The presentation that Dr. Roberts gave for us on Tuesday was very enlightening. I found myself evaluating my use and exposure rather than thinking about it in terms of my students. There are so many factors and variables that hinder/change student learning and I feel that, as teachers, we need to grasp this. If my high school students are using technology for around 10 hours of their day and being exposed for almost 13, this is something that I need to take into consideration because this is the REALITY of their lives. Yet, I have a hard time finding the middle ground. As a PE teacher, it is obvious that I want students and young people to be active outside and to explore different types of exercise in order to help them lead healthier, physically active lives. Yet, this world has been moving toward more advanced technology so rapidly, that we can't deny that it is something that they need to be a part of.
I found Dr. Roberts research very interesting and very enlightening. He mentioned that in the future, he would love to look at the CONTENT that young people are looking at when they are using and when they are exposed to technology. I would be very interested in hearing more about that. I think that the most relevant part of his presentation had to do with multitasking; the fact that this group of users is using so many different types of media at the same time. I find myself doing the same thing. If I am trying to do my homework, I will also have Facebook open, my email open, be listening to music and probably reading something else. Let's not even mention Pinterest. Ugh. I KNOW that this has caused my memory to take a turn for the worse and I feel as though I cannot stay focused on one task for too long. If I feel this kind of effects, how are my students feeling? I also think that all of this use and multitasking constantly gives me a feeling of being overwhelmed by the things that I want to do and could be doing. There is so much information and stupid, silly things that we find on the internet.
After reading the Newsweek article and listening to Dr. Robert's presentation, I would really like to get rid of my cell phone. I notice that I will look at it ANY moment that I happen to feel like I am not doing anything. I have a dependency; sometimes I am not even conscious of it. I HATE it. I have a one year old son, and I don't want to be checking my phone or playing some stupid game or checking my facebook. Why is it that I can't just relish in the moments that I get to spend with him during the day; before I go back to work and before we have two children? What has this new technological world created? This is where I would like to learn more about creating a balance. Not only in the classroom with my students, but also in my own life.
In regards to the The New York Times article, I was laughed out loud when I read the last line of the article, "Mr. Luna replied that political contributors had never had an inside track in winning contracts." There are so many examples of this in Ravitch's book, that I can't even count them. In terms of online learning and credit recovery, my charter has adopted a credit recovery program that I have not been given any information about. I know that it is definitely something that everyone is excited about - yet, my first reaction was questioning it's validity and the actual work load. This brings back the summer school argument before there were massive cuts. Should a student who failed an entire semester or year of a core subject be allowed to make up that time and curriculum in a six week, intensive summer school course? Are they going to be getting the same amount of content and engaging in the same amount of rigor and coursework? I want to know what these internet programs look like, because I imagine them like the very first example in this article. Wikipedia and other online resources are so readily available, that students only have to put their prompt into the search engine to find something to supplement what they may be writing about.
In regards to my discipline, I was reading one of my secondary sources that cited a high school that was implementing a lot of technology into their PE program. Students would go online to track their activity and progress as well as to do activities about heart rate and other exercise related topics. Again, I think that we need to embrace technology, but in an age where students are not getting the suggested amount of time in P.E., I see this as detrimental. I also do not think that PE should be available online for students. Although it requires accountability on the students' part to take part in physical activity on their own, I see cut corners and exaggeration. These kinds of courses could potentially eliminate my job; especially when school boards and politicians are supporting online courses and education. It doesn't help that it saves schools money. The fact that education is always the first to be cut when budgets come out for California, further implicates that we could be moving toward online education for all. Very scary.
One of the first technology resources that I explored was www.teachertube.com. I feel like I have heard of this website before, but I have never explored the content. It looks like a wonderful resource. I put high school physical education and looked up some videos. There are examples of lessons and warm up routines as well as one of the technology resources that I had recently been looking into. It is by a company called Polar. It is a program exactly like the one that I referenced above; it tracks student process and brings technology into the PE classroom. Even though I think that it sounds like taking a lot of time away from physical activity in the classroom, it reaches out to students and it may help to update our program. Our program definitely needs to be update in terms of how we connect our units and activities to every day life. We do a great job of aligning with the standards and creating a curriculum that keeps students engaged and learning, yet we should definitely do some updating.
Rubsitar.4teachers.org looks like a familiar tool from when I was in my credential program here at SMC, but I wanted to revisit it. This would be a great tool for different skills and assessments when it comes to checking for understanding. This is part of the updating that I was talking about in my department. If the students have more of an idea (rather than just being told and using demonstrations) then maybe our success rate would go up and we would have students that felt better about their personal accomplishments. On the other hand, students that are not reaching the level asked of them or are not succeeding at that skill, can use the rubric to see where they are falling short.
I really like the cool timer from Cnet. It would be a great resource for the team building and freshman transition programs that we do in our freshman PE classes. We could us it for games and to incorporate music into those activities. It looks like a great, interactive timer.
I took a look at techsmith.com and thought it was really interesting. I could definitely see using this in the future for when I get to teach Math classes. We could also use it for our PE lessons if we decided to incorporate more technology into our lessons. Although technology takes away from our already short periods of time for physical activity, it keeps students engaged and interested in the lesson. Perhaps using this while in the gym; we could bring in a projector and CPU, present the demonstrations and compare the learning and engagement to traditional lessons.
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