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.

Journal 4: Project Plan

Plan for my Curriculum Project:

Wire Frame

Site Map

• Site title - V.V.E.S.: Ms. Sandino's Wonderful World of P.E.
• Developer - Stephanie Sandino
• Rational or focus - 

Content: The content in this site will primarily be information about the student's Physical Education class for the parent(s)/guardian(s).

Goals: Inform parents about-

     *Expectations

     *My background/experience

     *State physical fitness test

     *Weekly updates

     *Resources

• Main features outline - The main features of the site are the pages I intend to create: home page, P.E. handbook page, about me page, fitnessgram page, and blog page.
• Content - I am planning to have 5 main webpages.

Home page: The website's purpose as well as my contact information. On this page there will be buttons that will allow the users to navigate through my website as well as a link to go to the school's main webpage.


P.E. Handbook page: The 5 main standards that will be used, expectations/rules, and consequences.


About Me page: A mini biography of academic background, sport background, as well as teaching philosophy.


FitnessGram page: Informs parents what to expect for the 5th grade Physical Fitness Test through informative videos.


Blog page: Weekly blog posts on what is happening in P.E. for the week, resources, important topics such as why it is essential to wear athletic shoes during physical education, how to become a healthier individual (help their child), awards I give out, etc.

• Target audience - My target audience would be the parent(s)/guardian(s) of my students.
• Design considerations. The design I am targeting for is a hub-and-spoke structure, embed videos, embed documents, external link to blog, images, navigation bar on every page, tables, header & footers, CSS. A simple, concise, and informative design. Whichever page you are on you'll be able to go to any page you want.
• Limiting factors - The limiting factors I am foreseeing are: lack of computer accessibility as well as old browsers.

Journal 3: “Education and the Social Web: Connective Learning and the Commercial Imperative”

Friesen, N. (2010, December 6). Retrieved http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3149/2718

In this day and age everything seems to be at the touch of our fingertips. We are the generation in the Age of Technology- or at least that's what I like to think of it. It's no surprise to me that this is now making its way through education and breaking barriers in a lot of curricula out there. We are now seeing iPads in classrooms, blogs used for discussion and project based curricula,  polls that are live-streamed in the classroom with cell phones, classroom Facebook pages and so much more! The sky is the limit when it comes to technology and social media in specific. 

As I read this article I had to read Steve Greenburg's statement a few times so that it could sink in: "You are not Facebook's customer. You are the product that they sell to their real customers-advertisers. Forget this at your peril." Friesen has some great points, although, in the end I am all for technology and the social web in the education realm. I never quite thought about this when it came to integrating technology in my classroom, to tell you the truth it never even crossed my mind. I've always noticed the advertisement banners on the right side of my Facebook page and in the back of my mind I figured it was advertisers gaining my interest through web searches I've made. It makes perfect sense, they want you to click on it! It's almost like Pandora for advertisers, they "know" what I like. In all honesty, it is quite alarming to see how much they know about your personal information. Something just as simple as the "like" button and that ever so desired "dislike" button has advertisers written all over it. Those in advertisement benefit from the all of the "likes" and would definitely be at a disadvantage if the "dislike" button would be created (it never will) because that is considered negative feedback or criticism for them.

Despite some of Friesen's good points, it wouldn't stop me from using the social web as well as other technological advancements. The positives outweigh the negatives in my world of P.E. as well as the other subjects in school. Through this type of technology I can open a direct line of communication with my students in hopes that they will get more and more stimulation in the cognitive domain- something that I don't always get to in my lessons. It is a way to come into contact with those few students that may be too shy to answer or ask questions in front of their peers. Also, my lower skilled students can benefit from looking at videos of themselves and answering questions about their technique and skill level. The possibilities are endless, and I am very excited to take this on and bring it into my class!

Question #1: How can I keep my students safe when using the social web or the web in general in my Physical Education class?

A1: By following the school's internet policies:

-The student in whose name an online services account is issued is responsible for its proper use at all times. Students shall keep personal account numbers, home addresses, and all telephone numbers private. They shall use the system only under their own account number.

-Students shall use the district's system responsibly and primarily for educational purposes.

-Students shall not access post, submit, publish, or display harmful or inappropriate matter that is threatening, obscene, disruptive, or sexually explicit, or that could be construed as harassment or disparagement others based on their race/ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or political views.

