Challenge 9 - My favorite yet!

Learning how to make a video and edit various clips was the most interesting and useful challenge of the Ispace challenge. I have previously taken films of my students for use in viewing technique, assessing and filming class content. Although iMovie took some time to learn and develop a quality piece of footage, it was well worth the time invested in the project.

I made three films; one to practice and two that are submitted.
The first details how to hit a smash in badminton, with demonstrations, technique cues and film of my grade 6 class trying it for the first time. Alternating slides with conceptual knowledge and actual footage of students playing gave more precise information to the presentation and allowed for a variety of different learning styles to benefit from the video. Additionally, being able to slow a clip down provided an excellent tool for breaking the technique down. I filmed myself (as the expert in racket sports) in slow motion to show students the start, middle and end of the shot; Sideways on, pointing to the birdie and follow through. I learned how to edit out parts, such as time between shots or players waiting to play, which makes the video more concise and interesting.

The second video is an overall 3-minute presentation of the ASP PE department, using slides to detail our program and sections of videos of students in action. It could be used to promote our department, explain what we do overall and provide those interesting with a sneak preview of what we do in PE.
I included clips of students learning lifelong skills (such as falling without risking injury), different types of activities offered, fitness training and clips of our happy, well rounded PE students.
This video could be displayed on youtube to promote our department or shown at open house to give parents an idea of what we do. The music used in the video attempts to be inspirational and give an overall feel-good vibe to our department.

Website Uses - Challenge 6

Having a teacher website is commonplace and can be used for a variety of excellent reasons.
Firstly, class news can be easily conveyed to a large number of students who already spend adequate time on the internet. It would be the most efficient and effective way to communicate important information around the clock, to any PE student.

The website could also inform students where classes are and exactly what we are doing instead of the constant questions of 'what are we doing and where?' Our classroom settings often change depending on the weather, use of the gym for other purposes and the specific units we teach. A calendar online of each class, change in location and activity would be highly beneficial to the students.

Pictures, videos and photos relevant to the class could also be posted, demonstrating pertinent information such as tactics, high-level performance and techniques. Since we film a lot in PE classes, the website could be a useful place to show the students what was recorded and highlight areas if required.

Lastly, useful resources can be shared using the website. Students can get to know a little about my background, and importantly, parents can too. Links to government recommendations for exercise, health and activity can be shared with students. Similarly, links to local french clubs and governing bodies can help families to find the appropriate sporting clubs in Ile-de-France.

Presentation Prezi

I used Prezi to organize my presentation and to provide a more aesthetically pleasing experience for students who are used to seeing various types of power points.
Prezi has been touted as one of the best educational sites for creating power points and I used it to create a short presentation on the benefits of exercise. Due to limited class time and technology in our PE settings, the students have little knowledge behind the benefits and reasons behind exercising. The short presentation on Prezi gives a global vision of why being active is so important.

I used an art gallery theme to capture students attention and titled it 'Getting in the groove to move' since my audience would be middle school students. The different set ups of the presentation allowed me to focus in on certain aspects of what I wanted to to explain and use a mix of pre-made set ups to highlight the important information.

For future use in PE classes, our department could connect such presentations to a screen in the PTC for view before class starts, explaining the rational and theories behind many of the concepts in PE.
Prezi could also be used for presenting rules with visuals, to students rather than explaining them verbally (on indeed to reinforce concepts already learned). Finally, these presentations could be shared on google drive for homework or to make up any work missed.

Challenge 8 - Socrative and Google Forms

Socrative can be used in a variety of ways during PE classes, providing there is access to a computer.
I created two quizzes to use for my middle school badminton unit. The first quiz was to enable students to reflect on their effort, focus and class preparation, which are items they are graded on throughout the year.
The quiz was designed to target areas that I believe still need to be improved by a number of students and allows some quiet time during class, to reflect on their achievement.
Since students do not bring computers to class, I set up the quiz on my computer and select certain students to sit on the bleachers and complete the quiz. There are several advantages to using this method in a 40-minute PE class:

• It gives students a break from physical activity yet maximizes class time by allowing them to still focus on the unit
• It can be used to allow any students who are off-task to regroup their effort and focus
• It provides students with the opportunity to immediately reflect critically on their performance in class
• For activities (such as badminton) that involve even numbers of students for singles and doubles play, and sometimes involve a short wait time due to space constrictions, it allows students waiting to reflect on their performance instead of going to a fitness station. Essentially, it gives more options in class
• My students often told me that they don't like using the pencil and paper format for class quizzes. The ease of use and interactive dimension of socrative makes it more appealing to them.

