to report it to the correct officials or teachers. I think that as our kids are on the brink of a technology take over that we need to prepare them instead of trying to limit them, because they are going to find ways to access things or use things such as Facebook, Myspace, and AOL instant messenger. We need to teach them at a young age, and put the knowledge they need within their minds, and help them to make those right choices before it is too late. We cannot keep our kids in a bubble, but we can try to teach them and prepare them as much as possible, I think a lot of our students are not aware of the potential dangers, and I am not trying to justify anything for them, but even a lot of adults are not aware of how severe the consequences can be. We need to educate our students before even unleashing them into the virtual world.

Tool 10: LETS GO MOBILE with I-SERIOUS (APPLE)

Apple seems to be the leading competitor when it comes to devices, and other handhelds that host multiple apps, internet, at the touch of your fingers. Sounds like an apple promotion almost :), however I think one of the newest things to compete with Apple and their products are the Android Phones, and if I am not mistaking they are currently releasing devices that are MP3 capable with the "Android" operating system. Basically with these services being hosted by "GOOGLE" itself I think that some of the things we do just alone here on this blog would be more suitable coming from the company that sponsors them. Not to detour here though, some of the cool apps I have noticed not necessarily free when speaking on Health Fitness is the Pedometer app, which records your steps, they have Brainpop- Good Health Topics to discuss or even allow students to have at their fingertips, and the neat thing about this program is that they have subtitles, and if on the 1st generation ipod touch they do not have an external speaker, so if you have no headphones you would be entirely out of luck. I like the Ifit, which is like a calorie tracker, and also helps you perform searches to find out calorie count on certain foods that may not come with nutritional facts. There is even a program not sure of the name exactly but if you search keywords for exercises, it will pull up the muscle groups and different types of exercises you can do to strengthen and condition those muscles. Again I think it would be nice to sit down with a developer and discuss certain applications that could be created to benefit our specific field (Health Fitness) There is no impossibilities it is just finding the right people and creating the right applications geared towards our students needs. I think the students could use these specific apps listed above to learn and master certain skills that are taught. There are endless possibilities that could be discussed all day about things we would need/want for our classroom. Now in our schools we have wifi, however the only downfall I could see to accessing certain apps that require an internet connection would be if there was not an internet connection present. Most apps once downloaded however would not require an internet connection.

Tool 9: Jing it up and staying connected with SKYPE World-Wide

I think the ideas of Jing and Skype could coincidentally go hand in hand with one another. They are two totally different concepts, now using Jing is kind of neat after researching a little bit about how it can be utilized within the classroom. The example with the librarian is a neat way of helping out possibly in the event that a teacher (health fitness) would need to be out due to illness, staff development or whatever reason, well if the teacher the day before created a Jing and stored it on the 2GB provided the substitute if not having a background knowledge or experience in teaching a health fitness class could prepare by watching this clip of what to do and the activity for the day. It could subsequently be substituted in the event that the teacher just does not have the physical capabilities of delivering the activity for that day, and could be projected onto a huge wall or screen and this way the lesson is still taught, and the class is not behind. I think this could also be helpful in the event of again demonstrating a skill as simple as a "ready position" and then the students that are still having difficulty mastering the skill can watch as the teacher continues to monitor. I like the idea of skype, now the only challenge I see is that both people must have the program for it to be free, but it seems like this could be a new virtual way of conducting video conferencing with a parent meeting, or even having meetings with other Health Fitness Teachers who are not able to leave their school. I think this would be a neat way as mentioned for students to conference with each other as well in discussing maybe the game played in the gym today. I could see this eventually taking off internationally, I remember seeing a commercial not too long ago, where they were skyping with a class in china, and I think exposure would be great for other states, countries, even continents to share their ideas of different health fitness activities, or even comparing with other students in certain fitness areas. It sounds s0 exciting to even discuss the possibilities of this becoming a reality.