-Students shall not disclose, use, or disseminate personal identification information about themselves or others when using electronic mail, chat rooms, or other forms of direct electronic communication. Students are also cautioned not to disclose such information by other means to individuals located through the internet without the permission of their parents/guardians. Personal information includes the student's name, address, telephone number, Social Security number, or other individually identifiable information.

-Copyrighted material shall not be placed on the district's computer system without the author's permission. Students shall not violate copyright laws or plagiarize documents.

-Students shall report ant security problem or misuse of the services.

Question #2: Will we ever get to a point where social networks such as Facebook do away with the advertisements?

A2: No, I truly believe that social networks such as Facebook are sitting on top of 3 gold mines one of which is advertisements. The other 2 are media (i.e. sharing and subscriptions) and shopping (i.e. rumors of a "want" button, a genius move considering the booming of social shopping networks such as Pintrest and Etsy).

Journal 2: Affinity Group & Digg RSS Stream

The affinity group I chose to join this week is “Edmodo,” I made an account and connected myself with the Health and P.E. community so that my feed would show topics in my field. From my experience in Edmodo I wish to learn helpful ways I can better myself as a P.E. teacher, for example: lesson ideas, teaching strategies, effective teaching skills, and much more. When I made my account I noticed that this not only pertained to physical education but the health of teachers themselves. One of the teachers was mentioning that he was a third year teacher who had devoted the last two years to his job/profession and had been feeling exhausted and started gaining weight. During the summer he began to get in shape again and has since then been feeling better in terms of his own personal health. It’s awesome to see that not only is this relating to students, but it is also reaching teachers who also need to be living a healthy lifestyle. I don’t have another physical education teacher to collaborate with at my school, so it would be nice to have some PLC-even if it is via Edmodo! Here is the link to my Edmodo: https://www.edmodo.com/home#/

Moving on to my Digg RSS stream, throughout the past week I have been monitoring it quite frequently and am surprised with how useful it is! To be honest with you, it’s addicting because all you want to do is try and find as many blogs, websites, and topics of your interests to flood your blog so that you have a variety of information to look through. Not only is this a way to stay up to date on blogs or websites, but this is also a way to acquire new ideas and grow in the future of your education. Physical education is always evolving just like with everything else, new research trickles in as well as the latest methodologies, equipment, exercise fads, etc. I definitely think the coolest part about Digg is that all the information comes straight to you, everything is on the news feed. Not only can you see the different streams, but you may also organize them!

Journal 1- Part 1: Getting Started

Robbins, J. (2012). Learning web design : a beginner's guide to HTML, CSS, Javascript, and web graphics. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly.

Summary Reflection:

While reading the first three chapters of the book I became acquainted with most of the basic terms that are going to be used throughout the book as well as in our class, how the Web functions, as well as the key pieces you need to know and have to begin web design and eventually complete your puzzle.

It seems like every month something new pops up in the world of technology, now, when you buy a laptop or desktop computer it almost seems like it becomes outdated the following couple of months after you purchase it. With web design you have to accommodate these changes and take into consideration a billion other factors such as browsers, devices being used, accessibility, etc. As I am learning more and more in this class I am beginning to notice the topics we talk about as I casually surf the Web or share documents so that I have them at home, work, and school. Robbins couldn't stress enough the importance of following the standards and rules to design the best possible website you can. Also, in web design there are many different components that partake in putting together the entire puzzle. While reading Chapter 1 I couldn't help but think how far below the learning curve I am starting out on! Although I might like one area of web design more than others, I have to become well rounded and be knowledgeable in a little bit of everything so that the outcome is a wholesome experience for the user.

Throughout the reading I had a couple of questions that needed to be cleared up:

Question #1: Essentially, do both progressive enhancement and graceful degradation do the same thing? In your opinion which of the two takes more time?

A1. From what I've read, it can be said that both progressive enhancement and graceful degradation try to do the same thing: keep our products useful to every user. Progressive enhancement is a more sophisticated and at the same time stable way of assuring that but it takes more time and effort. Graceful degradation can be used more easily as a patch for an already existing product; it means harder maintenance later on, but requires less initial work.

Question #2: What other alternatives can web designers use for better, easier accessibility other than those listed on pg. 41?

A2. How can using users with disabilities/elders benefit the web designer in the process?

Involving users early in projects helps you understand real-world accessibility issues, such as how people with disabilities and older people use the web with adaptive strategies and assistive technologies.

Involving users early helps you implement more effective accessibility solutions. It also broadens your perspective in a way that can lead you to discover new ways of thinking about your product that will make it work better for more people in more situations.