As our school pushes forward with a 1:1 laptop program in 2008, i am rushing to get my head around the place of ICT in the area of PDHPE. The laptop program has huge potential for us to engage students in quality learning experiences that are relevant and meaningful to our students. It offers the opportunity to differentiate learning for students in ways that were previously unavailable and engage students who struggle to motivate themselves with traditional teaching strategies. It will enable us to continue to utilise the practices and strategies that have proven successful for us while providing scope for a whole a new range learning experiences that have only recently become available to us.
If all we do is use the laptops to do what we have previously done then we are doing a great disservice to what the laptops are capable of. For example, if we all we get students to do is type their answers rather than write them then we achieve nothing besides improving their typing skills at the expense of their writing skills. Quality teaching practise is vital in the success of this program.
PDHPE is a unique subject area in the sense that our focus on encouraging students to lead healthy active lifestyles requires interaction in the classroom and some may argue laptops may inhibit the environment required to learn a lot of the knowledge and skills required.
The obesity epidemic has largely been atributed to poor nutrition and a decrease in physical activity and part of this decrease in physical activity could be related to an increase in time students spend watching popular media and the use of computer related technologies. It is ironic that we shall be encouraging the use of this technology to develop their health literacy, possibly at the expense students enagaging in other activities that improve their social and physical health. This needs consideration, however i believe that the we can have the ‘best of both worlds’. Through quality education we can encourage a more active and healthy lifestyle while using the technology in a positive way to help educate students.
I have read quite a few handy little ‘top 10′ posts so figure I will give it a try for PDHPE online resources. Not in any particular order.
1. HSC Online – Lots of great stuff here and hopefully they will continue to add to it over time.
2. PDHPE Teachers Association – particularly the conference link which has content from previous keynotes and workshops.
3. Curriculum support – exists to assist the implementation of the PDHPE syllabus. Has access to professional development, resources and online courses.
7. Bored of Studies – site where students submit study notes and assignments. Good to be aware of for plagiarism but also can be a good resource for students.
8. AIHW – publishes a number of reports that are heavily used in the HSC Course including Australia’s Health.
9. del.icio.us – I have written an entry about social bookmarking previously and this site has great potential to help teachers share great resources and save a lot of time finding great quality sites. The more people that use it the more beneficial it should be. Here are my pdhpe links http://del.icio.us/bmcallis/pdhpe
I am a big fan of the google applications and one that I am playing around with the moment is google forms. It is aligned with google spreadsheets (similar to excel) and basically allows you to create forms or surveys that can be completed online and the results are automatically entered into a spreadsheet. The surveys are very user friendly to create and they give you a variety of question styles that you can ask including multiple choice, check box, paragragh & drop down list. At the moment we are completing a physical activity and nutrition survey of our 7-10 students and also a survey of their thoughts and opinion of our pdhpe lessons.
When you are surveying 700+ students it is a huge time saver on data entry and gives us some great feedback. For those who prefer using excel you can copy and paste the data straight into excel which is a great function also.
I have just read an interesting take on classroom management on leadertalk by Scott Elias and it is well worth a read. All the articles I have read in regards to classroom management have a common thread in that ‘relationships’ are crucial to effective classroom management. A word that is commonly used at Magdalene is an underlying core value RESPECT and I think it plays a very important role in establishing ‘relationships’ and a learning environment that enables students to work to their potential.
An interesting take on respect that I heard at the PDHPE Teachers Conference is that Gen Y do not automatically respect people due to position as has been the case to a much larger extent in the past. When I was brought up we had it belted into us that we respect our teachers and other adults. Gen Y are more likely to require you to earn their repect and if it isn’t reciprocated then you may have a difficult time trying to gain that respect. Respect is most certainly a two way street and if students do not feel they are being repected by the teacher then there is a recipe for disaster in the classroom. Teachers that demand respect but do not show any to their students will invariably have trouble with students eventually.