Tool 8: Video Resources Unlimited

I experimented with a couple of sites, the obvious youtube, but then I checked out blinx, which is the one that compiles from over 150 different sites, and then Hulu. The link below talks about childhood obesity, and how it is on the rise, and if we (Health Fitness Teachers) and others within the school including families make some changes to our curriculum, and diet from the parents then our students will be at risk of getting different kinds of disease even running a risk of death. I was even more disturbed today after discussing with other Health Fitness teachers in my district of how the legislation is trying to reduce the amount of time a child is getting physical activity from the limited time they are receiving already. It is shocking to see how they don't understand that the stress level of a child (Relieved by doing physical activity) plays a role in the child's academic level. The happier a child is the more chance of being successful they have. I strive each school year to bring my students as many different programs as possible that promote physical movement while having fun at the same time. Someone termed it "camouflage exercise" while I do not intend for it to deceive the students, but they do not even realize some of the time that they are exercising because they are having too much fun. This is intended to be fun, and our job is to motivate them to continue this healthy lifestyle after they leave us. The second video I uploaded using the embedding code was the popular dance craze that hit the scene almost a handful of years ago, known as the "Cupid Shuffle" This is actually a step to step of how to perform the dance for those that are not aware of how to do it. It is extremely simple but just like we tell the kids practice practice practice. Happy watching :)
http://www.blinkx.com/watch-video/stress-and-childhood-obesity/PzDIESzzLDE4MM-ubMWRrA


CUPID SHUFFLE HOW TO

Tool 7: Gettin Digital with it- through Story Telling

Digital Storytelling seems to be very similar to Animoto, which is another program I have used online in the past when reliving events that I have coordinated at my school. The above video is just a short snippet of a program called S.O.A.R, which stands for Students Offering Academic Relationships, and this program has been extremely vital for my students and I. The students begin learning basic ball handling skills using basketballs where they eventually progress and move into more challenging skills, such as the Ricochet, Drops, and Spider Dribble. We then choreographed a performance to a recent hit song and the kids began there road to being famous :). This is a little different then Animoto, because you have more freedom to adjust the transitions of your pictures, add commentary, and crop the pictures a little bit more than their site. Now they do offer a free access pass to educators, so that site comes in handy when in a time crunch :). Now I do see this being useful in our particular field of Health Fitness. We reach the Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic learners, but I could see us using this particular tool when demonstrating a skill being learned, because we can take clips of ourselves performing the skill, and this would allow it to be broken down step by step. Therefore when we are monitoring all the students this can be playing constantly on a project or Activboard, (Health Fitness NEEDS ONE) this way students could check themselves to make sure that they are following the correct form. Students could use this tool as well to demonstrate the skills, but would need some extra materials, such as digital cameras to take photos. I would be intrigued to see this put into action, and this way the students could see themselves in action, and that way they could correct themselves, as well as critique each other. This would probably have to be utilized at the intermediate grade levels or specifically 4-5th graders. It is like they say a picture is worth a 1000 words, because here in each photo from the SOAR program you can see the positive energy that each child has.

