SEPEP Basketball No. 3

Our SEPEP Basketball unit is now finished and the students have finished posting their required reports, photos and video to the blog. We did run into some problems with my iPad being hit by a ball and dropped, smashing the screen. So we were unable to video games 11 and 12.

If you would like to visit our Year 7/8 SEPEP Basketball site click here.

I personally think the course ran really well although there are certainly things I would change next time around. The roles students undertook worked out and they undertook these enthusiastically and maturely.

To find out how the students felt about the unit of work I surveyed them using Survey Monkey to get their thoughts about the course. I was keen to find out what they thought of the roles and also the use of the blog. In general the response was fairly positive but not so much towards the blog with 40% saying they disliked this part of the unit. I was not expecting quite this high a percentage but in hindsight taking a PE lesson out to go to the computer suite to post on our blog was never going to be as fun. I want to try using the blog again but will rethink the roles/expectations of students and the time it took for them to post.

Here is the data from the survey:

1. Did you enjoy having the various roles during our basketball unit?

Yes - it was excellent		30.0%	6
Yes - it was good		45.0%	9
Satisfactory		20.0%	4
No - I didn't like it		5.0%	1

2. Did you enjoy having a blog to keep, score, share and view our basketball competition on?

Yes - it was excellent		5.0%	1
Yes - it was good		40.0%	8
Satisfactory		15.0%	3
No - I did not like it		40.0%	8

3. What was one thing that you would change about how this unit was run (what could you make better)?

I would make it better by making people not complain as much.

make the captain fair.

I would change not doing reports on the computer just hand writting them.

have more rounds and have no blog to keep track on.

It was all good.

Choosing our own teams

different teams

not as much bloging about the match

It was pretty good

I would make it so that the roles were more suited to the person that had them.

Make it so that there is two games each day so you get more time on court.

less computer work.

I do not no.

Only people who know how to play umpire

We could of not had the blog

The captain being watched so they be unfair.

Having less actual games and having more games for fun.

Nothing, maybe no blog

Get someone who knows how to umpire to umpire.

to someone who knew how to umpire

 

Clearly there are some students who do not enjoy writing or posting in PE lessons and would rather be playing the sport than posting about it. Maybe they have a point, I am trying to promote physical activity and sitting in a computer suite for half a lesson is not doing this. I still feel there is some value in using the blog as a tool with a SEPEP unit. I have to try and work it so they benefits are visible to students.

Changes next time:
1. I think a more authentic audience is needed. The blog has been shared with the community through a link in the newsletter. This only happened at the end of the unit. Next time I would put the link out weekly to keep an audience engaged in what the students are doing. With the students knowing this was happening they might see more purpose in keeping their audience informed.
2. Next time I will reconsider what goes on the blog and maybe design some proformas that allow students to post their reports easily.
3. Another possibility could be to share the roles so students rotated between two roles rather than only being exposed to one role. This would help ensure students got to have a go at at least one role they were keen on.

SEPEP Basketball Post No. 2

We are just over half way in our Year 7/8 Sports Education in Physical Education Program (SEPEP). For those that have not read my first post or are not sure of what SEPEP is click here.

My SEPEP course is a basketball unit and involves 4 teams of which students undertake the following roles as well as playing: coach/captain, umpire, reporter, photographer, camera person/commentator and scorer/time keeper. The season involves 12 games and each student has to undertake their role in the games they are not playing in i.e. if team 1 & 2 are playing then the umpires from teams 3 & 4 will umpire the game. All students have to post reports to our SEPEP Basketball blog.

Click here to visit our 7/8 Basketball blog.

The blog provides teams, premiership table, roles and expectations, photos, video and commentary of games, umpire and scorers reports as well as reports from those students undertaking the reporters role. It is the first time I have used a blog as the vehicle for recording all the information relating to a SEPEP unit. I have been very pleased with the way my students have taken on their roles and committed time to put their individual reports, photos and video onto the blog.

Some reflections after the first 7 games:

1. My students are not experienced in basketball and although we spent some time developing skills this could have been done for longer prior to starting the competition. Particularly in the area of using zones in defence.

2. I have needed to provide more time for students to write their 'role' reports in lesson time. To start with I was trying to get through two games per lesson leaving no time for students to record notes etc so when it came time to post their report at the end of the week they had limited notes and this impacted on the quality of their work. Games 1-7 were like this (the blog currently only has information relating to games 1-7). Games 8-12 will be only one game per lesson allowing plenty of time for students to write down notes about the game hopefully improving the quality of their posts.

