PE InTECHgration: PLN, file sharing, blogs oh my!

In our class we've been really pushing our traditional thoughts about how to use technology to effectively communicate our mission, manage student learning, and develop our own Personal Learning Networks (PLN).

Blogging Platforms

1. Blogger
2. Posterous
3. Tumblr
4. Wordpress
5. Glogster

RSS Readers

1. Google Reader

Will You "Move Your Body" with Beyoncé?

Beyoncé reworked her 2007 song "Get Me Bodied" in part to support Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign to curb childhood obesity.  Will doing a song that encourages more physical activity be the start of something wonderful? I think its great that she was willing to help out, but this video is being supported by several national organizations, sadly neither AAHPERD or NASPE were part of this initiative despite having the Let's Move in School Campaign already underway:-(

According to the linked article, only National Association Of Broadcasters, the American Association Of School Administrators, the National Middle School Association, and the National School Boards Association.


[Source Yahoo! Music]

College ROI: What We Found - BusinessWeek

How much is your college degree worth? Bloomberg Businessweek and PayScale put together a different way to determine the value of your degree.  Is your school listed and do you think this is a fair way to assess the value and worth of your degree?

College ROI: What We Found - BusinessWeek

Burn Studios. Music Maker in the Cloud

Burn Studios Audiotool Lets You Mix and Make Music in the Cloud [Music ]: "

The Burn Studios Audiotool http://www.audiotool.com/ is a free cloud-based music production studio. The web app lets you create your own electronic music by connecting virtual devices, including drum machines and synths, together in limitless combinations. Warning Flash is required, so iPad users unfortunately miss out.

  

Noun Project = Universal Symbols

Check out the Noun Project free clip art that can be used for your blogs or posters.  All of the images are either public domain images or Creative Commons licensed images. Public domain images can be used without attribution but Creative Commons licensed ones need attribution.

Via Free Tech for Teachers: Noun Project - Free Clip Art of Universal Symbols:

38 Free Printable Graphic Organizers

38 Free Printable Graphic Organizers:

Image via WikipediaKeeping your students organized and helping them to learn concepts is our "job". We have to remember that each student learns and processes information differently and we need to learn which ways work best. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Education Place offers thirty-eight free printable graphic organizers for your classroom use.

Flip your instruction for engaged and self-directed learning

Flip your instruction for real learning:
What if instead, educators spent class time doing and homework time for the watching of lessons/lectures. The other benefit of this is that these can be viewed and reviewed anytime/anywhere. The result is engaged students who can now spend their time solving problems and working with their peers.

This concept is analgous to the many screencasts and online tools we've created for all Rockstar PE students on our blog, wiki, YouTube, Photo Streams and screencasts to assist students in completing assignments.

Spend less time talking in class, and have students engage in problem-solving and learning outside of the class.  That way you will have more time to truly engage and get to know your students thus resulting in a more positive learning environment.

Return on Educational Investment (ROI)

Educational Productivity (ROI)

Economists at the Center for American Progress announced an online interactive website that compares the educational productivity of 9,000 United States school districts.

This report is the culmination of a yearlong effort to study the efficiency of the nation’s public education system and includes the first-ever attempt to evaluate the productivity of almost every major school district in the country.

Findings:

• Highly productive districts are focused on improving student outcomes. 
• More education spending will not automatically improve student outcomes. 
• The nation’s least-productive districts spend more on administration
• Most states and districts have not done nearly enough to measure or produce the productivity gains our education system so desperately needs. 

Focus Questions
Above is the interactive map for New York with a special emphasis on Cortland City School District.

1. Is Cortland's "Yellow" rating good enough for you and why might Groton, McGraw, Dryden, Ithaca be so different?
2. Can you find your home school district and see how they performed? 
3. What do these findings tell you about your school's level of performance?
4. Is it accurate according to what you remember and know? 
5. Do you agree with their research methodology and recommendations? 
6. How are you staying up-to-date with research, policy and practice?

Boser, U. Return on Educational InvestmentA District-by-District Evaluation of U.S. Educational Productivity. January 19, 2011.

New tool aimed at teens with autism

Image via WikipediaNew tool aimed at teens with autism
Be sure to check out this awesome Autism Speaks Toolkit for teens with Autism. As a teacher you will need learn to seek out the best resources to help all of your students and to put them first and not their disability.

