The complexity and analysis of statistics in sports has increased at a rapid rate in the past ten years. It seems as though every step an athlete takes these days is calculated and stored to gain some type of advantage over the competition. After checking out some of the links to analysis tools, I also see the resources available to the common person seems endless. Personally, speaking as a high school basketball coach, I utilize a limited number of statistics for a variety of reasons. First of all there is limited man power. While NBA and MLB teams have entire departments to track and analyze stats, its usually just me and maybe one manager that tracks stats. Also, there are often higher priorities that consume my coaching time. For example, if a player cannot make a shot due to improper technique, I am going to put more time in improving that than I am looking at data which says we are a poor shooting team. There is no doubt statistics play a major part in many teams' success, and that the use of advanced statistics will continue to grow. I look forward to eventually finding an efficient way to incorporate and benefit from their use at the high school level.
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I believe that the great strength LinkedIn has over a personal web site is its ability to connect with other professionals. These connections are advantageous when seeking employment because they expand your options. It is interactive, where messages, applications, and resumes can can be shared quickly and conveniently. I know many people that have made connections and found their current jobs using LinkedIn, and they all mentioned the convenience it gave them to find openings and receive referrals. On the other hand, the limitation of LinkedIn that personal websites do a good job of is the control the user has in how they want information displayed. Links within a personal website can bring the viewer to their resume, references, testimonials, etc. The different pages within the website can be decorated and have a personal touch that LinkedIn does not offer. The downside here is the lack of ability to make a personal connection with your viewers. It is strictly one way communication, where you are "talking" to the viewer, but the viewer is not "talking" back. It has become evident through this class that both tools are necessary in order to give yourself the best chance when seeking job opportunities.
I look at networking as an activity we are all constantly involved in, whether we know it or not. Any interaction we have with other individuals, either in our profession or not, can have an effect on our future employment. For this reason (and many others), it is important that we always treat other people well and act in a professional manner. I currently work in a very highly regarded high school district in Illinois, mainly due to the fact that I had a good relationship with a couple of teacher who were working there. Seven years later, it seems as though every new employee I meet had a connection within the district that helped them land the job, or at least get an interview. I feel that the most effective form of networking is by meeting someone face to face and making a great impression. Other strategies that can enhance your networking would include LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
Wikis are a great way for a group of people to add, edit, and link information to a common webpage. Their use in education seems limitless. From simple tasks like signing up for a group to do a project with, to creating a wiki website as an end product in which the group shares information from research and organizes that information to present to the class. Wikis can also be a great source of information to learn from. While wikis once had a poor reputation as reliable sources of information, it is now being realized that most hackers do not feel compelled to spend time on these sites any longer. I think the use of wikis in education is just starting to scratch the surface of what's possible in the future.
The most immediate difference I noticed having just signed up for a LinkedIn account was the fact there was not news feed feature. LinkedIn clearly has a more professional purpose for its users, as people are making "connections" with others as opposed to "friends." Information posted by its users has to do with professional experiences and interests, as opposed to the personal experiences and interests posted on Facebook. I am looking forward to my future experience as a member on LinkedIn and hope that it can prove to be beneficial for my career.
The wearable technology I decided to do some research on was the smart watch. I thought this technology would be good to learn about as a future PE teacher. Some of these smart watches have incredible capabilities, from tracking your steps and monitoring heart rate and calories burned, to leading you in different workouts and even paying for your purchases at Starbucks! (the "Microsoft Band" is the device that can currently do this) I think the pros of this technology in a PE setting is fairly obvious. Teachers can track student performance and effort by receiving the information registered by these smart watches. There is very little subjectivity when grading because the proof is in the numbers. I also think viewing their individual numbers and progress at the end of each grading period is a great way to motivate students.