3. To start with I was only going to have commentators record audio of the game. This quickly changed after game 1 and we used the iPad to record the game through iMovie while the commentators added their comments during the video recording.

4. We haven't had time to deeply analyse how students roles would look if done to a high level and is something I would spend more time focusing on next time. Having done it once I now have the blog as a basis for providing examples and discussion amongst the next group I do a SEPEP unit with.

5. The new roles of reporter, commentator, camera person, photographer have been more welcomed than the traditional roles of association president, secretary etc.

6. Next time I would increased the length of time allocated to running this unit.

Once the unit is finished I will do a final post that no doubt will have some more reflection in it. I intend to use Survey Monkey to find out how the students felt about the types of roles they undertook, the use of a blog as a way of sharing their work/roles and having their work viewed by the wider community (link placed in the newsletter), Twitter, peers and other teachers within their school. Overall I have been very pleased with how the unit has gone so far.

SEPEP Basketball

The Sport Education in Physical Education Program (SEPEP) is a program that allows students to participate in a sporting unit that is centred around a social structure. Traditionally this has been asking students to undertake roles such as captain, coach, umpire, association president, secretary and so on. This structure allows for a sporting competition to take place and provides the opportunity for students to experience a role they will/may encounter if they are a member of a sporting organisation. These roles provide opportunities to develop communication and leadership skills.

Having done this in the past, and by my own admission not very well, I have decided to try a different take on the process keeping some of the more traditional roles while including some roles that allowed for more creativity. Part of the changes I have made involve using a blog and the iPad. Unfortunately only limited use of the iPad at the moment. If I had a class set I would be utilising them for each role undertaken by the students. However I only have one which will be used by students undertaking the commentater role.

The sport that I am basing this program around is basketball.

Change number 1 - Use a blog as the central place for all required information, resources and student tasks. Each student has a role and each role requires the posting of weekly information. Access to a computer suite on the last lesson of every week will allow us to complete tasks based on the games played that week.

Change number 2 - Provide a central site (blog) with resources and videos linked to the sport (basketball). This will assist the students undertaking this role as they will be running sessions with their teams.

Change number 3 - Moving away from the 'traditional' roles for students to undertake. There are 6 students per team in three teams and 5 in one team. The traditional roles I have kept are role 1 Captain/Coach, role 2 Scorer/Timekeepr and role 3 Umpire. The new roles which I have never had before and hopefully offer a point of difference from past models I have used are role 4 News Reporter, role 5 Photographer and role 6 Commentator. Each of these roles is explained on the Student Roles and Responsibilities page on the site. If I had access to another iPad I would have like to have added 'Film Crew' to this list (film with iPad and use iMovie to edit) but unfortunately only have one iPad which will be used to record the commentary of each game.

For a basic structure to the term you can go to the page titled 7 Week Time line and Assessment on the site.

I have already considered changes I would make the next time to the type of tech I would get students to use and the actual roles undertaken by students. But thats for next time........

If you would like to visit our 7/8 Basketball SEPEP site click here.

I would like to thank pegeek Jared Robinson for a post he wrote about SEPEP  which helped motivate me to try something different.

The Shadow Obstacle Game

I first saw this great idea at the end of 2011. It is an idea created by Joe Matulis which I have used with my junior PE classes once at the end of last year and with my Receptions just recently at the end of term 1 this year. It is a great idea and one the students really enjoy. The game involves projecting Power Point slides onto the gym wall (as large as possible). These slides contain objects following movement paths. When the students move across the slide their shadow becomes a part of the slide. The students have to make their shadow dodge the objects moving around on the slide. The game really makes the students think about how they need to move to successfully get through a slide. It is also a great collaborative activity as it provides many opportunities for students to share what works and what doesn't.

My March 30 Day Challenge

I'm working with my pastoral care class to complete one 30 day callenge each month beginning March this year. This means our first challenge is underway. I have decided to do a 30 Day Challenge each month as well and record how |I have gone with this. My March challenge has been to not swear. Now it's not that I go around swearing in class or at school but outside of school |I would like to reduce the amount of times I swear. So 13 days into my challenge how am |I going? $%#*@ average. There are a couple of reasons for this:
1. I did not set myself each day to achieve this. From now on I will remind myself of what it is |I want to achieve.
2. It was easy to not focus on my challenge as there are many other things that are going on making it difficult to remember something like this.