Related articles

• Spurwink iPhone App
• Spurwink and Mowbi Autism iPhone App Launched and Left in Limbo (autisminnb.blogspot.com)
• Samsung & Dan Marino "Team Up for Autism" With Online Campaign (mashable.com)
• Adults with Autism May Not Understand Others' Intentions (nlm.nih.gov)

Spice Up Your Blogs

Image via CrunchBaseIf you want to add some Creative Commons content including photos and videos as well as add associated links to the content you are writing, you have to try Zemanta - a simple browser plug-in/add-on/extension. See all browsers add-ons here. Simple and effective at getting your readers to pay more attention to what you're writing.

Related articles

• Tutorial: Getting Started with Zemanta (zemanta.com)
• Zemanta Now Native on Blogger.com! (techparade.blogspot.com)
• Zemanta helps you "blog smarter" (buzz.blogger.com)

USDA Nutrition Guidelines 2010 (201)

The USDA announced previously the Dietary Guidelines for 2010 but they finally released the document that emphasizes a better balance of nutrition and physical activity (PA) along with a limiting in processed, high-fat, high-sugar, high-fat foods.

Image via WikipediaHow can you use these new guidelines in your programs to help your students be more physically educated and healthy for a lifetime? Please leave a comment below on how you might bring these guidelines into our St.Mary's experience so that the after-school students can learn and explore what the government recommends in terms of healthy living.

Press Release
Executive Summary
Selected Messages for Consumers
Backgrounder
Questions and Answers

Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010
(Policy Document)

Balancing nutrition, physical activity to avoid obesity is focus of new dietary guidelines [NEWS AND FEATURES]

nutritionguide2011

Related articles

• New U.S. Diet Guidelines: What Not to Eat (webmd.com)
• Dietary Guidelines Call for Eating Less (online.wsj.com)
• Eat Less, Eat Better, Exercise More - And Here's How (blogs.wsj.com)

Animate text with style at wondersay.com

made on Wondersay - Animate text with style

Elementary school practices fall short of national recommendations for diet and physical activity (RWJF)

New Report Highlights Changes Needed to Support Healthy Eating and Physical Activity in U.S. Elementary Schools

Elementary school practices fall short of national recommendations for diet and physical activity.

A comprehensive new report from Bridging the Gap and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that elementary schools across the nation commonly offer their students junk food and soda, serve meals that don’t meet current dietary guidelines, and provide little time for physical activity.

The report, School Policies and Practices to Improve Health and Prevent Obesity: National Elementary School Survey Results, examined practices that affect nutrition, physical activity and obesity prevention for tens of millions of students. Its conclusions are critical for informing the Child Nutrition Reauthorization legislation, including policies related to competitive foods and school meals.

Among the key findings from the 2007–08 school year:

• Nearly two-thirds of public elementary school students were able to purchase competitive foods or beverages on campus. These items, sold or served outside of school meal programs, often included soda, candy, cookies and french fries.

• Meals served through the National School Lunch Program often included higher-fat items such as pizza, french fries, and 2% or whole milk.

• Only 20 percent of public school third-graders were offered daily physical education, and only 18 percent were offered at least 150 minutes of weekly physical education, as recommended by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education.

More here

http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/bridgingthegap20101123mongraphrevised.pdf

http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/btg201006.pdf

http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/64429companionbrief.pdf

PDF creator and converter giveaway - PDFTiger

If you don't have Adobe Acrobat or the ability to create PDF's from your software, grab this freebie before Oct. 21st.  Be sure to register it using the code provided at the website.  You can even convert PDF's to editable documents.
Code: R8Z8682LMDUAKHW

Physical Education Is An Academic Subject

Be sure to grab this latest NASPE Advocacy paper "Physical Education Is An Academic Subject". It is imperative that you start to collect your tools to support our profession and your future job.

Vocaroo = Online Voice Recording Simplicity

Using Vocaroo as a quick voice recorder that can be quickly shared online was a breeze and it's great that it gives you instant access to an embeddable player for your recording and a direct link. I love how you can just skip the part about having to find a web server to store the recording and I'm wondering if they will support audio uploads.  I just saw the feature / widget to test a recording of your voice, but it is not storable.

Powered by Vocaroo

SUNY Cortland PE Rockstars

Here is a great representation of what we do in EDU 255 and especially what happened this semester of PE Rockstar Training at SUNY Cortland.  It was compiled by Jack Murphy.  Please take a look at his blog for some of his many accomplishments and also follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

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]

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]