Friday, October 12, 2007

Publisher

Professor Cox,

This will be a great website to use as a teacher. It excites me to know I have these resources! Hope this is what you were wanting. Here are my five ideas to use in Physical Education:

1)Award Certificates to use for when my students accomplish a certain skill, or fulfill a certian requirement, such as the sit-up/push-up test.

2)Calenders would be great to use to let students, as well as parents know of specific events that will be occuring, such as the PE Extravaganza(something we had at my school). It would also be good to use for the students to be reminded of what we'll be working on each day that we have PE, so they'll be well prepared.

3)Newsletters could be used to help parents stay updated on what their kids are doing in their Physical Education. It could also be used to remind parents of any special event we'll be having, in which they could attend, or help out at.

4)Signs could be used to keep the students excited and interested. It could also be used for direction purposes. For example, have a sign that's says bathroom and have an arrow pointing their :), or a sign that says "Don't give up," or something silly, like "Only Fun Kids Allowed."

5)Email would be great to use to keep in touch with the parents. I would be useful for parents, anytime they may have a concern, or question. It would also be great for the teacher, in case they had concerns, questions, or positive comments about the student, that they needed to speak with the parents about.

Katie McKnight

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Journal Resources

Professor Cox,

Here are my three resources. I searched many different places. I really enjoyed/liked these articles the best, and felt they were focused a lot on things I've been learning this semester, and that will benefit me in helping my students learning to their fullest potential, with the help of technology(both through them and me as the teacher).

1)1) http://thejournal.com/the/newsletters/thefocus/archives/?aid=17682

I loved this resource. It gave four different scenarios. It talked about Discovery Health Connection, which consists of different PE or Health sites for teachers. The one I was familiar with, and the article talked about was PE Central. This article gave statistics on children(concerning drinking, smoking), and used that to show how a teacher could use technology to help students learn the importance of their health/not drinking and smoking. This article helped me understand how many great resources there are to find lesson plans, video's, background info.(on subjects such as smoking), handouts, media, resources, surveys, quizzes and streaming videos. Many times teacher's done' have a lot of time to plan. For example, in the article it talked about a teacher catching some students smoking. She had class in thirty minutes, but wanted to be able to teach these kids the importance of not smoking. The wonderful resources (would) help this teacher in this situation, within a short amount of time. This article was the most affective for me, and even had different websites that I could go to for information needed to teach a physical education class on whatever topic I wanted, such as Physical Activity, Nutrition and the body.

2)http://thejournal.com/articles/16754

I really enjoyed this article too. This article focused on kids with disabilities and the affect/influence technology can have on those children. The beginning of the article talks about parents who had two kids with disabilities, who attended a school called, "The Bridge School. "The Bridge School uses augmentative and alternative means of communication and assistive technology applications to help these kids communicate." These parents had seen how much this school/applications had helped their children improve/succeed. The school's are improving in having textbooks, or school material's online, for kids with disabilities, so they can better learn. The article talked about how teaching/helping kids with disabilities is more expensive then those who aren't. The one thing I loved about this article was how focused they were on helping kids with disabilities, in learning to their fullest potential, and making sure they don't have to struggle. When I read this article, I thought of love.

3) http://thejournal.com/articles/16574

This article was based on PE Central. It helped emphasize what it was about, and how beneficial PE Central is, which is a website. This website is a great resource for teachers. It not only helps them find great lesson plans for their physical education classes, but their able to access "interactive guides, to help keep track of physical activity. PE Central gives ways(lesson plans) to help teachers who have students with disabilities, on knowing how to best help that student. PE Central is a great because it's for PreK through twelfth grade. The PE Central Site has access to outside links as well, to help teacher's find/gain more knowledge to help them in their teaching strategies/lesson plans. PE Central also helps teachers to know or keep up on the standards they have to adhere to. Through PE Central, students can be greatly blessed, because this site helps teachers be more effective teachers, and therefore, helping students learn to the best of their ability, and being able to reach their full potential. So, this article focuses more on technology being a blessing for the teacher, but because of this, it is a huge help and benefit to the students, and gives them an opportunity to learn and have fun.