Although I have not completely stopped swearing I have reduced my swearing which I think is a positive. It will be interesting to see if i can eliminate swearing further from my daily life.

The initial concept came from Matt Cutts and a TED talk he presented.

I can now view video in my gym on a permanent large screen!

I have always, were possible, tried to use video to assist with student learning and understanding of skill development in sport. However this is not easy when I don't have any sort of permanent viewing screen or data projector in our school gym. To remedy this I have borrowed out a data projector and am now storing it in my office in the gym and have asked the groundsman to assist me putting up a large screen.

Our gym has a mezene floor which is where I now set up the data projector and iPad to project onto a screen made of two white wood panels screwed to the wall. These wood panels are high above the gym floor making it easy for students to view a skill being played through my iPad.

Currently my Year 11/12 students are doing badminton and today our focus was on the smash. I was able to use a clip showing a badminton smash (40 seconds of video) which I had looping on my iPad. As I moved around to each group I was able to direct their attention to the video and talk them through the video, pointing out key aspects of the smash. I then ran them through a simple drill that had me feeding shuttles to the students to smash. It was great to be able direct students attention back to the video during the drill when required. The students watching the drill (2 students) also got to compare aspects of their peers performance to the video. By getting the spectators to verbalise to the person undertaking the drill assisted everyones learning.

Below is a couple of photos showing the largescreen in the school gym. There is only a blue screen up as I had to disconnect my iPad to take the photo. Once properly mounted the screen will be another 80cm higher. The screen is viewable from everywhere on the gym floor and the video can be clearly seen from the furtherest point in the gym.

Athletics - focusing on technique not measurement

At the start of every year I take my students through a unit on athletics, this year it is years 7, 8 and 9. Each year I teach the different events and associated skills and by the end students have recorded times, distances and heights for all events. Along with other observational data I have used those times, distances and heights to generate a grade. This year I have not been getting the students to measure any results. We started last week with their focus purely on developing technique.

If it can't be measured it doesn't count

In the school system, and I would suggest in many other institutions and businesses, we are constantly told that if we can't measure it we shouldn't put it in our long term plans for improvement. We often do the same thing in our classrooms. If we struggle to work out how we can attach a percentage or grade to a students learning we often discount that learning by not reporting on it. My personal opinion is that we have gone too far this way. I agree to be able to measure something and see growth/improvement is very useful. But if we only ever base success around the things that provide numerical data we are missing some very important things. The following quote sums this up nicely. 

"Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts". Albert Einstein


Schools need to be careful that they do not discount things like student well being, mentoring, student motivation, camps, the Arts, recess (in the U.S.A. some schools cut recess), physical activity etc..... in favour of putting more time into the things that are more easily measured and seen as more traditional measures of student success.

Performance Pay and Fostering Competition to Improve Education?

Our education system is proposing a rewards system for teachers (bonus pay in 2014) as a way of improving teacher performance. A survey by the Herald Sun has shown the large majority of the teachers they surveyed did not agree with performance pay, 80% in fact.  Read Bonus pay sore point for teachers. People like career analyst Dan Pink quote study after study that suggests money is a poor motivator for tasks requiring creativity and divergent thinking. To me (and it is only my opinion) bonus pay, particularly if it is capped will lead to competition and not collaboration between teachers.  It will divide staff not bring them together, comments like, "how did they get the bonus when I did not?" might be the type of comment that eats away at a staff's morale.

Educational systems like Finland's (No. 1 in the world) promote cooperation and not competition while educational systems like the U.S. promote competition over cooperation (No. 26 in the world). Competition is fuelled in our system through initiatives like the MySchool website, which uses a very narrow piece of data to portray schools to parents and the general public. The public see our education system performing well (or not) based on one measuring tool! No consideration (publicly) is given to the many and varied facets that go into making up a quality school. Add to this the QLD Government is currently in the spotlight for comparing schools across their state based on Government audits of schools, again a contradiction to international best practise. For more information about league tables read League tables what they won't tell you.

I am not opposed to processes that require schools to reflect deeply on teaching performance and student learning. I also agree with creating an educational system that is accountable, but do it by training high quality teachers, paying teachers what they are worth, providing an education system that supports (financely) ongoing training, creating a system that does not discriminate and is equitable and accessible to all. Do it by focusing on international best practise not the opposite.

Why Write in Exams?

A great article by Christopher Bantick in The Weekend Australian 14th - 15th Jan. made some excellent points about handwriting being an outdated mode of communication, particularly for senior students in an exam setting. The article sites keyboarding as a strong determinant for developing literacy, although you could probably find studies that show the same for handwriting.