Tool 6: WIK WIK WIK WIKIIIIIIIIIIII

The most common Wiki that came to mind immediately was Wikipedia as mentioned in the blog for number 6. Today it seems that many people refer to Wikipedia when doing research topics, looking for answers to simple day to day questions, or even in discussion with co-workers. The concepts that correlate with Wiki's seems to be very promising. They have taken a way where you can create a website (some at no charge) to collaborate with so many people from all over the world. The best part about creating and using Wiki's is that you don't have to be a computer programmer and know how to write code to do this. The Wiki's to me seem to be like the "ultimate blog" and on these types of websites that you create others can give commentary, share ideas, add inserts of information that pertain to the topic you discuss. I could see this being used inside but more outside of the classroom/gym, it is like a continuation of education in the virtual world. One of the wiki's I was checking out was students paired up who took a certain topic, wrote a hypothesis, experiment, and data. That could easily be transformed into having a specific topic discussed in class, where in our case let's take the Heart, the students could log on to your Wiki at home or from the library and write down what the heart's functions are, where it is located, and how to keep it healthy. Then as the administrator of your wiki, you could go on and conduct a simple check for understanding, and that could be utilized as a small assessment, but also let you know where your class is as a whole or grade level even. They could also go back on and edit what they put if they found out that they were incorrect later. Now we were asked if the google site may offer better advantages, and I would have to say "Yes" based off the fact that we are already using a lot of google's tools, such as google docs, Google Reader, are email account was set up under google, so I think compatibility and mobility of moving through each tool would probably be a little smoother than using different resources, not to mention not having to navigate to so many different websites. It seems they offer a wiki of a fairly decent memory size and so forth. I think that a universal Wiki could be set up within the district where Health Fitness teachers can log on to and add commentary or just share ideas with other Health Fitness teachers as well as gain knowledge from others around the world that teach in the same profession and this could give access to anyone and everyone to learn and generate new innovative ways of doing things.

Tool 5: Tagging and Social Bookmarking

I just finished creating an account for both accounts, but it seems that Delicious only works with yahoo, so it seems like it may make more sense to use Diigo.. From what I can tell they both seem t0 be user friendly, meaning that for the average joe when it comes to computers that these two applications are pretty simple to use and self explanatory. I do like the concept of being able to bookmark over the web, and then being able to access it from any computer, because I have noticed that I have bookmarked sites on my personal laptop and when I want to access them on my work laptop that I can never seem to find the site again. I even try performing a google search where I try to retrace my steps to find the site again, but 6 out of 10 times am unsuccessful, and then I am the type of person to retry the same steps in hopes that it may pop up for me, which it usually never does. This tool will help me in bookmarking pages that I can have access from anywhere with a computer and internet access, possibly even from my phone in the near future. Not sure how that will pan out because the browsers are not the same, but if it is a host site that stores the bookmarks it may work, but just haven't ever thought to try it out from my phone. I used just two generic sites for testing purposes, but these sites happen to relate to my field of profession (Health Fitness)

http://health.msn.com/
http://tahperd.org/

However the second site is very useful, because it talks about a lot of the legislation that takes place in regards to our field of profession (health fitness) again.

I could see the social bookmarking tool being extremely useful when it comes to like research projects, because then they could easily access the bookmarks from any computer without having to jot down the site or emailing it to themselves, and then having to pull up their emails and signing in and then going back to the sites, this would be a faster reference tool for them at the touch of their fingertip and very manageable. As far as Health Fitness, I think it would be easier for us to hotlink it like we did here for this blog, and then have our students follow our blog to stay up to date, or explore the web page in their own recreational time.

Tool 4: Cool Google Tools (Reader and Docs)

This particular tool was enlightening to me, because I have always heard of this type of technology being available, but I have never participated in a google doc until now. As I was watching some of the youtube footage on this particular topic, I found myself saying "I wish I would have known about this when I was facilitating the after school programs we did" Because I noticed a lot of the after school program required a lot of tedious paperwork. However if the parents and students were trained in this particular area, then when doing permission slips and so forth, I could have the parents fill out their child's form online. I also thought how neat would this be when preparing for a meeting with colleagues how this could be of great help in getting ideas rolling or at least everyone's brains turning because they could add there own notes. I also thought that we could have students record on paper or even an "itouch" certain data onto a template created by the teacher, and this way it could be recorded automatically without us having to go back and enter it in, and with that being a hopeful possibility how this could hopefully integrate within Fitness Gram, and how that would allow more time for activity and less time in the office recording data for students, it would hopefully eliminate an extra step with our huge state test that we do twice a year. All this is hopeful thinking for now, but I definitely think that this is something that could be executable with the right computer programmers and so forth. I liked google reader in the sense that instead of always having to check certain sites we find helpful, that if we were subscribed "we" would be notified of new messages or postings rather than us checking them, and that is one less thing to not have to constantly check, since email is something we check daily anyways as teachers. Like I said I am seeing so many possibilities, but I would like to sit down with someone in our particular field of specialty and let them know what we could really use when it comes to our classroom. Now one draw back I did notice, was I believe, now I could be incorrect as I am not the most technologically advanced, but if they did not have a gmail, they would need to create one as this does not sync correctly with school email for instance...??? Anybody know if this is workable? or something that they are looking into integrating all types of email accounts and types?