A couple cons of using this technology also exist. First, the safety issue of wearing something on your wrist during physical activity. There is a reason most sports (basketball and cross country come to mind right away) do not allow any type of jewelry to be worn when competing. The watch could get caught on something and injure the individual wearing it. Or, the watch could hit another student and injure that person. The second con could be the vulnerability in the PE setting. Watches could break when hit by a ball or another student. I can't imagine the liability issues when a $300 watch breaks! I spent some time searching and reading about apps for PE teachers, and came away with mixed feelings. The positives included the fact that the list of available apps seemed endless for PE teachers. One app I thought would be particularly useful from reading its description was called MusicWorkout. The app takes the current music you have on your phone/iPad and uses it to signal the beginning and end of a workout/station/etc. For example, you can have the app play a song for 30 seconds, go silent for 10 while you rest or go to the next station, then begin a new song for a designated set of time. You can save and name your different workouts as well. The unfortunate part of my app findings was that while there was an endless list, the overwhelming majority of apps were timers, which all sounded the same. I think there is plenty of potential for apps within education that cannot be met from a standard computer or laptop. I think in PE specifically, the use of fitness and nutrition apps would be a great way to get students to think about their health and a great resource for them to lead healthy lifestyles long after they leave school. By teachers introducing this to them while still in school, they can get them on track with these app programs and hopefully create positive habits for the students.
Since I am a high school basketball coach and we are restricted on the amount of contact days we can have with our players over the summer, one problem our program runs into is quality individual training sessions for our players. In recent years, we've had players make notebooks outlining what they can do during their workouts when coaches are not with them. Specific skills, drills, and number of reps are things we have them include. Often it seems like the big problem is they forget how to do a certain drill or master a skill, and there is no coach around to give feedback. Because of this, I would love to have or make an app where players can access different types of workouts for different skills they want to work on. Each drill could either have a video that shows the drill, or at least a written description. This way we know the players are doing the skills how we intended. This ideal app would also make charting your workouts a possibility. Coaches and players could access and see who's doing how much work. I think this might be a good way to increase accountability!
I would have to say I too am surprised how many of the online learning tools I already use on a regular basis. In fact, I would say that seven of the 12 tools listed are tools that I use on a daily basis. Because I am relatively new to twitter, which was voted #1, I am still figuring out its uses as a learning tool. Currently I follow people or organization for entertainment purposes more so than I do educational purposes. However I am beginning to realize the power it possesses for learning as I continue to find people to follow that can teach me things or provide links to things I am interested in learning about.
Here is a video I've embedded from Alan Stein's youtube channel. In it, he talks about the need to not just want something, but do what's necessary to get it. Enjoy! It is truly incredible to witness the advancements in online learning, both in educational apps as well as online courses taught through universities. As a current student in an online program, I am witnessing first hand the power and possibilities of learning through the internet. This convenience of learning from home has made getting an education more accessible than ever before. As edtechtimes.com reports, there over 3 million Americans who are currently online-only students. This number does not even include the students receiving a hybrid online and in person education. I found these reported numbers to be staggering, an very impressive. The more accessible learning is within a society, the more advanced it will become. I'm glad to see that we appear to be on the right track.
I really enjoyed the capabilities that mystickies.com make available to its users. Essentially what they offer you is similar to a bookmark, where you save the address of a website to quickly find and visit. However when you get to that chosen website, you can now post a stickie note anywhere within that site to draw your attention to a particular area, such as an important paragraph. I think using this technology can save a lot of time and effort in remembering what information you wanted to get out of that website. This is great for me because I have the bad habit of keeping a ton of webpages and tabs open and when I finally make it back to those pages, I often forget what I was trying to get from it. I can certainly see how this might help me, as it would plenty of other people too.
Of all the technologies we have explored thus far in class, I really believe that the website creation and twitter technologies can have the most impact in my career. Both of these technologies are extremely efficient forms of communication. In seasons past, I've really only communicated logistical information to my players through phone calls and texts. With a website and twitter now available to me, I can now post a much wider range of information, including team stats, photos, motivational quotes, or links to stories and articles that my players may find helpful. Not only will these technologies be helpful in communicating information, but I also believe using them increases your credibility with today's players. I think they see coaches who incorporate things like twitter as people who are getting out of their comfort zone to reach out and connect with them.
