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.