My Sun

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Originally uploaded by TheSportyGuy

Here is a picture of one of the greatest loves of my life. He brightens up everyday...that's why I call him my "sun". Soon, I will post I picture of my daughter...my "moon".

Survey Results "So Far"

O.K. A special thanks goes out to everyone who has taken my survey, I really appreciate it. Lets review the results, shall we?
6 People from KIN710 were given a survey about sport preferences and:

83.3% prefer team sports over individual sports
50% prefer contact sports over non contact sports
100% prefer a predator as a mascot over an animal that would be considered prey
When asked which sport is your favorite contact sport:
33% prefer basketball, 33% prefer football, 16% prefer boxing, 16% prefer rugby and 0% prefer Ultimate Fighting.
When asked which sport is your favorite non contact sport:
33% prefer tennis, 33% prefer badminton, 16% prefer ping pong, 16% prefer golf and 0% prefer Racquetball

It surprises me that no one chose Ultimate Fighting.

Survey Tools Online

A very useful survey tool online is Survey Monkey. This is a very quick and easy way to make and distribute a survey. I went ahead and made a quick sport preference survey and sent it to Prof. Sailor and four of my KIN710 peers. I've provided a link below for those who would like to take my five question survey.

KIN710Survey

Flickr

Flickr is a fun photo sharing site that allows all of your family and friends look at each others photo albums. I have created a flickr account and have added numerous photos to my album. The picture that I've included for this blog is a picture of my family and I at Universal Studios. By the way. The Mummy ride is outstanding! Maybe in the future I could get my students to create an account so that everyone could get to know each other better.

Universal Family Picture

Professional Portfolios, Plaxo, and Linkedin

The portfolio site is nice. It has more of a private feel to it. Plaxo I really like because it pretty much has everything. Such as ways to network, links to all of your favorite sites and even your blog, facebook, and twitter account. Linkedin seemed to me more like a place merely for networking and trying to find employment. I didn't like how you had to make your account public for a certain amount of time in order to create an account. I chose to allow public access for a week. I hope nothing bad happens. I think it is kind of scary having so much personal information flying around over the internet. Who knows what someone could do with a little personal information? I don't know. There are definitely a lot of pros to all of this technology but unfortunately there are also cons that go along with it.

I have invited Prof. Scott Sailor to both my Plaxo and Linkedin accounts.

My Digital Portfolio

I just finished creating my first ever digital portfolio. It contains 6 pages of information. 1 - Resume, 2 - References, 3 - Professional Memberships, 4 - State Certification, 5 - My P.E Philosophy and 6 - My Assessment Examples. It took me a while to do but once I got the hang of it things went pretty smoothly. Feel free to check it out.

Gary's Digital Portfolio

Image Generators

Here is a picture of my son. This is a side of him that I haven't seen before and that I hope to never see again. Personally I prefer the rosy cheeks and big brown eyes. I created this image from Photo Trix and I've provided the link. By the way I've just figured out how to create a link (yeah!). Image generators are fun.

Phototrix

The Library Thing

O.K. I've created my account on The Library Thing and I've added 5 of my favorite books. Here is my link:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/sportyguy81

I think this web site is great for avid book readers, people looking for good reads, and or people who have enough time to read books. I like the fact that it promotes communication and dialogue amongst readers. It's always a good thing when people can get together and express their opinions with one-another. I just wish that I've read more books in the past. My joy in life was running around outside and playing games and sports. I'm really more of a movie person myself. Although reading definitely has its advantages, I read to my son every night and I'll do the same for my daughter. When they can read well on their own we'll have a reading hour where mommy, daddy, son, and daughter can sit down and enjoy their own book :)

My "Library Thing" Book Catalog

Pod Cast Search Engines

I've again discovered something that I've never seen before and never knew about. There are so many informative podcasts from PodCast.com and PodCastalley.com. I found some really good stuff related to health such as TPN:The Health & Fitness Show, Health Digest and PRI's Global Health Podcast. TPN: The Health & Fitness Show is an Australian health show that can provide another perspective on health from across the globe. Health Digest is a health show that offers bits of information about health. PRI's Global Health Podcast keeps you informed of global health issues and is co-produced by BBC World News.
There was also a plethora of informative fitness podcasts. Just to name a few are Worlds Fittest Man, The Fitness I.Q and Fitness attack. Worlds Fittest Man is produced by Joe Decker who once won the title of the "Worlds Fittest Man", he gives exercise advice and tips on basically anything fitness related. The Fitness I.Q is an innovative show produced by a panel of fitness experts that focusses on food, cutting edge workouts, relationships, fitness trends, latest gadgets and technology and much more.
These podcasts are great deposits of information that I can utilize throughout my career and implement in more P.E program, I'll be able to facilitate a wealth of information and better improve the lives of the future generations of classes. This was good!

My Favorite You Tube Video So Far

This video symbolizes a couple of things. First, it symbolizes a person achieving their dream through hard work (3 years of piano lessons), perseverance, and a little raw talent. Second, it's an example of how the internet now allows normal people to explore their creativity and share it with the rest of the world. I'm happy for this boy (Greyson Chance).

