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.