Image Generators and Mash-ups

This particular tool/set of tools seems to be a great addition to the bag of tricks that we are beginning to acquire. Just from the little experience I have with Animoto and Flickr to showcase some photo shows of my students and Health Fitness events such as Run for the Arts, S.O.A.R (students offering academic relationships) and many more school and community events. It seemed very promising when seeing these tools I am familiar with mentioned along with Wordle, Dumpr, Spell with Flickr, and many more which I am not as familiar with. Therefore I attempted to sort through each one of these sites offered under tool 3, and the ones that seemed to be user friendly were the ones I mentioned above, Dumpr, Spell with Flickr, and Wordle. In my Wordle example I listed the Fitness Components that we use in our curriculum presently, which can easily be transformed and flipped into a lesson or at least an introduction/lead up for the objective that day. The wheels are slowly but steadily beginning to spin (quality versus quantity), and the more I am thinking of how I will incorporate this within my every day teaching. After completing a few of the tools from number 3, this seems to be progressing in a positive direction, because it is very similar in the way I create my lesson plans. I think that times are changing at the speed of light when it comes to technology, and most of the things they are discussing in this blog, our kiddos are already using this or something of the same nature. The neat thing I would like to see though, which I am sure they have already created is to have this set up on our phones, and then we could use our phones to manage everything, versus lugging around a huge laptop. I imagine this will eventually replace paper, notebooks and overhead projectors all together. There is a new tide of things coming in, and we just need catch on the wave.

Tool 2: Building Community and Comments PLN (Personal Learning Networks)

I think the idea of building a network outside of a network within(School district) is a great concept. This actually reminds me of when I used to participate in an online community such as Xanga, and somewhat like the popular Facebook that we have today. Especially the commenting part when people just simply update their status, and all of our friends comment on what we may be doing at the time. The whole following people and keeping up with them is like twitter, because they update their status continuously throughout the day. Blogging is simply the same thing, and the neat part about it is collaborating with people from all over the place. I could follow someone from another state to see what they might be doing with their curriculum in relation to the Health Fitness world. Even share ideas with others or even inspire others to take an idea and create one from that idea. Like I said the concept is phenomenal, I must say I am a little on the fence when it does come down to what we as Health Fitness educators do and that is having our students stay active, and learn life long leisure activities that can promote a healthy lifestyle. So when my colleagues are pondering the idea of how we will incorporate these skills within our classroom setting or shall I say the gym/outside it will be a challenge, however I am constantly looking for new innovative ways to deliver the instruction and activities to my students. I think this can just be an extra "tool" to add to what we already do in our profession and that it can help to further bridge the gap as far as technology inside and outside the classroom, because our students are in a new era that is constantly changing so it is time for us to adapt as well to reach them. Most of the blogs I chose for now are Health Fitness teachers that I know personally, and I will be commenting later once we get rolling more into discussing the topics at hand directly related to our curriculum, plus I am still learning and exploring where I can find other blogs that relate to my specifics. So I will be commenting soon, but what stood out to me the most was the fact of how commenting can turn a statement into a conversation and furthermore create discussion from just one person to multiple numbers of people.

Tool 1: Blog Set up and Registration

This was actually quite fun and humorous, and the wheels are already turning inside my head on how I would integrate this within my content area, which is Health Fitness. I feel that this task may be challenging since our students are supposed to be moving 70-85% of the time known as MVPA (Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity) However at only tool 1, this does look promising, or at least interesting to say the least. I will keep you all posted on my next 10 tools that I have to accomplish. I must say though hopefully the rest of the journey will be as simple as this task was.