EEND676 Artifact #2 Writing and Assessing a Collaborative Task

For artifact #2, I chose the assignment from  Module 6.  We were required to write an assignment that used a collaborative tool and then also create a rubric to assess the students on completing the collaborative task.  I was trying to think of a way to use this in a PE setting so that it would make sense to try with my students in the future.  One of the few negatives of elementary PE is that they only receive it for 30 minutes, two time a week.  It is not a lot of time to have deep discussions about specific topics and also have time to practice the skills.  Often times, the discussion piece gets lost in time and our topics stay very superficial.  I thought it would be neat if students chose a sport that interested them and were allowed to create a short Google slide show of what they felt was important for the class to know.  The groups would be assigned and would be 3 or 4 people.  Each student would be responsible to create their own slide and would need to provide enough information to share out and also include one piece of media.  By using Google Slides, students would be able to work on their own, at home, at anytime, and not have to all be together to work on it.  I also created a simple rubric for how I would grade the students based on the areas I felt were important.  By providing a list of different sports or topics, I could limit it to 1 group per topic so there were no repeats and also would allow me to have 1 group present when their topic was being taught during the school year.  I like the idea of students working together on something but in a digital way.  I think it's important for students to learn how to work with each other not just in a face to face setting but also in a digital way.

"History of Sports" Assignment 

EEND676 Artifact #1 Using Google as a Collaborative Tool

I chose this particular assignment as my first artifact because I liked how it fit in with what our 5th graders already do in their classroom setting.  Our 5th grade team has students create portfolios at the beginning of the year so that they can add simple artifacts throughout the school year as a lead-up to their Spring conference, in which they lead.  Each teacher shows their class how to create a Google Site and how to upload something as an artifact.  Because of this background knowledge, I knew my students would be able to handle this assignment with very little difficulty.  In this assignment, I asked them to create another tab on their site titled "Physical Education," similar to their other tabs of Math, Reading, Writing, etc.  I asked them to provide an artifact for 2 out of the 3 areas that we focus on in Physical Education; Fitness, Teamwork, Skills.  After they choose their artifacts, I asked them to use several different Google tools to provide their examples.  I gave an example of a student writing a short story about a teambuilding experience that they did in class and how they were placed in teams and had to solve a problem.  I gave another example of a student taking pictures of themselves doing a skill correctly and then placing the pictures in a Google Slide deck to explain.  This assignment was an easy transition for students because of their prior knowledge of the G-Suite tools.  This assignment gave me confidence to assign similar projects in the future and to possibly try them with younger grades!

Portfolio Assignment

Technology Conundrum!

     Growing up, I always wanted the latest and greatest in technology.  Whether it was the original Gameboy, the Sega Dreamcast, the first iPhone, no matter what it was, I wanted it just like everyone else.  But at the same time, I grew up playing outside until dark with all of the neighborhood kids.  I treated the technology in the house as something special and only used it at special times.  Unfortunately, kids do not see it that way in today's world, and neither does our society.  We are constantly using technology and not playing nearly as much as we used to.  Which brings me to my conundrum.  I love that we are now a 1:1 district and every single student from 2nd grade and up has their own personal Chromebook.  I love seeing how innovative and creative students can be with their technology and how excited they get when they teach their teacher something new.  I also love all of the new possibilities and opportunities that we could incorporate the technology into PE class.  But that is what I struggle with at the same time.  I am proud to be a Physical Education teacher and love teaching kids how to move and have fun and create their own enjoyment through movement and sport.  As PE teachers, our biggest enemy is the technology outside of the school that is sucking all of our free time out of our lives.  We are constantly trying to promote fitness and lifelong healthy habits for our students.  I have a hard time telling my students to bring their computer to PE class and then give up that precious time that I have with them and instead use it to work on a computer.  I might look at this a little differently if I saw the same classes every day of the week for 30 minutes but in our district, and common around the country, I only see them 2x a week.  I also know that using technology in PE class wouldn't need to take up the entire class time but I am also a realist and know that even the most simple google form could take much longer in class when 25 kids are all taking it on their own devices.  I have challenged myself to use more technology in my teaching by using Google Slides and adding Gifs to slides for different warm-up movements or using pictures and animations for directions.  I feel like I am in constant battle with technology because I want to stay current and use technology with the kids to keep engagement high but at the same time I want to promote activity and less screen time at home!  What a conundrum I tell you!  Does anyone else have similar feelings about using technology too much and feel that we are overly committed to using technology in education?  Or do you think we need to stay on the bandwagon because that is where the future is going in education?  It's crazy to think one day we will look back and ipads will be a thing of the past!