The statement that I found ringing true in the article was, "A student who researches and types their essays over the course of the year and then is expected to hand write cogent, fluent, legible essays by longhand in three hours is being subjected to unfair and inconsistent expectations." It is a conversation I hear from at least one teacher around exam time each year. A teacher will say, "The kids are complaining about having sore wrists from writing in their exams!" They generally say this in a way that infers the students should write more during the year and then they wouldn't have so much trouble, when actually we should be thinking the other way and setting exams in a way that reflects how students write during the year.

As senior teachers we never ask our students to submit handwritten assignments anymore and if there are teachers who still do require handwritten assignments well I think they are getting their students to use their time very poorly.

There are a few logistical issues in a system that is not geared to do exams on a computer but they could be overcome quite easily. Unfortunately I don't see our system changing in the immediate future.

21 Ways I Will Use My IPad2 in 2012 @ School

I have had my iPad2 for two months now and after spending a considerable amount of time on it and downloading apps I thought I would try and clarify in my own mind how I was going to use all this new technology in 2012.

Apple TV Frustrating Me

I got an Apple TV for Christmas and was very excited, one because it gave me access to movies and TV shows direct to my TV, gave me some Internet on my TV like Youtube and podcasts and allowed me to Airplay my iPad2 on my TV. I was however more excited by what it could do for me at school - mirror the Ipad2 wirelessly to my IWB. One problem.........

Splashtop

Thank you to the Sage on the Stage for writing how he uses his Ipad to present to a class. After reading this I immediately downloaded Splashtop Streamer for PC and got the Splashtop app, which cost $5.49 evidently on special down from $19.99. My intention is to use Apple TV and Splashtop to use my Ipad2 as the sole presentation device in my classroom, with my laptop connected to the IWB.
If I can get Apple TV to work in my classroom (which is yet to happen) I will be able to wirelessly connect my Ipad2 to the IWB allowing me to walk around the class with the Ipad2 focusing on students rather than being tied to the IWB when I want to present something. The only thing with this is that the Ipad2 doesn't do everything! I still need my laptop to bring up Office docs, flash video, Active inspire for IWB etc.... Well now I can do this with Splashtop, I can control my laptop directly from my Ipad2 and switch between Ipad2 and Splashtop (laptop) with reletive ease. This is one of the best apps I have downloaded so far and can't wait to use it in my class.

Now to get Apple TV working at school!

Something New Every 30 Days

I was searching the web for information and videos on goal setting for my Year 11 Pastoral Care class for 2012 when I came across a TED talk by Matt Cutts titled "Try something new for thirty days". The concept is interesting and could be applied to large or small goals. A person chooses something you would like to add or subtract from your life and then attempt to do (or not do) that thing for the next 30 days. For example I would like to improve core strength and could decide to do 50 sit ups per day for 30 days. Matt's idea being that if you can do something for 30 days it can become a habit and potentially something you will continue doing. He also suggests that it is a good short term way to achieve goals - at the extreme end Matt wrote a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. He just made sure he completed 1667 words per day!

My intention is that at the beginning of every month (starting March) my home group, including me, will attempt to try something new for 30 days. I will encourage my students to move between personal 30 day goals and school based 30 day goals. As a group we will reflect on this process throughout the year by blogging.

A Window on the Classroom

It is very easy in a lot of schools to turn up to school, go to your classroom, teach your classes and never have another adult sit in on your class for the entire year (teacher or parent). Sure other teachers will pop in and ask you for something or have a quick look at what your students are doing but rarely do they stay. This isolation that teachers experience is often fostered by teachers themselves. We feel safe in our classrooms teaching as we always have, we're professionals after all we don't need prying eyes looking at what we do and how we do it.......do we?

My answer would be yes. Having other staff observe our lessons, inviting the principal or line manager to see what you're doing in the classroom can be very beneficial for improving teacher pedagogy if done well (this is nothing new). Even inviting parents in to view classes has its benefits, including these three; firstly it can strengthen the connection parents feel with the school, secondly if done well can improve the school's/teacher's standing within the community (teachers can always do with good publicity) and thirdly gives parents a starting point at home for conversation about school with their children.