The results help me to gage student's self-perception of their effort and focus. So far, the results have been somewhat surprising and in some cases, show a discrepancy between their perception and my perception of their effort. On occasions, the students who I believe to consistently give their best have responded that they could have tried a lot harder! 

A second use for Socrative has been to combat an ongoing problem, particularly in grade 8, of class preparedness; being on time and with correct PE kit. For any students that come in late or without PE kit, I ask them to fill out the 8 question class preparation quiz. It hold them accountable for coming to class unprepared, prompts them to think about why it happened and suggest corrective measures for future success in that area. 

Room number: 351742

I used google forms in a slightly different way. Firstly, I used it to create make-up quizzes for students absent for the pen and paper assessment quiz. This allows them to create the quiz in their own time, from a computer and have the results send directly to me, rather than worrying about finding the piece of paper and bringing it in! I ensure that the answers provoke thought and opinion so that they can't look up the answer or ask someone else. 

Lastly, because this is a very long post, we used google forms at the end of last year to compile a student survey for the PE department. This gave us critical feedback to our program, the student's opinion and suggested areas for improvement. The results we very easy to read and allow for different types of sorting for optimal analysis. 

A great smash

http://farm9.static.flickr.com/8431/7758882852_9bac433cfb_m.jpg

By Antony Stanley (Flickr: Prepare To Smash!) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Lesson Plan finally uploaded

I didn't ever upload my lesson plan to my blog, so here it is:

How to be a super searcher!

Grade 9 Lesson Plan

Become a Super Searcher

Essential Question	Activity	Time
How has google grown over the past 10 years?	1.Introduction & Class Discussion - Google has grown in power over the last ten years, so much so that google has officially become a verb in the dictionary. Google it. 2. Discuss in groups of 2-3, what exactly you can do on google search. Eg search for word definitions.   3. Make a list on the board of class responses. Any surprising?	10 minutes
How can you save time when searching on the internet by using google?	1.     Open up google.com and search for the following items. A. The weather today in Paris, France. B. a picture of your principal, Mark Ulfers. C. How many dollars equals 100 euros. D. The definition of 'idiosyncrasy' e. what does 'suche ist genial' mean? What language is it?    How many of you clicked on a website to get the information? Did you know that you can modify your search to get the information right up there.	20 minutes
Is google efficient?	1.     Explore the various functions of google. a) Google scholar - show the class how to get to it. Find research article on 'students learning' and cite them b) Google translate: show how. Ask your partner to translate a phrase. The other partner must find out what language it is and what it means. However, is it accurate? Lets translate a well known French phrase 'le monde appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt. Look at the English translation!! c) Refining our research. If we want to find news articles on the political situation in France, how do we know what type of articles to search?  You can limit your search by adding : to filter results. To give an example, we only want french pages. The country code is . Fr. So we type Francois hollande:.fr and see what comes up. Try a different country. The same goes for images and videos.	20 minutes
Are you a good google-searcher?	End cumulative activity and assessment. You are going on holiday to England on a British airways flight Paris to London, number 319. a) Use google to find out what time your flight lands (or landed) and what terminal. b) Find out how many pounds 100 euros will get you presuming you won't be charged any fees! c) Find out the weather in London, England d) You are staying with a welsh person who speaks no English. Find out how to say ' I thought welsh people spoke better English? I had to translate using google!' e). look up a current news article from England using the country code (if you don't know it, search for it) end with questions f) Submit to rrankin@asparis.fr on a word document	20 minutes

PLN has opened my eyes!

Before the challenged started, I knew very little about personalized learning networks, other than them being something to do with technology! It was news to me that the ever-famous twitter was one of them. I knew more or less how twitter worked, but I didn't know you could follow anyone, let alone unknown people who may have the same lines of profession. Following other PE teachers worldwide, is something that will be invaluable to me for future professional development. I had always thought that Twitter served mostly social and entertainment purposes, and have learned that it can be valuable in education too.

Feedly has helped me to consolidate my reading lists and keep it all in the same place, rather than searching via several pieces of software online and on my smart phone. I have learned what RSS is, thanks to the challenge, and now realize that I have been using RSS's for a long time despite really knowing the concept behind it!

The concept of Diigo is an excellent one, although the interface is difficult for those of us who aren't very computer savvy. As educators, we use a variety of sources online that are often hard to find again. Being able to have all of this information in one place, and a toolbar to ease navigation, is most advantageous. Furthermore, we can even add sticky notes and highlight areas of interest!