Daily Burn- Jenna Monahan

I really like the idea of the Daily Burn. It is a great way for people to track their food intake and their exercise. As a physically active individual, I am very conscious about how much I am working out and how much I am eating. I am eating less than the website is recommending for me to eat but every time I eat I make myself full without eating all the calories the website is suggesting. I think this is a great website for people who are looking to lose weight (or gain weight) because they can visually see their progress. Also, reporting to a website may force these people to be more honest and cause people to make healthy lifestyle changes because they are now tracking it. It can be a great motivator for people trying to diet. The website takes a bit getting used to but after you understand how to work the site, it becomes easier. I have used other nutrition tracker websites for health courses but this is the first time I have used one that you could track both nutrition and workouts. I like the Daily Burn much better because health involves more than nutrition, it also involves fitness.

To accomplish the recommended Regent’s level for learning standard 1B, students can track their nutrition and workouts. They can watch their progress for the entire year to see their fitness progression. Students are always on the computers as it is so having them log onto a website to record what they ate for the day and their workout would not really be asking much from the students. Using pedometers could help be useful for students to track their workouts. This could be done using the website or it could be tracked without using the website. If the students are having a difficult time with the concept of using the Daily Burn website, the teacher could always record their steps. I think that Daily Burn is a great tool for the classroom because you can track your nutrition and workouts at the same time to compare your progress. For individual goals, I would not have the students select if they want to lose weight, gain weight or maintain because students may take this the wrong way. I do not want students to feel that the need to fit into a mold in my classroom because everyone is different and the class should respect this. I would allow them to select this option for themselves if they truly want to get the most out of this website but the only thing I would be grading that they did was that they recorded their daily nutrition and workout. I would not grade on what they ate or their workout… just that they recorded their information.
Students could capture screenshots of them using the website. Explaining to students how to take screenshots would have to be done first incase the students did not know how to do this. If the student does not have a computer at home, they could always use this website in the library and capture screenshots. The screenshots could be posted to a blog like we use in class or could be uploaded to googledocs for the teacher to see. If physical education had a regents, screenshots of this websites could be used as documentation that the students were participating in physical activity.