I learnt my lessons the hard way in regards to classroom management. My first post was overseas in London at a pretty easy school by London standards. I had a 6 week block for a PE teacher who was recovering from surgery and couldn’t believe my luck when I turned up for the first few days. Students did as they were told, generally worked well and it seemed as though I was on easy street. With that feeling I relaxed a little and started to let a few things slide with students, probably trying to be a teacher they liked and trying to develop good relationships with them. While my intentions were good, my judgement was poor and this snowballed a little and I suddenly found myself having trouble with a few of my classes.
I quickly learnt that students will behave as badly as you let them behave and if you drop your standards then there will be students in the class who will behave down to that level. Students will always push to see what they can get away with and the longer you let it slide the more trouble you have bringing it back. While relationships are crucial in teaching I learnt that it needs to be a ‘professional’ relationship and that students don’t really want another friend. They want a teacher who sets clear boundaries for them and is fair and consistent in the application of rules. Just because you are the teacher does not mean you cannot have fun and relate to students but I think there needs to be that clear distinction between friend and teacher for effective classroom management.
I must admit homework is not an issue I have thought about too much but I have been reading an interesting debate over homework on another blog, The Faculty Room. This blog has a range of educators that contribute and discuss issues in education. An entry by Dana Huff titled ‘the homework is unecessary myth‘ was well challenged by two other entries, Let them be kids and Alfie Kohn weighs in. These make for interesting reading and both sides seem to have valid arguments for their case.
While I generally don’t set a great deal of homework it has not really been a researched and analysed decision. My underlying thoughts were that we can generally cover everything we need in class if we use our time well and that kids need to do other things besides structured learning tasks set by school outside of school hours.
An issue that has consistently raised its head at our school is that students are spending a long time out of school hours working on homework and assignments which can be quite distressing to the students and the parents. The crucial question in all of it is whether there is genuine learning taking place as a result of the homework and assignments and it would be interesting to do an analysis of the type of tasks students are spending their time on outside of school and the value it has for them. If all it does is give students an impression that learning is a chore and waste of time then we are doing them a great disservice.
I attended the annual PDHPE Teachers Conference in Wollongong on Friday & Saturday. I found it to be a great event that was very well run and the quality of the keynotes and workshops was exceptional. I will go through and reflect on a few of the keynotes and other interesting things from the conference in more detail when I have time over the next week or so. My initial reactions to the conference though was that I have certainly still got plenty more to learn and it has motivated me to improve myself as a teacher.
It is a shame everyone from the faculty could not go as it would have been a great experience for everyone to attend and to hear all the same stuff together. We have plans to organise a broader network in the Campbelltown region across all sectors and I think this holds a lot of potential also. Great to catch up with a heap of old uni friends and lecturers also.
I stumbled across this great little tool at Navcon in a presentation and found it very effective today in my senior PDHPE class. Gapminder is basically a graphing application that has data loaded in from all over the world about life expectancy and infant mortality etc. The graphs are based over the last 25 or so years and are interactive meaning you can slide through the years and see the changes straight away. It is very good at highlighting trends over time if you click on the little ‘trails’ button.
Check out countries like Rawanda who have undergone times of war and civil unrest. You see the life expectancy drop from 45 years to below 25 years of age around 1993 and the students were quite shocked by this. This also reinforces the fact that epidemiology does not tell us everything about health and that it fails to take in socio cultural consideration and the reasons behind any changes.
While sites like youtube present lots of potential problems in terms of appropriate content and copyright it can certainly throw up some little gems that can be very useful for teachers. At a recent staff meeting a youtube video was shown that could be used when talking about motivation or self belief and using our god given talents to their full potential. It is of the winner of Britains got talent, Paul Potts, who works in retail and is a regular guy who has some self confidence issues. He also has an extraordinary talent as a singer that has to be seen to be believed. This one is well worth a look if you haven’t seen it before!!
