In our future, with the help of this additional research, we both plan to include technology into PHE classes and other curricula. We weighed out the pros and cons of technology in the gymnasium and gave explicit examples on how it can be introduced. Ultimately, it comes down to the accessibility of technology, resources, and a teacher’s comfort level around the use of technology. With a growth mindset and the willingness to be a learner yourself, it can be a rewarding experience to introduce tech to PHE. A few questions we have moving forward are as followed:
How can we make technology resources more accessible to teachers and schools?
Are there any grants or proactive ways a teacher could utilize to purchase technology resources?
In the future, will there be professional development days to incorporate the use of technology in an educational manner? Directly with a PHE focus.
How does utilizing technology in the classroom reflect and promote the BC curriculum and UDL guidelines?
Are there specific guidelines that need to be followed in relation to parent permission?
Included below is a link to our annotated bibliography with all the resources we used for this assignment plus a few additional related ones. Please feel free to go through this and continue to learn about the wonders of technology in relation to PE!
Photo Credit: Header photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash
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Now that we have established some concrete ways you could potentially integrate technology into physical education, it is time to discuss the people who will be doing the integrating – the teachers. Studies have categorized two factors that influence teachers’ readiness for technology integration. The first factor comes down to the accessibility of technology resources provided by the school or school board. With lack of resources, budget, inadequate administration support, or excessively large class sizes result in being the most significant barrier. However, the second barrier happens within thyself of the teacher. With the integration of technology, a teacher’s prior knowledge, skills, pedagogical beliefs, and attitudes become internal obstacles if they do not see the correlation between the two subjects. Similarly, studies have shown that most teachers do not feel comfortable working with and utilizing technology in their PE classrooms.
A study was done to gather information on how confident teachers feel using different types of physical activity technologies such as heart rate monitors, accelerometers, sports based simulators, exergames, and more in their classrooms and 85% of teachers rated themselves unready to utilize these technologies in the classroom because of lack of technological proficiency. This study showed us the teachers feel inadequately prepared to use technology in both PE as well as their regular classrooms; however, it also shows us that more than 80% of teachers believe that technology should be included in student teaching, faculty should be required to attend technology training sessions, technology expectations should be mentioned in the syllabus, and students should be assessed on their use of technology. This is displayed multiple times throughout this study, and there are various charts and graphs about the information, but I have included one chart below for you to quickly look at to see teachers beliefs about technology.
With this kind of mindset, fear, and lack of knowledge, it is almost impossible for teachers to integrate technology effectively. As a result, we thought it would be interesting and beneficial to look into how to educate teachers on incorporating technology.
In an article by Baert, suggestions were made for how we can better equip staff with the knowledge and tools they need to utilize technology in their classrooms. One suggestion the article makes is creating a clear vision of what technology integration is and why we do it. This means that all faculty members would have a clear understanding of why technology can assist in providing quality instruction in PE and would have a clear vision of what this looks like through, “modelling, reflection, and collaboration.” (Baert, 2011). Next, this article suggests implementing a technology course for teachers to take so they can gain the basic skills and knowledge needed to incorporate different tools in their classes. They then suggest taking it even further by incorporating various workshops for teachers over the years to help keep them up to date with new technologies, sharpen their current knowledge, and help them learn how to incorporate technology effectively. It is important to note, however, that these courses are not sufficient and teachers need exposure in other ways and further support. This is when the article recommends having technology labs where teachers get to practice working with different technological tools, close collaboration amongst PE teachers who are mentors for pre-service teachers as they may not have much experience with technology either, and support within the school for when teachers need it. These ideas are some of the suggestions made for helping educate teachers on incorporating technology.
Photo Credits: Header photo by Mr. Bochelly on Unsplash
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Introducing and adapting to a new teaching tool in the classroom can be daunting and challenging for educators. Luckily, merging technology with physical health education (PHE) has never been easier. There are a multitude of ways that you can introduce technology to your next PHE class. In this blog, I am going to highlight some valuable and enjoyable ways to combine the two subject areas together.
Embracing technology can help create a dynamic class environment. In a world of technology, this cross-curricular connection initiates interest from students leading to an increase in engagement. Some technology services are more common and easily accessed, than others. If limited technology is available abt one time, stations are an excellent way to make use of tech in small groups. Below we have listed ways to incorporate technology in a PHE class:
Various fitness, fitness tracking, or nutrition apps
Video – to film slow motion, instant replay
Video resources online eg. gifs (see below)
Listen to music
Use “Kahoot” or “Google forms” to create simple quizzes to test knowledge
Pedometers
Heart rate monitors
“Exergames,” such as Wii Sports, Dance Dance Revolution
Have students take turns with remote, and have the rest of the class follow along
Physical Activity (PA) watches
Websites or edocuments
Virtual Bicycle Ergometers
Virtual Reality (VR) headsets
With the use of videos, in a study by Baek et al. (2018), it was determined that students developed a deeper understanding of core skills such as throwing and catching, enhanced ability to connect their performance to the performance of an elite athlete, and overall, had an increased engagement in PHE (p. 28).
However, to focus specifically on the elementary level, in the same study, educators primarily only used websites or e-documents to incorporate technology in their PHE classes. This does not mean that it cannot be done though. Young students can begin learning what pedometers and heart rate monitors are, and how to use them. They are devices used to measure health related aspects such as steps and heart rate and health tracking are programs used to store and track this information. With a developed awareness, young students will be better able to consider their bodies health to make positive choices.
