KIN 710 Technologies in Elementary Physical Education

I would have to say that the 2 most useful pieces of technology that we've been introduced to during this course are what I found from the web 2.0 awards, and having to create a fan page for Facebook. As you can see from my other post about the iStats page, I can't wait to start inputting my exercises into there to see just exactly how it can work. I think I might end up showing that to my students so that they can keep up to date with what they are doing and have that be a summer project, starting a group or team of Gunston students/teachers. I think it would be neat for the students to see how the teachers are exercising as well as their other classmates.

As one of our weekly assignments was to create a fan page for Facebook, I didn't really know what kind of page I wanted to make. I've been using Facebook since 2005 so I'm pretty up to date with what it has to offer but had never felt the need to make a fan page once they introduced that. I started my fan page for the basketball team I coach, South County Stallions Freshmen Boys. Now that I have, I am really glad because I can post announcements and updates for my guys to check and see what time our games/practices are. I think it will be a helpful tool, especially because I am dealing with high school freshmen and hear the "I didn't know what time practice was" excuse at least 5 times a season.

Peace, Love and Go Bonas!
Coach Christmas

Google Reader/RSS Feeds

Wow....Google Reader, which uses RSS feeds has really made it easy to follow all the blogs of the other KIN members. All I had to do was go to the kines-tech.blogspot.com page that Professor Sailor set up for us and I didn't even have to open up each blog. I just scrolled over the hyperlink to it and right clicked, copied the shortcut, went back to Google Reader and added the subscription. Boom, there it showed up, all their posts in one place and I could read what I wanted to and figure out which ones I wanted to comment on! I always thought I was technologically savvy before this class, and while I am picking up on these new things pretty quickly, I still am realizing that there is SOOOO much more that I could be using that I'm not that would make things a lot cooler, and easier for life in and out of work.


Peace, Love and Go Bonas,
Coach Christmas

Web 2.0 Awards Site

So we were given a link to the best web 2.0 sites for a variety of categories. Naturally, I scrolled down to the Sport section and clicked on the first place website in the category, iStats.com. This thing is pretty sweet, it's an exercise log on steroids! It allows you to enter reps, weight, intensity, etc of just about any exercise you want (it has some default ones in there but allows you to add your own). Then, there's a tab for reports and it will tell you what you did in previous workouts, how much effort you're putting into your workouts, how your weight is changing, etc and you can print them out when you want! It also lets you join teams which is a super help because we all know that working out alone is not as effective as when you have other people around you to motivate you. Looking at the site makes me want to get up off my butt from typing this and go do some sort of workout just so I can plug in the numbers and play with the site more. However, work comes before play and I need to finish the rest of my weekly Grad work before I can get up and do anything. Hmm.....I wonder if there is an exercise in their database about having to move these God awful couches from my old place into my new one, ughhh.

Peace, Love and Go Bonas,
Coach Christmas

Google Docs

Ummmm.......I don't know if Google Docs is experiencing difficulties or not right now but all it is letting me do is create a new folder or upload one of my own files. I'm not sure I like that, what if I want to create a new presentation or spreadsheet, its not letting me! I can see the many uses of it and not having to worry about saving to a USB or needing to email something to yourself to be able to open it on another computer. I saw on Jody's blog that you can create a spreadsheet and send it out to people and when the populate different cells, it automatically updates and saves to your original file. Or something like that, since its not letting me create a new file, I don't know for sure that thats how it works, just taking what I read from her blog through Google Reader :-). I like that concept though, because you could set up a fitness calendar for your students to complete and rather than go through the headache of students losing their hard copy, you can have them go online to fill it out. You can put in the formulas to add up the total number of minutes they exercised throughout a given week or month or year!

If it ever lets me create new things and play with it more, I will be glad to update you on my findings and creations, but until then I'm not sure how much I can use it.

Peace, Love and Go Bonas,
Coach Christmas

Examining Social Software in Teacher Education

This article was interesting in that it shed light on the uses teachers have for social software in the classrooms. One of the things that stood out to me was the point in which you can incorporate this through the simple use of e-mail or you can take it to other steps such as Facebook, etc. I think it's important that every teacher embrace the fact that students today learn much better through the integration of technology. Whether it's doing research on their iphone for a project or simply sending an e-mail to the teacher at night to see what the homework is or what's coming up next in class.

Another thing that I thought was important about this article was the need to teach about the technology that will be used. The example used in the article was that if the teacher was going to use Facebook in the class, the students should be taught the ins and outs, rights and wrongs about using Facebook. Not only would that most likely improve performance in class, but it can also help them stay out of trouble when they are using these social media sites outside of school.

I guess it is time to set up a Gunston Elementary page on Flickr. I don't know how my administrators would like me asking to have my Kindergarteners setting up Facebook accounts. What do you think?

Peace, Love and Go Bonas,
Coach Christmas

Fun with Flickr

IMG_3394_edited-1
Originally uploaded by pm_noel

Before starting this Technology in Kinesiology class, I had only heard of Flickr before, but never been on the site or used it myself. I put up a few pics and tagged them as instructed but still hadn't played around much until now. I'm still learning the ropes, but I think its neat that I can do a blog post from the site and I don't even have to upload the image again.

Anywho, this is Spinny Johnson who used to play with the Harlem Globetrotters and I spinning basketballs on our fingers. Hope you enjoy!

Peace, Love and Go Bonas,
Coach Christmas

All Things Technology

I was working at the golf course yesterday and with all the rain the nightbefore and forecasted for the day, it was not very busy. This led to lots of random facebook checking and seeing what new stories I could read on Yahoo! I stumbled across an article on the New Jersey Nets new owner, Mikhail Prokhorov. This guy is worth between $15 and $18 billion, yes billion. The craziest thing about this guy, he doesn't even use the latest and greatest forms of technology! No e-mail, no cell phone, no twitter, nothing. Maybe that's just what I need to do, stop using all forms of modern technology and I'll become a billionaire right? I guess that will have to be put on hold until I'm done with my Masters, seeing how the entire program is done via this wonderful tool called the internet. Someday, maybe I will give it up. Then I'll be the next billionaire and I can buy an NBA team.

Peace, Love and Go Bonas,
Coach Christmas

Test Post 1

Hello blogging world. Welcome to Coach Christmas' blog. If you're wondering where the name comes from, it's simple. I love to coach basketball, and my last name is Noel, which everyone knows is French for Christmas. In case you are wondering, I am not the First Noel, but rather the third in my family.

Hope you enjoy!!


Peace, love and Go Bonas!