I was fortunate enough to be provided with a first class example of what can be done by colleagues at my school. A year 11 IST class organised a trivia night as an assessment task and raised money for the Childrens Hospital at Westmead. It was a hugely successful event with the students raising well over $8000. The aspect of the task that was so impressive for me was that it was such a relevant and practical task for students and it had ‘real world’ meaning. The students must feel very proud that they organised an event that raised such a substantial amount and it was such a practical way to demonstrate the skills and outcomes required by the course.
The task for me is an excellent example of the ‘assessment for learning’ model. The task also provided huge scope for learning above and beyond the outcomes for the task. The fact that it involved the wider school community and thus generated school spirit were wonderful aspects of the task. The focus on fundraising and raising money for the children’s hospital also strongly supports the catholic values of compassion and is a great way for students to experience this core value.
Podcasts are essentially audio files that can be uploaded and downloaded on the internet. They provide an avenue for students to publish to the internet and can provide great opportunity for creativity and engagement. They also provide students with the opportuninty to download other podcasts and learn from them.
Podcasting has become a popular mainstream way of sharing information and is used by radio stations and mainstream media to connect with those who may miss their regular shows and to cater for those who prefer this ‘on demand’ method of communicating . The idea of creating and publishing their own podcast can motivate and focus students and is a learning tool that has relevance in a range of subject areas. A great example of using podcasts in pdhpe is this sample from St Josephs Albion Park. A year 11 class has created a range of podcasts on First Aid and have done a great job. Well worth look!! St Josephs podcasts.
In PDHPE there are lots of ways podcasting could be utilised. Some ideas include:
* Students could create their own radio show on a range of topics around healthy living.
- Creating radio ads about health related issues.
- Talkback radio theme.
- Creating their own songs related to health.
- Health podcast where students discuss issues.
I have recently been reading a lot of blogs from other educators and educational leaders and have been amazed at how much i have taken from the experience. To be able to get ideas and information from people all over the world who are experts in their field in such a simple manner to me highlights their potential in the classroom. Even the process of starting to blog myself forces me (in a nice way) to reflect on things and clarify in my own mind where i stand. While it may be messy at first i presume i will improve at this reflective practise and be able to organise my ideas better as i continue.
I suppose that blogs provide opportunities in a few ways in the classroom. 1. Through students reading other blogs and commenting on them, and 2. Students creating their own blogs.
I have included some basic information below on what blogs are for those new to the area from what i understand of them at the moment. There is a huge amount of material out there on them for those keen to research further.
Blogs or weblogs are essentially webpages that allow a person to provide an online viewpoint on issues and have the capacity for others to leave feedback. Some blogs can be set to private to act like a personal diary but essentially they are designed for others to be able to comment on points raised. They provide a very simple way for students to publish information to the internet. I have linked to a few good articles that explain what blogs are in more detail and more explicitly. These include wikipedia, blogger.com, and weblogs.com.
“In a broader and more educational system, blogs are about communicating. You observe your experience, reflect on it, and then write about it. Other people read your reflections, respond from their perspectives by commenting or writing their own blog article. You read their perspectives, often learn something through their eyes, and write some more”. classroom 2.0. I found this site quite interesting and provides information on a wide range of web 2.0 applications that can be used by educators.
How can we use these in PDHPE??
1. Journal type activities – eg: first weeks at high school.
2. Create a blog on an issue eg:skin cancer- could include video, podcasts etc.
3. process diary for a project. Teacher could use RSS feeds to monitor the class so they don’t have to continually check every blog in the class. RSS would collect all recent posts for the class for viewing. 4. Edublogs – 10 ways to incorporate blogs into your teaching.
Part of the process of successfully integrating technology into teaching programs is understanding what the specific programs and applications are and their capabilities. I will briefly outline my understanding of some of the technologies that i feel can be successfully integrated into PDHPE and how i feel they can be integrated. Again, my expertise in this area is limited but part of the learning process for me is to analyse what is available and think about how it may be useful.
I have written a little more on technology and what I think its role is in PDHPE on a seperate page as part of this blog. If you click on the ‘technology’ tab at the top of the blog I have shared a few more ideas there.
