Here are examples of the work I produced as a part of my IMET experience:
EDTE 250- This course required us to do a literature review and outline an action research project, making it kind of a trial run for the culminating project. I worked with Erice Wilberg and Maurice Williams on a project which exploring the use of technology in independent study physical education. Circumstances found all three of us on different paths when it cam time for our actual culminating activity.
Comments:
Comprehensive approach to a research proposal.
The idea to integrate PE, Independent Study, and Technology is an interesting
one. You lay out excellent literature and tie appropriately to standards.
The inclusion of a Graphic Organizer helps flesh out the overall approach.
Great assignment for a first pass at creating a research proposal!- Professor
Mike Menchaca
Hi Bruce,in reading over your project, "Using Technology to Support Physical Education in High School Independent Study Programs," I was very interested in your topic and have done research on my own due to personal interests. My thoughts:
-Use of heart rate monitors and electronic scales once a month to quantify progress.I like the part about using heart rate monitors (HRM's) and digital scales, but once a month doesn't seem like enough. I qualify that because I use a heart rate monitor regularly for exercise and chart my data. If students had access to a heart rate monitor for the length of the class. The monitor could do various tasks including keeping track of dates an! d times the student exercised. As well, HRM's calculate average bpm, calorie expenditure, outside temperature, altitude, and sometimes power output. This data could help the students track their diet and exercise becoming more invested in the process of health and wellness than merely a monthly reading. I would reccommend the HRM be used for all of the above uses to help guide students towards overall lifestlye and exercise assessments. The great thing is that the HRM records when and for how long you exercise, so that helps the student complete the class at his or her own pace.
• Weekly e-mail reports to their instructors
Using spreadsheets to track and their progress in the areas of BMI, weight, heart rate, and exercise goals .
I think this could be very beneficial for students, but could take some time and front loading fo! r the students to understand the health and wellness concepts and meaning, and the learning curve associated with the technology pieces.
• Monthly online chats on fitness topics with other students to attempt to create community .
I would look into the current craze for online athletic coaches/coaching and online diet programs. i.e. ediets, trainright.com, trainingbible.com, etc...I used the trainright.com (Lance Armstrong's coach) program for six months and had great successes. The online program set up was very structured. I took a survey and did baseline testing for my health. A coach set up a training program monthly on a calendar that I could log on to. Everyday I had to log on and log my data. I also had access to a database of training articles for endurance sports and nutrition. As well, I could email the coach with questions and he would get back to me within 24hrs. I had a great experience and saw physical performance gains in three months. I believe if your program was set up with a similar structure (and I believe all students can benefit from structure) it would have greater success.
• Completing monthly webquest projects on topics in nutrition and fitness to enhance knowledge.
This would be of great benefit to students. Challenging students to understand the topic and comlete interactive assignments would add to the overall buy in of program.
• Students used information and data to create electronic fitness profiles
Also, another great way to use data and a great self-evaluation tool for students.
• Students did semester projects that explored lifetime fitness issues (outlining a personal plan for the next five year; researching options in the community for physical activity for different age groups, etc.)
I really like this last point because it gives students a plan for the future and concrete steps to fall back on in case they forget what they have learned during the course. If nothing else, your health and fitness course has given students exposure to what it takes to live a healthy lifestyle.- Cameron Bennett, IMET 5 cohort member
Your PE project is extremely thorough and indepth, citing multiple statistics and facts. My one concern is the no time restriction for research. Doesn't this allow for off task behavior? How do you monitor progress? Kids like to procrastinate especially when it comes to research. The weekly reports might be a way to incorporate this. The weekly report is a great way for students to become more individually health conscious, a wonderful idea.- Mary Poe, IMET 5 cohort member
EDTE 251- A poster session showcasing one of the premiere sources for educational innovation on the web, the George Lucas Educational Foundation's Edutopia site. I created an Adobe PDF file that showed the site in slide show fashion like PowerPoint. I used Acrobat to "harvest" the very large site and created PowerPoint pages for the slide transition. However, I used the Starwars theme for background, which created a huge five megabyte file which wasn't very practical for downloading.
