Journal 7: Professional Learning Network

When Dr. McGarvey introduced Professional Learning Networks the first couple of weeks in the quarter I was excited because as a new teacher, as a matter of fact as a teacher in general, I need all the help I can get. There's always new things to learn, new fads, new technology-education never seems to rest and keeps evolving before our eyes. We will never stop learning, to be honest with you, I wouldn't be surprised if after the master's program I decide to go for a PhD. It's in our nature as teachers to thirst for more and more knowledge about the current field you are in so that you can become the best teacher you can be.

For my affinity group I joined Edmodo, in Edmodo I came across a teacher, Mr. Rodriguez, who is using an iPad everyday in his classroom. I've been thinking about getting one for months now, after reading his article Tech for PE: Integrating Technology with PE, so I will be getting an early Christmas present for myself as soon as I get a call from the Sprint store. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to use all of these resources that will be available for me. I truly believe it will help me grasp interest in my students as well as aid me in the assessment side of PE with video, such as the Coach's Eye app. Also, PEScholar or PE4Learning like to post peer assessment sheets. Just last week, they inspired me to make one of my own for a push-up lesson since I had rainy days on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Name: Date:	Basic	Needs Improvement	Proficient
Start Position: 1. Hands are placed on floor, shoulder width apart.
2. Keep fingers forward, with arms completely extended.
3. Place toes on the floor.
Action: 4. Inhale, bend arms and lower body towards the floor.
5. Take elbows to a 90-degree angle.
6. Exhale, push against floor to straighten arms and return back to the start position.

Please circle one picture: 7. Did your partner’s back look like… a. volcano    b. table-top    c. cave

As far as my experience with RSS feeds (my Digg), I actually found lots of use in it! One particular feed I was constantly checking was that of, PhysEd Games, which is a site that posts videos up on YouTube of different games you can play. In these videos they include appropriate grade level, equipment, and an animation of what it would look like accompanied by dialogue. The most recent game I tried playing with my class was Capture the Flag, although there were a couple of wrinkles to iron out it seemed to be a hit with the kids in my class. After incorporating in each class I found out something new-my students are ULTRA COMPETITIVE. Although it is good to be competitive (I was probably the perfect example of this back when I was playing soccer here at Cal Poly), I fear that the students may be getting a bit too negative with it. The little things I'm hearing now can progressively get worse when they get older. Not only did I find a new game through this experience, but I also learned something new about my classes and now know that I have to address this issue when we come back from break.

Twitter wasn't a success for me, however, I was following a lot of interesting accounts so essentially it served as another feed for me. I didn't find myself posting anything, however, I did find myself getting a lot of information about other physical educators. For example, I was following PhysEd Games on my twitter as well thus if I wasn't getting their new updated videos on my Digg I was getting them on my Twitter. It's crystal clear to me that everything I have been learning in GED 512 is working and it is helpful. I am now going to dip my feet in further in the PE tech world with my new iPad. I have high hopes for myself to learn as much as I can so that I can give my students the best P.E. experience they've ever had. I want them to look back at their elementary P.E. days and remember how much they learned and how it was a big part of why they are still active today. I want technology to play a role in the FitnessGram so that I can record scored efficiently and effortlessly. Class management with the help of Class Dojo, assessment with Coach's Eye or Easy Assessment, etc. The sky is the limit. Getting help from P.E. teachers around the country means everything to me at this point in time, sometimes it's not easy to be the only P.E. teacher in your school with no one to turn to for help. I'm on my own little P.E. island and when the time for Staff Development rolls in each week, I do feel some seclusion. Through the use of affinity groups I can find the help that I need with people who have been in my profession for years. Someday I would like to incorporate blogs and google docs in my class so that students can connect via technology- something that is very familiar to them. I'm here to create Lifelong Athletes, and I can't wait to get my message across with the help of people in the P.E. community as well as those in other communities.

Journal 6: Self-Reflection

If I had one word to describe how I felt at the beginning of the quarter in GED 512, there wouldn't be. Thus, I chose an image since I'm more of a visual person. To be quite honest, the very first day I sat down in  the back of the lab unsure of what I was getting myself into. When Dr. McGarvey started speaking, hundreds of question marks popped into my mind. Was he speaking in English? What is this HTML he speaks of? The World Wide Web versus the Internet? Servers? CSS? I thought I was doing okay in the technology world right up until this very moment. I realized there was so much information to learn still, and creating a website is not as easy as Weebly. As the weeks passed I grew more and more anxious, my brain felt swollen after every class and it pulsated as I rode the elevator down to the parking lot. Sometimes during class I would find myself lost because I was stuck doing the previous thing we were working on and it was tough to catch up, this created an internal freak out like I've never experienced before. By the time week 6 rolled in, I began feeling more comfortable with everything Dr. McGarvey was saying, I had a grasp on what the codes he was typing in were going to look like in the browser preview and what I was doing. Since I am a visual learner it did help that the labs were displayed step by step on a projector screen. The book exercises were hand in hand with what we were doing in the lab, hence, that repetition did help me recognize and remember what I was doing. I'm so glad I kept up with each of the assignments each week and inputted them on my index.html page or labs.html page every weekend so that everything was ready to go for class on Tuesday. The constant repetition of doing the same routine on both of these pages made it quite easy to link my homework exercises and labs or any other for that matter.
Examples:

• http://www.csupomona.edu/~smsandino/ged512/book/
• http://www.csupomona.edu/~smsandino/ged512/labs/labs.html

I had the toughest time with Dreamweaver and setting up the server as well as making sure all of the files in my local drive were being uploaded and shown on Dreamweaver. Sometimes I would have a clone of the same file under both my local drive as well as in Dreamweaver and I couldn't understand why (I still can't). What helped me in the Dreamweaver section of the class is writing step-by-step instructions for myself on what I need to do and drawing icons for the buttons I need to click on. Another difficult part for me was the Photoshop lab because I am not familiar with Photoshop at all. I remember using it my junior year in high school in my visual communications class but then again I never touched the program again until now. It would probably be beneficial for me to take an entire class on Photoshop because it was just information overload with all the tools that where available as well as their jobs for just one class. During this particular class, I made a lot of mistakes trying to fix the picture of the head, but it just didn't come out right. After class that night I stayed for a little while and attempted to fix it, which in turn gave me a better result although there are still quite a bit of mistakes.

Examples:

• Before: http://www.csupomona.edu/~smsandino/ged512/labs/images/head.jpg
• After: http://www.csupomona.edu/~smsandino/ged512/labs/images/crazy-2.jp

At this point in the quarter, the word I would chose to describe how I am feeling is...well, none. However, I did choose a photo to help my words out. The light-bulb is still foggy, but at least it's not a post-it with a question mark written on it. There are more ideas flowing out of my mind, and most importantly, more connections are being made with HTML code and what it would visually look like on a webpage. There's a great deal to learn thus far, but all I can do is practice, practice, practice. Something I learned very well during the 15 years I played soccer. The final project is still going to be quite challenging and I am positive I will have to refer to the book a lot, nevertheless, I do think I have the sufficient tools to make a simple website. It may not be perfect, it may not be the fanciest out there, but it will do the job for now until I have more tools that I can put under my belt. This class has been a learning experience for me, I've had to work hard, reread, ask questions, and ask for help to get to where I am today in Week 8. When I surf the web I know think about what it takes for the page to look the way it does and all of the effort that goes into it. There is a new found appreciation for technology, web designers, and the future of our techy world.

Journal 5: Twitter Fever

Well, to be quite honest with you ever since the twitter fever arrived I have never been interested in it. I always thought I was way too boring of an individual to burden people with my every move, life decision, life event, etc. The twitter I was exposed to was that of celebrities, professional athletes, rock stars and DJs, all of whom were in a different part of the world every other day, or at least it seemed liked it. Hence, I stayed away from twitter and stuck with the other popular social media networks such as Facebook and Tumblr. When Dr. McGarvey told us we were going to create twitter accounts I was rather skeptical, however, after a week of it I kind of started to like the idea of tweets in regards to professional learning communities. As you can see in the image above, twitter can be for ANY ONE. As a Physical Education teacher I find myself relating to the bird with a sweatband as well as the one with the glasses seeing as I am continuing my education. During the first week of using Twitter I took it upon myself to follow about 8 twitter accounts:

• ThePhysicalEducator
• PE Geeks
• i-PhysEd.com
• Physed Ideas
• PE Scholar
• SPARK
• PhysEd Games
• Crossfit Kids

The neat thing about the accounts I chose to follow was that they all had a separate website that had great resources for PE educators. I had no problem finding any of these accounts because as soon as you follow one, twitter gives you options on related accounts- "Who to Follow." My "tweets" feed consisted of updates from each of the accounts I am currently following. I had access to a lot of videos of lesson ideas, documents with PE rubrics, notices for when a particular PE chat of a particular topic was going to take place, etc. It's incredible how technology can give us all unlimited opportunities to develop in our profession! It really is true-technology is available to us at the touch of our fingertips. This is one thing I might be likely to keep up even after the quarter ends just because it is so easy, hopefully I can extend my networking to another level so that I can excel and grow in my profession as a Physical Education educator.