Course Reflection

                                                 
       I really enjoyed this class and walked away with so many new ideas.  What I liked most with this class is that it forced me to get outside my comfort zone and try new technologies in education.  So many different people shared great ideas by using tools such as Padlet, Twiddla, FlipGrid, Buncee, G Suite tools, Seesaw, and so many more.  Every time someone shared a cool idea I found myself trying to think of a way that I could use and apply it to a Physical Education setting.  There are some instances that certain web tools really do not apply to a PE setting but most of them I found myself thinking of a way that I could use it.
     I also really liked meeting for the 3 times that we did during this course.  As much as I love taking a class online and working at my own pace, it's always nice to talk to a person or a group face to face and have "real life" discussions.  I can remember having a great conversation with a few people about the use of twitter and why every teacher should have an account.  It's fun to hear them reflect later on why they resisted using twitter and why they now understand its amazing capabilities.  I also remember having a discussion with a larger group of colleagues about the 4 C's in Education Technology and what our 5th C would be.  Every person in the group had a different answer but each person agreed with the points that were being made.  It's neat to talk with teachers from all different levels to gain different perspectives on subject matter.  For example, digital citizenship was discussed and hearing the high school teachers talk about the importance at their level compared to the elementary teachers was fascinating.  I am excited to take what I learned in this class and apply it to my teaching in the upcoming school year as well as share with my colleagues.

Artifact #2 Collaborative Technology Task

     In a previous assignment, we were asked to create an activity that allowed students to use technology in a collaborative way.   As a Physical Education teacher, this has been challenging in the past to get students to work together on something with technology because we would typically be wearing the technology or not have enough for every student, for example.   When thinking about this assignment and applying what I had already learned in this class, I created a Google Classroom where all of my students can go to find updates and assignments for my class.  This is where I created a Google Doc that students would open up on their own devices and they would create their own class rules for PE.  By using a Google Doc, every student had access to it and they could see what others wrote.  If someone had a similar thought for a rule, they could add their name to the row but they still had to type a reason as to why they thought their rule would be a good class rule to have.  This activity will not only show me who participated and who didn’t but it also gives the students a sense of ownership of the rules and for their class.  Using a Google Doc is great because it automatically saves what you type and allows so many users to be on at the same time working on the document.  I am excited to continue using the Google platform and am planning on attempting to use a Google Form to have students enter their own fitness data this Fall.  Wish me luck!

Class Rules Google Doc

Artifact #1 Multimedia Project

     I have to be honest; I have never used Google Slides before this class 😱.  I know, shocking right?  I have explored many of the other features in the Google Suite but for whatever reason, Google Slides has always been on the back burner.  It is similar to Microsoft Powerpoint in what its intent is but Google Slides has way more potential, in my opinion.  For an assignment in this class, I created a Google Slideshow for students to go through on their own and reflect on what they learned.  To do this, I embedded 3 short Youtube videos for students to watch about Physical Literacy.  After they watch each video, there is a link to a Google Form with a reflection question that they can answer with a few sentences.  A benefit of this is so that I can see what students are learning and taking away and also to see who really watched the videos and who did not.  These short videos are a perfect way to start the school year off with a message about physical literacy and why it is important to stay active throughout your life and why learning basic skills in PE class can translate to other activities as you grow older.  The nice thing about Google Slides is that it plays nice with all of the other features of Google Suite like Forms and Docs and also allows easy transfers from Google Drive into the slideshow as well.  As a PE teacher, I can see my classes next school year using this setup quite often now that we will be 1:1 for the 2^nd through 5^th grades.

Link to Google Slideshow

SAMR vs RAT: Not a new Sci-Fi Movie!

