Oh, the digital story

I look forward to the day that the digital story is finally finished. I love the idea of the digital story and all of the possibilities associated with it. However, I would rather do it on my own than with my group. It has been tough having so many people with different personalities, ideas, and work ethics working on the same project. For me, group work is always a learning experience. I have a hard time depending on and trusting others when it has to do with my grade.

I know that as a teacher, I will be working with a lot of different personalities (way more than six). I will have to accommodate students, parents, school officials, administrators, and core standards. Though the teacher has the final say in what is taught in class, I will not always be able to do things exactly the way I want them done. This is why I know group work is important for me to participate in now. It will hopefully teach me to be more patient and flexible. I also hope that the finished project will still be something that I can be proud of.

This weeks video "Did You Know 3.0", was really interesting. I am sure that even this video was out of date by the time I watched it. The numbers have undoubtedly increased. I think it is amazing how technology has evolved. I also think it is a little scary. Will teachers even be necessary in the not too distant future? Everything you could ever need to know is online, how can I make a difference?

What in the World is a Digital Story?

I have watched about a million digital stories on YouTube over the years, but I never knew that was what I was watching. I also never knew how much work it was to put those three short minutes of picture/video to music. I have never given much thought to how digital stories were made. Now that I am starting to comprehend the process, I almost wish that I was still ignorant!

Knowing how to make and teach students to make a digital story will be a great resource for me. Because I will be teaching PE, it will be great to be able to make a story with clips, quotes, and great moments from sports. It will be a great way to begin a new unit, or teach a new skill. Also letting the students make a digital story as an assignment, or an alternative to an assignment, will be great.

I could use a digital story to stay connected with colleagues. I could collaborate on a story with other teachers that are in my content area, or teachers from other subjects. For instance, I could use a digital story to teach about a sport from a different country, and a foreign language teacher could also use it in their classroom. I think that digital stories are so popular with teachers because they catch the interest of the students and can help create an atmosphere for what is being taught. You can convey any feeling with a digital story by adding the right music to a piece. It can add so much to a lesson.

I think that the biggest problem with digital stories is that they are so time consuming. It takes a lot of work to put together three minutes of good video. If a digital story is not put together well it is obvious in the final project.

Our video this week about NASA was very well done. At the beginning of the video where Pres. Kennedy was talking, I had the feeling of excitement and pride in the US. Then when it began telling of all of the people who had lost their lives to reach the moon and other goals, it made me feel the opposite. The different situations, being asphyxiated before even taking off, or burning up on re-entry, were devastating. It was strange to feel those different emotions so close together, in such a short amount of time. That is what is great about a digital story, the feeling.

Technology in PE?

One of the main things that I think is important in a health/PE setting is to be accountable for your eating and exercise. Our exercise and eating behaviors have a huge impact on overall health. So the first instructional objective I have is to log and evaluate eating and exercise habits. In order to be able to fully evaluate these behaviors and find where our strengths lie and where we need improvement, we will be using “My Pyramid Tracker”.

This tracker, My Pyramid Tracker, is a free website where you can enter in all of the foods you have eaten and what exercise you have participated in. It tells you where your diet is lacking and how much exercise impacts your diet. I believe that this tool will help the students in my class to see where in their diet they need more work so that they can become the healthiest version of themselves that they can be.

My Pyramid Tracker focuses on the five food groups instead of caloric intake. You enter in the food you have eaten and then it tells you how many servings of each food group that item has compared to how many servings you need. In most instances this is a good thing because I think that too many people get too caught up in counting calories, when if they just ate what was recommended they would be fine. The website is simple to use, easy to adjust, and the results are stated quickly and clearly. However, the site doesn’t have every food known to man entered, so sometimes you have to pick a food close to what you ate, so it might not be completely accurate. It also doesn’t count calories so for those who need to watch their calorie intake, this is not the website for them.

Another thing that I think is important in a PE is exercising correctly. You can know a million different weight lifting exercises, but if you don’t do them correctly, they aren’t worth doing. That is why I have chosen to use Dartfish in my classroom.

When I was playing softball for BYU, Dartfish was something that we used extensively and I have seen how helpful it can be when learning or improving a skill. Dartfish is a software program that allows you to analyze video. When I used it, it was to analyze my softball swing. You can record a certain movement or exercise and then play it back and analyze each step of the process.

When learning or improving an exercise, it can be very helpful to see yourself performing the movement. Using Dartfish will allow the students to see where they are having trouble with an exercise. Because you can break it up into different parts, the student can see a specific part of the exercise that needs improvement. As a personal trainer, I know it is hard to tell someone how to do something, or even show something, but if they can see themselves do it there is a new level of understanding. Some students may feel uncomfortable watching and analyzing themselves, and we will only be able to analyze one student at a time, so there are a couple of disadvantages of using Dartfish.

This weeks video was great! I love David Letterman's top ten lists. My favorite of the top ten things that you don't learn about teaching in college was #10, Why are the bad kids never sick? and #9, no matter how sick you are, it's easier to come into school than to write sub plans.

to surf or not to surf

The internet should definitly be used in education. The internet holds so much more information than students have access to otherwise. Think of all the books we would need to have to equal what we have on the web. Another thing that makes the internet so valuable in education is that it can be updated so easily and frequently. To update a book a whole new edition has to be published. The internet is something that kids will use through their entire life, we should teach them how to safely use it while they are young.

We have to be careful when using the internet. Although there are many great things offered, there are many more not so great things. We should evaluate the sites we use to make sure they are accurate. Because sites are so easily made anyone can make a site that looks authentic. There are questions we should ask ourselves before using a site as a resource. When looking at a website, ask:

1. Who is the author, are they an expert in the field?
2. Is it a personal wibsite?
3. What is the purpose of the site?
4. When was the site last updated?
5. Where does the information come from?
6. Why is this page better than another?

When giving students assignments on the internet, we need to make sure they use it safely. I think that parents have to be involved in this process. In school it is easier to monitor what sites the students are looking at. There are filters to control what can and cannot be opened. I think parents should use these at home, they should also keep the computer in the family room, or another room that isn't behind closed doors. Parents should monitor their children while on the internet. Teaching kids how to be safe on the internet is also very important. They should know not to click on advertisments that pop up on the page and not to give out their personal information. Kids should also know not to open emails from anyone that they don't know or
download anything without their parents permission.

There are many sites that can help students and parents learn more about internet safety. Here are three that I will use in educating my students.

• FBI internet safety
• Kids Newsroom
• The Police Notebook

The internet is a great resource that we have access to as long as it is used wisely and safely.