Comments:
This is not something I would have typically stumbled across (GLEF.org),
but I found it to be a tremendous wealth of information. Your presentation
method helped to break it down into manageable pieces, and made my overall
knowledge of the layout that much better for future visits. For those
scanning your presentation as a pdf, you made it easy for them to land
on the information specifically applicable to them (i.e. action plans,
teacher prep, PBL, etc.). Very nice work.-Bill Olmstead, IMET 5
Cohort Member
I love it. The PDF was a great idea. Sometimes that movement of the presentation was too fast for me. The only thing that I would have to say to the negitive is that "the ease of use" is lacking. After telling people to download it, you said to use ctrl-l or OpenApple-L, but you forgot to tell them to open up the PDF first. I was using the ctrl-l in Internet Explorer- Carl Chapek, IMET 5 Cohort Member.
In your splash page, you've misspelled "Target" as "Targe". Your PDF is over 5 MB. In brackets next to the PDF link, indicate the size of the file people are about to download. Regarding the presentation itself, wow! What a great introduction and synopsis of GLEF. You've synthesized a LOT of what is on GLEF in this assignment. You've clearly delineated some of the major categories for consideration: such as Assessment or Multiple Intelligences. This obviously covers a lot of work and shows tremendous commitment on your part. Great work! -Professor Mike Menchaca
EDTE 282- This class focused on producing an inservice and web-based resources for educators. Carl Chapek, David Bayne, Marco Lizarraga and I worked to create a page to help people avoid "death by PowerPoint". I did the web resources for the project and helped Carl with the web layout.
Comments:
"I loved the concept behind your
Staff Development project. There was a phase; I think it is still occurring
in some venues, of PPT mania. Every where you went, every meeting, conference,
presentation seemed to be in PPT. But what was the point, what was the
real purpose behind this style of presentation? What about audio and video,
etc? These questions addressed were quite thought provoking. The site
is great, clear, concise, and easy to navigate, full of numerous valuable
resources. Great job!" -Sara Regan, IMET 5 Cohort Member
Presentation
Material
Excellent with material provided in a variety of media.
Great info. I especially liked facilitators guide. Very specific, step
by step. I could follow and use your presentation with very little modification
for myself. Standards are good to have for reference. Rubric for evaluation
was relevant and clear. Skit was funny (I’m remembering from class)LOL
Modules
and Lessons
Great info in a variety of media
Each module was just the right amount of info to absorb at any one time.
Good use of showing what the operator was doing and then seeing it on
the screen. I think my only comment for change would be not to have so
much movement with the mouse. I found it distracting sometimes (especially
since I was a beginner at that time) LOL
Web
Resources
Excellent and varied resource page.
From: Jackie H -IMET 5 Cohort member
Good use of humor in presentation. Video-based training. F2F and online components. Provided clear picture of overall approach to staff development. Created a tremendous resource for this presentation. Talked a lot about optimizing PowerPOint use and will work on cross-platform issues. Very easy to follow with choices from basxic to advanced. Training designed for individuals. Copy of everything is online (wow!). Resources need to be annotated.
Overall, extensive amount of work with training that can be used right away and is broad enough to satisfy almost any environment. Excellent work! - Professor Mike Menchaca
EDTE 284- For this project, David Bayne, Marco Lizarraga, and I created a webquest which utilized actual requirements for job developers to enable high school students and adult learners to discover web resources for career exploration.
Comments:
These guys can be counted on to raise the bar for everyone! Our only complaint
was that so many images were a bit overwhelming. Other than that, everything
was great!
- IMET 5 Cohort Team of Shirley, Mary, Jackie, Willie, Gray, &
Roberta
We
really liked the idea behind your WebQuest-making students find job for
real people. The only real big suggestion that we had on the WebQuest
itself was that most problem-based strategies are tackled in a collaborative
setting giving students the ability to see things from other studetns'
perspectives.
As far as the layout of your website, we liked the colors ease of navigation.
however, some of our pages had a great deal of information. This may become
overwhelming for some of your students. It might be easier for them to
read if the pages were broken down into smaller chunks.
-IMET Cohort Team of Bill, Carl, Kristina, Samantha, and Koreen
Very realistic. All real-life scenarios. Could fit a variety of those seeking employment. Great teacher notes. Interesting career voyages. Confusing on who would use this. A great simulation for a classroom. Looks long and a lot of work. Can't wait to try it.
-IMET Cohort Team of Joanna, Lori, Maryville, and Daniel
This is an excellent tool for any level of career counseling and ties appropriately to real world scenarios and the need for problem solving.- Professor Mike Menchaca