     The first time I had heard of the "Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition Model" (SAMR), was last year during one of our institute days discussing the upcoming Digital Learning Initiative that has made its way down to the elementary level.  At first, I thought the presenters were referring to a person when they continually said SAMR back and forth to each other.  After their presentation, I was left with the image of a swimming pool in my mind.  They used the analogy of a swimming pool that has a shallow end on one side and then slowly gets deeper towards the opposite end.  When a teacher spends time in the shallow end with the Substitution and Augmentation stages, they gain more confidence.  This teacher should then progress towards the deeper end and find themselves in the Modification and Redefinition stages of the model.  This all does make sense to me but I think many people get hung up with the two middle stages, including myself.  The phrase "above the line/below the line" gets used quite often and I think confuses teachers.  I was unaware of another model that exists with the same ideas in mind, just one less stage.  This is the "Replace, Amplify, Transform" model, also known as the RAT or TAR model.  I know what you're thinking, what a terrible acronym.  I agree, it could have been something way better.  However, the idea behind it makes a lot of sense.  With this model, you do not have to look up the definition of each stage because the title itself is pretty self explanatory.  This model basically takes the SAMR model and combines the two middle stages into one.  First off, I think teachers would much rather use the RAT model because it has one less stage to remember.  Second, I think this model is a much simpler and easier model to understand for everyone involved.  Sean Mchugh discussed these two models on his blog post and he made an interesting point.  Regardless of which model we choose to follow, shouldn't the bigger question be how do we get ICT from one end of the spectrum to the other?  I think that is a very important question for schools to discuss because sometimes lessons don't always need to be in the Transformative stage or the Redefinition stage.  There are also times when technology does not need to be used to enhance the lesson, I know, hard to imagine right?  Too often, I think teachers get lost in the idea of using technology for every single thing they do that they lose site of the bigger umbrella question.  What do we want students to learn and how do we get them to learn it?

     When thinking about my own teaching, I like to look through the RAT model lens.  Last year, our district piloted a new pedometer for elementary age students.  This new pedometer has some neat features that older pedometers do not.  It not only can track a student's step count but also track their activity time (any time they are moving), and also their Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity time.  On top of that, the best feature of all, these pedometers have the ability to be uploaded to my computer software by using a "reader" that the student places their pedometer on.  It takes a quick 1.5 seconds to upload all three data points into my computer and they are all done.  These new pedometers not only "replaced" the old, outdated ones, but also amplified the lesson and my teaching because of how efficient and productive these pedometers are.  Now I have a tremendous amount of data to use with the students and can provide feedback and use as discussion points.  When students use these, now they can work on goal setting and get real time feedback on their activity which can "transform" their experience.  Many students will say, "oh this is just like a Fitbit?" and I laugh inside because they think this pedometer is a new technology to them, but in reality the pedometer has been around for decades and they are so used to having technology in every aspect of their life.  I am looking forward to using more of the Google Suite to transform my teaching in the upcoming school year and see how I can use the RAT model to improve other lessons of mine.

Mchugh, Sean.  The RAT, SAMR, Transformative Technology, & Occam's Razor [Blog Post].        Retrieved from  http://doverdlc.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-rat-samr-transformative-technology.html



   

Introductory Post

Hello!
My name is Kyle and I am brand new to the world of blogging so please lower your expectations right now!  I teach Physical Education at Steeple Run Elementary in District 203 in Naperville and have been there for the last 10 years.  I am married and have a 2 year old daughter at home who loves bike rides to the park and anything that is not sitting!

I enjoy learning about technology in education and the fast pace that it moves.  I have asked my elementary students for help with technology in my classroom many times and I will openly admit it. They are a great resource!  It's amazing to me how quick students can pick up on technology and also how their engagement level increases when using technology in the classroom.  Our district will be entirely 1:1 this next school year and I am excited to see how that changes things.  Our 2nd-5th graders will have Chromebooks and the K-1 grades will be 2:1 with ipads.  I think this will open up some new opportunities for our students in P. E. and I am excited to create some new ideas to incorporate technology into PE. My favorite technology tool in my classroom is undoubtedly connecting my school ipad to appleTV which is then projected on to a large screen.  I use this every single day with almost every class.  I'm looking forward to incorporating more technology in the future.

Stay tuned!