This Technology Integrated Lesson in Physical Education YouTube video by Seth Jenny is an excellent example of young students participating in a technology aided PHE class. As a class the students watch three different basketball passes in video delay, which slows the moving picture and seamlessly repeats the clip. Following, Jenny introduces music, timers, a smartboard, and projector at different stations, each with a different objective.
When debating whether incorporating technology in physical education is worth it or not, it is important to first look into some pros and cons of the implementation. This blog post is not made to sway anyone in a certain direction, but to provide you with information, on both sides of the spectrum, that help you make an informed opinion. There is lots of debate on whether technology is harmful or useful so below I will list examples of some of the pros and cons of technology in relation to physical activity.
Let’s begin with the pros:
· Extending learning opportunities – Technology can extend learning opportunities through things like Google, GPS, and more. For example, students can use Google to find answers to physical health questions from a wide variety of topics.
· Expressing yourself and your feelings – Technology can be a way to express yourself in a healthy way whether it be through video games or a platform that the PE class uses to answer health related questions anonymously.
· Helps with physical progression through utilizing things like heart rate monitors and nutrition apps
· Incorporating administrative software helps students improve study habits and overall learning – By utilizing some form of platform (ie: google classroom) it can help promote organization and improve study habits
· Podcasts, games, and other forms of technology help engage students and get them excited about physical activity
· Improves mental organization of knowledge – Whiteboard, podcasts, and games are just a few of the tools that can be used to better organize information in a way that will stick with students or that they can go back and access later. It is a good source of motivation, can help increase engagement, and improve students understanding and organization of information.
· Increasing physical activity may improve academic performance – Evidence shows that increasing physical activity through physical education, recess, and physical activity in the classroom can improve academic performance. Brain health is the key to academic performance and the brain is highly influenced by physical activity. The brain is responsible for functions such as attention and memory capabilities, all of which are impacted by aerobic fitness. It has been shown that mathematics and reading are the subjects most highly impacted by physical education.
· Helps prepare individuals for their future world
· Promotes parent-teacher communication
Below I have provided a link to a video that talks in depth about the pros and cons of technology in the classroom among many other things.
As you can see, there are a vast number of benefits to incorporating technology in physical education. From improving academic performance to decreasing sedentary lifestyles, to reducing stress, and more, the benefits are vast. Although there are several benefits, we still must consider the disadvantages to technology in the classroom. It is always important to consider the negative aspects of something in order to decide if it is worth utilizing it and to bring our attention to these aspects so we can avoid these problems or combat them as much as possible. So, without further ado, here are some of the cons of technology in PE!
Cons:
· Funding and the disparities that could occur across schools and individuals
· Potential for lack of team building skills – When things such as exergames are used in Physical Education, only one or two students are playing each game and they are not working as a team
· Setting up/getting technology working can take up time when it doesn’t go smoothly
Overall, there is lots to consider when deciding whether incorporating technology in physical education is beneficial or not. We think that although there are both pros and cons to technology in the classroom, the important thing to think about is how you can utilize it in a beneficial way while also combatting as many negative aspects as possible. This is what we will discuss in the next blog post, stay tuned!
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When choosing a topic for our inquiry project, we were instantly drawn towards a tech in PE inspired blog as it is something that has always sparked our interest and is something we are interested in learning about. When beginning this project, we looked at the diagram below to help us figure out what to consider and how to go about this project. In this first post, we will be exploring the “I Wonder” block by going over our initial thoughts and questions.
For this inquiry we are hoping to explore technology in the sense of being physical education. We want to dive into the question of how can incorporating technology improve our health and fitness and how can it be utilized in the classroom. With this topic in mind, we will be considering things like:
What are the pros and cons of technology in PE?
What are the risks of technology in PE?
What types of technology can you incorporate?
What different ways can technology be incorporated in the classroom?
What tips do people have for smoothly incorporating tech in PE?
What are the systems current stance on tech in PE? How do teachers currently feel about potentially incorporating it in their PE classes?
How can we educate teachers on utilizing technology in physical education?
What does the future of technology in PE look like?
Now that our questions are laid out, it is important that we consider how we will go about the rest of this project. With these questions in mind, we plan on exploring the investigate, record, discover, think, and try blocks of the diagram above. For the “investigate” and “record” blocks, we will do research on our different questions and begin formulating ideas. For the “discover” block, we will observe and examine different classrooms (as much as possible) and reach out to individuals who may have valuable information for us, for example, our PE teacher. For the “I think” and “I try blocks”, we will relate our findings to ourselves and think about how we could put them into action. Ideally, we would have liked to think of ways we could incorporate this into our upcoming practicum; however, with this being cancelled, it will be more of a theoretical application. Finally, the “reflect” block will be our blog posts where we post our journey of finding information and reflect on the outcomes. It will include some of the research we have gathered and links to sources that have guided our journey and findings. These posts will include pictures/videos of things we found interesting, cool, and educational. The blog posts will also be a place for us to consider how we can change/improve things and ask any further questions that may come up. Overall, with these blogs, our ultimate goal is to figure out something new about technology, expand our mindset on how technology can be used, and learn something that may be beneficial to us as future educators.
Photo Credits: Header photo by Alexandre Debieve on Unsplash & Diagram photo by Brynn Courtney