In a traditional sense i.e. having bodies physically in the classroom is difficult when time/work constraints hinder peers sitting in on your classes regularly and parents don't feel comfortable entering a classroom that has students older than nine years of age in it, and even then they can't stay because of busy schedules. To over come this I am going to create a class blog for my junior PE classes (Reception, Year 1 & 2). It will provide me with a platform to share student work and class activities with parents and other staff without them needing to be in the classroom. They can stay informed about what their child is doing in PE (taught by me to release the class teacher for non instructional time) and health (taught by classroom teacher). I know this is not a new idea but it will be the first time our school has done this.

An added benefit of undertaking this will be involving the junior primary staff (2 teachers) in the process. Blogs are not used by staff at my school and through my junior PE blog they will be able to see how I use a it to open up the classroom to parents and other teachers. I will also involve the work they do in health so it is not just me sharing. Hopefully this will be a practical way of developing the use of blogs in my school.

I know this is starting small in relation to what a lot of teachers around the world are doing but if successful I would love to see our students connecting with other schools from around the world and sharing their learning, ideas and culture.

Educreations

One of the newer apps I've downloaded recently is Educreations, a great tool for creating screencasts on the Ipad2. Simple to use much like the ShowMe app but with the flexibility of creating multiple pages easily. I have created some Educreation presentations for my Year 12 PE class next year around various concepts to support their learning and revision through the year. I have also been doing this through Screenr, Screen O Matic and the ShowMe app.

Tinkerbox

     

Tinkerbox is a creative tool that teaches basic engineering concepts and allows students to complete a series of tasks requiring problem solving. Students can invent their own problems to be solved as well.

Being the last week of school I tried it out with my year 9 English students who had finished their English tasks. I worked with 5 students who as a group went through the problem solving tasks on the whiteboard (connected Ipad2 with VGA cable), helping the person driving the Ipad2 to solve the problem. We did this for one lesson and the students were really engaged.

Their task now that they know how the app works is to invent their own engineering masterpiece. They were all give paper copies of all the tools available to them via screen shots I had taken on the Ipad2. In the help menu it shows all the tools and explains them. So armed with this they will be creating and drawing their invention on paper and then trying to replicate it in the Tinkerbox app in front of the class up on the whiteboard. The class will work with the student offering suggestions until the invention works.

We haven't finished this process yet but it has engaged the kids in a creative and collaborative process at a time in the year when most students find it hard to focus on anything.

My Work Hours

After reading some letters to the editor bagging teachers and the amount of time off we get I decided to work out how many hours I work a week over 48 weeks. This leaves me with 4 weeks annual leave 'just like everyone else gets' as the not so subtle letters to the editor reminded me. The article that attracted so much attention was in The Advertiser and was informing the public about SA teachers getting two more student free days to help implement the Australian Curriculum. The Advertiser is very good about writing these sort of articles in an even handed way so as not to generate public backlash against teachers (it's hard to be sarcastic without the appropriate tone).

Now I know these hours are very approximate as I have not kept records but they are fairly accurate. I am also aware that some teachers work a lot more and some work a lot less. So.....

40 wks @ 50 hours = 2000hrs
40 weekends @ 1 hour = 40hrs
2 camps working extra hours in am and pm. 4 days @ 7 hours = 28hrs
2 days prior to school starting mandated by government = 18hrs
Week 10 term 4 kids off - teachers off in this week if 37.5hrs T&D completed in own time during year or supposed to work = 37.5hrs
Term 1, 2, 3 holidays. 3 @ 15hrs = 45hrs
Xmas holidays = 30hrs

Total = 2198.5hrs

Equates to:
2198.5hrs/48 weeks with 4 weeks annual leave (normal)= 46hrs per week.

I'm not sure what this achieved but it was interesting to work out. So in the end to compare myself to the 'average worker' I do 45.8 hours per week for 48 weeks with 4 weeks holiday in a job that regularly makes top 5 most stressfull career lists.

Data from TimeMotion App

Here is a graph of the data from my 8/9 Volleyball class. This was just a test run and only focused on each student for 2 minutes. The girl who stood still (did not move!) for 93% of her two minutes instantly tried harder the next game. In the future I will use the data to generate discussion about movement and does this corallate with those who are successful in sports as well as being able to investigate energy systems used.

Drop Box

I have been looking for something that will allow my students to present their work to me and allow me to draft or mark this work online. I've decided to try Dropbox which also has the added benefits of me being able to add and access my own files from anywhere there is internet access. Students will need their own Dropbox account for this to work. I have not used it yet so not 100% sure of its potential yet. Certainly everything I have read suggests others think it is a very good web 2.0 tool. Also a bonus that there is an app for my Ipad2 which adds more flexibility.

Watch introductory video.