YouTube shows a lot of promise in providing innovative ways to explore the world of education. Students instead of using poster board for projects can do an informative video on skills, rules,or strategies and post it on YouTube for the rest of the world. I'm definitely interested in incorporating YouTube into my P.E program. I think the kids would really enjoy it and it would be exciting for me as well

Grace on Earth, 06-01-10

This is a picture of my beautiful baby girl Grace Ella Ward, born last Tuesday at 8:01pm, 8 pounds 4 ounces. I've tagged this picture "KIN 710" so I could share with you guys. I just figured out how to post a picture, at first it seemed easy and then I got a bunch of code instead of a picture but I played around some more and finally figured it out.

Technorati

Wow. Information overload! This site pretty much has it all. News and information on virtually everything. However, when I attempted to search for "Kinesiology" under Blogs, Tags, and Blog Directory no results were found. I had to type in Physical Education to see articles and information regarding our field. After searching the Blog Directory I'm glad to see that "Living" and "Green" related articles were the most popular. Again, we have another web site thats overflowing with information created by "people" and "professionals in their fields". It's going to take a while for all of this information for my brain to absorb.

Web 2.O

I was reviewing the Web 2.O site and one thing that I really found interesting was iStats. This site was about creating your own personal workout routine and being able to keep up to date with the progress you've made. This is something P.E teachers can easily incorporate into their program. Another really fun health site that is really good for teaching students about nutrition and helping them develop a healthy diet is MyPyramid.gov. On this free site you can create a daily nutrition journal. You can input what you've eaten for the day and it will show you in detail about what you've eaten for the day, such as how many calories, how much vitamins and minerals, how much cholesterol, and how much fat you've consumed. It's a really good site.

Google Docs

It was fun looking through all of the different types of templates that have been provided by google docs. I could see myself using the spreadsheets for creating my calendar for the school year and unit plan. I could see myself using a spread sheet for planning the cost of going on a field trip with my P.E classes. Also, when I am Department Chair of the P.E program I could see myself using a budget template to keep track of buying equipment and necessities for the P.E department. An activity log would be a good idea to implement with my classes to keep track of each students daily physical activity.

RSS Feeds

I think this is the best way to personalize the internet. It was a pain in the rear and time consuming to go from site to site looking to see if there was any new interesting information out there. Now with bloglines, the websites come to you, making it the web surfer's one stop shop for info on the web. I'm glad that I learned about this site, so far I've subscribed to sites that interest me such as ESPN, Health, Politic sites, and my fellow class member blogs. I plan on using this site to gather useful information relevant for my P.E classes, so I can share the wealth of information that internet provides with my students.

Social Networking Article

After reading the article on Social Networking. I actually thought that the Internet is the way to create World Peace. After reading about all of the various sites and how so many people use it and interact with each other from all over the world, why not use it for good. Here's my idea. Imagine a forum with a translation application that anyone from any country could go into and communicate without the language barrier. Wouldn't that be outstanding. Remember, I thought of it first! The best thing about the internet is it's potential for good. Spreading knowledge and bringing people together. It's a beautiful thing.

Examining Social Software Article

This article focused on the benefit of utilizing the social media technology for education. One benefit is that students can use the internet to reinforce student learning, basically using the computer as a tutor. Social networking allows students to learn not only from their teacher but from other students who know the material or even other teachers or professionals that can help reinforce the students learning. The social web is a great place to create a social learning community. Students can interact with people all over the world, not just from their class, and learn many different things from many different perspectives. Students would benefit from the variety of perspectives because "everyone learns differently".

"Neomillennial User Article"

Neomillennial User

This article was very educational and informative to a technological novice such as myself. I like what I read about the andragogy approach towards educating students. Andragogy seems to be a very practical and effective approach towards educating today's students. It focuses on keeping the content close to home for the students so that they can apply prior knowledge and take more of an interest in the material. When it the article begins to talk about applying technology into the curriculum it got interesting. I learned the term neomillennial (anyone born after 1982), which I find humerus because of the fact that I was born in 1981. This article illustrated why or how today's technology can be used to benefit today's students. For example, the social benefit of joining and working in groups over the web allows students to show their individuality and express themselves without feeling the weight of everyone's eyes on them. It is a great way for the shy student to come out and mingle with everyone in the class. Students would talk to other students over the web that they wouldn't have ever talked to in person. Students would get to know each other much more so than they would in the class setting.

Dart Fish Movement Analysis Program

A program that interests me a lot is Dart Fish. This software allows a person to analyze movement in innovative ways. I believe they use this technology for the olympics. My favorite feature is the overlay feature in which you can compare a student's technique with that of a professional athlete's. This is done by taking two separate videos recorded from the same angle, finding a common point in the videos where the two are at the same point of a skill, overlaying the videos/people and playing both videos at the same time. This technology allows a person to compare and contrast the two skills one on top of the other, with both people clearly visible. This is a great learning tool and feedback tool for coaches and athletes. If a person wanted to serve like Roger Federer all that person would have to do is get a video clip of Federer serving, then record his or herself serving from the same distance and angle, then load them both into Dart Fish and overlay both videos and play it in slow motion to see what he or she is doing wrong and what Fed is doing right.

Physical Education

Physical Education is arguably one of the most important subjects in education. Perhaps if people took it a little more seriously there wouldn't so many obese children in the United States.