Giving Thanks

Taking time to be with or remember our loved ones is the essence of Thanksgiving. As teachers, we should also be thankful of the plentiful resources available for all levels and disciplines. Some of the free resources and online guides that I've neglected to feature include: Lifehacker - most popular top 10's of 2008 - Persuade people subconsciously, Chris Brogan - social media master gives you 50 ways to take your blog to the next level, send text messages via e-mail, Think Anatomy, Zamar, Gizmodo's post on video formats, NYT article on reaching teens with autism, GTD-free is a personal TODO/action manager inspired by GTD (Getting Things Done) method by David Allen (see David Allen & Co. official site), Pazera - audio extractor, Audicity - free open-source all-purpose audio editor, Gmail Drive Config - mount more than one Gmail account as a remote disk drive Excel Chart Advisor, Busuu , Frengly, and Mango - language learning sites. Given the plethora of free resources and the ease of online tools and social networking sites there really is no excuse for not learning new skills to help you become a Rockstar PE Teacher. To see previously featured resources that can help you and your students just click on the "resources" label in the right-hand column of this blog and you'll find stuff for nutrition, physical activity, disability awareness, and many more topics.

Reading this short post further supports our hopes for you to become effective and powerful communicators as teachers and leaders. In Nagesh Belludi's blog you can find more tips on how to make an impact in all that you do.

In personal communication, the words of a speaker are just a part of his efforts to communicate.The pitch and tone of his voice, the speed and rhythm of the spoken word and the pauses between his words may express more than what is being communicated by words alone. Further, his gestures, posture, pose and expressions usually convey a variety of subtle signals. These non-verbal elements can present a listener with important clues to the speaker’s thoughts and feelings, thus substantiating or contradicting the speaker’s words.

As a teacher candidate/beginning teacher, you will need to communicate positively and clearly with many people. From your mentor teachers, principals, superintendents, parents, athletic directors, university supervisors, vice-principals, other faculty members, students, players, other coaches....the list goes on and on. Remember that communication not only involves the face-to-face encounters, but written documents, phone conversations, e-mails, faxes, text-messaging, instant messaging, and posts to social networking sites, websites, and blogs.
And here is the rest of it.
[Via Right Attitudes]

"Just Trying to Fit In" - Standup Comic with Cerbral Palsy

Josh Blue says he's not naturally funny but he certainly doesn't look uncomfortable delivering his routines. Bringing awareness to people with disabilities is one of his main missions and I think he does a wonderful job of delivering his message. And here is the rest of it.

Utterli Utterlicious - Podcasting for health

Ate a cup of whole-wheat spaghetti and chicken marsala.

Mobile post sent by ExergameLab using Utterli. Replies.

Utterlicious

Podcast your dining experiences! Upload photos of your meals and share delicious descriptions of the foods consumed.

If you enjoy your food, you'll be more mindful when you eat it. If you're mindful when you eat, you'll be conscious of what you're putting in your body. If you're conscious of what you're putting in your body, you'll be likely to choose healthier foods (most of the time, anyway.)

My exergaming colleague Biray Alsac (Befitt with Biray) showed me this website that allows you to upload audio, video, photos, and text to your Utterli account, which you can in turn share with your friends. Always the fitness "Maverick" of social networking, Befitt teaches her students how to use technology to assist their fitness and wellness plans. She created the Utterlicious month long podcast challenge to help us all be more mindful of what we eat. There have been many past research projects that made participants photograph everything they eat and many of them showed a change (at least in short-term) in eating patterns. But, isn't that what most of us in the health, recreation, wellness, fitness, physical activity, physical education, and therapy fields want for our audience...to be more mindful of our actions, bodies, thoughts, food as well as our impact on others and the environment.

Wouldn't it be nice (channeling some Beach Boys here) to have all the food you eat tracked using something like Utterli or one of the other mobile device. Once the meal is loaded to a website like CalorieLab, (featured elsewhere) the nutrition values would be added to your daily intake. For example, you eat at PF Chang's and order the Chang's Chicken in Soothing Lettuce Wraps (thanks Julie), all of the info including the calories (energy intake) would be collected. And since your mobile device probably has a heart rate monitor, GPS, accelerometer, or pedometer assessing your physical activity levels (See miCoach, GameBullet, Sony F305, iPhone, Flaik, Sportio, Bones in Motion, Loopt, Motion Based, PerDiemco or others featured in an earlier post). - your energy expenditure would be tracked. The intake and expenditure would be automatically calculated and it would really show you what you're doing or not doing to your body. Hmmm...
[Cross-posted to Exergame Lab]

Slacker is no slouch

Create your own Slacker Station now

Handigo for People of All Abilities

In what is the first cross-blog post between this blog and my Exergame Lab blog, Ubisoft released a free online game called Handigo The Game. Actually there are three mini-games (Sensory handicap,  Motor handicap, and Mental handicap) and their objective along with handicap International was to play games that puts you "in a disabled persons's shoes."  Of course I must take issue with that phrase as we all know the importance of using first person language, i.e. "person with disability or "person with a handicap."  

A2B Tricycle

Shabtai Hirshberg from Hadassah College (Jerusalem) designed this tricycle to encourage physical activity among kids suffering from neurological or muscular disorders. And here is the rest of it.

[Yanko Design: Trike for Disabled Tikes... and Project page: A2B trike...]

CalorieLab

Wow - now this is what we've needed for a long time - CalorieLab. One place to find out the nutritional values meals from fast food joints and restaurants. And here is the rest of it.

America Supports You

Walk with us... Celebrate Freedom... and Remember
WHAT IS THE AMERICA SUPPORTS YOU FREEDOM WALK?
The America Supports You Freedom Walk is a national tradition that calls on people to reflect on the lives lost on September 11, 2001, remember those who responded, honor our veterans past and present, and renew our commitment to freedom and the values of our country. Each year the number of walks held throughout the nation grows, as more people are moved to participate.

The tradition was born when Pentagon employees, seeking a way to honor the victims of the attack on the Pentagon and their families, and pay tribute to those who responded to that attack as well as those who serve, organized a walk from the Pentagon to the National Mall. Nearly 15,000 people took part. Now, America Supports You Freedom Walks are taking place in communities across the nation. Last year 255 communities participated, and every state was represented, along with eight nations overseas.

Grammy-Winning Oak Ridge Boys to Perform After Freedom Walk - Video

It's in the eyes!

In less than two minutes, the dancers have to get your attention, let you know what the 'scene' is, and go about articulating a clear and cohesive story, and makes you want to see more at the end of the dance. Check out what EW has to say about the 7th Greatest Dance Routine from SYTYCD Season 4.

7. Mark & Chelsie's Hip-Hop
Season 4, Top 16, June 25, 2007

Readers of my SYTYCD TV Watch this season already know about the warm, well-upholstered spot in my heart for Mark, and this is the routine that put it there. Which is actually kinda odd, since it's really quite bittersweet: A heartsick woman (Chelsie) tries to keep her workaholic (Mark) lover from leaving, but instead he steals her heart and then walks out the door. One of the biggest complaints about season 4 is the time the judges spent heaping endless praise upon the choreographers rather than discussing the dancers, but in the case of hip-hop choreographers Napoleon and Tabitha Dumo (i.e., NapTab, just 'cause), that praise was well deserved. The couple brought a lyrical storytelling sensibility to their routines that transformed hip-hop from hard-hitting abstract steps to something far more emotionally engaging — along with Mark, they're my favorite SYTYCD discoveries this year