I really enjoyed learning about the different uses of both iPods and podcasts at the collegiate level. While I believe that there are both pros and cons to their uses, I feel that the pros of their uses far outweigh any cons that come with them. For example, students get instant access to class lectures that they can pause, rewind and listen to over and over as they wish. For students who decide to take advantage of this, it can really reinforce and make the content sink in to a whole new level not previously possible. Students can also click on links throughout the podcasts that bring them to sites which further explain and/or reinforce the lesson being taught. One con that does present itself is the false sense of security students may develop by not engaging enough in the actual face to face lecture and note taking sessions. Another fear is for those students who do not learn best through audio presentation. The fear for them might be that professors allow the podcasts to replace face to face discussions or other activities that used to help these students be successful. However, the overall use of iPods and podcasts can be very beneficial. When students are required to make their own podcasts on class material, they are forced to truly understand the content, put it in their own words, and use speaking skills to convey the information clearly. I believe these requirements are another great example of the effectiveness of iPods and podcasts.
I went to funphotobox.com to create this picture of our basketball team's logo appearing on a billboard!!
There are many benefits today's technologies offers to our education system. The ability to access a wealth of information so quickly allows students to learn nearly anything they want, to any degree they want. With that said, the challenge that arises is the ability to stay focused while completing tasks that take time. Tasks such as finding proper sources of information for writing a paper. Because students of the always on generation grew up with answers to their questions at their finger tips, it will be difficult to teach patience when they have never needed it before. It will be a challenge for these students to apply the time and focus necessarry to deal with important topics.
The results of the article "Social Networking in Undergraduate Education" is that students found social networking sites like Facebook to have a positive effect on communication and collaboration with classmates, which aided their learning in the courses taken. In my limited experiences using social networking sites in classes I've taken, I too have found that I become more engaged in the content due to the interactions on these sites. I think that students really do enjoy helping one another with questions, and that by answering each others' questions the content becomes more deeply engrained for all participating in the conversation.
In terms of social networking with my own students, I have not had any experiences utilizing a site such as Facebook to host discussions. However, I have used course management systems like Moodle. My students have been very successful utilizing this to keep track of assignments and due dates. I believe Moodle has been a great way for my students to stay organized and on pace much better than any paper copy of a syllabus that I've used in the past. I have decided to follow feeds related to coaching, golf, basketball, and general sports stories. Each one of these topics is a big interest of mine. I hope that creating this PLN can make finding and reading stories more time efficient. You can find my profile here...
https://storify.com/CoachMueller3 One site that I visit fairly regularly is keystothegym.com. On this site there is a blog with entries teaching different aspects of basketball. Sometimes they are typed entries, other times they are excerpts from different basketball books, but for the most part they are videos from different basketball lectures and clinics. There is always good information contained in this blog with great teaching strategies that I utilize often. A second site I visit regularly is yahoo.com for their news stories. The always have a wide variety of topics, and typically very interesting.
I am a big supporter of incorporating technology within education when it is the best practice. Students today grew up with this technology, which is often times their most comfortable way of communicating with others as well as accessing information. The possibilities to make connections and link to other materials is truly endless. However, educators must be aware when there may be other approaches to teaching which are more appropriate for the lesson being taught. With such a rapid movement in incorporating iPads in classrooms, some teachers are unprepared to teach in this format, yet feel pressured to do so by administrations. Many learning opportunities can get lost if the teacher has not fully prepared the instruction to take place using the chosen technology. “What are some situations where you feel you are in your "sweet spot?"
“What are some areas where you feel you are totally out of your areas of strengths?" I am going to answer these questions as they relate to me as a basketball coach. The situations in which I feel strongest, or in my “sweet spot,” are when I am teaching fundamentals and defense. I believe this is the case because I am knowledgeable in these areas. Having a dad who coached and was big on fundamentals laid the groundwork for my understanding. Since becoming a coach myself and attending clinics, these topics have always struck a chord with me whenever I hear someone speaking on them. Now, I am able to utilize many concise teaching statements that make it easy for players to visualize and understand the concepts I am teaching. My personality also lends itself to the intensity that defense needs to be played with, making that another area I feel very confident in. On the other hand, I feel out of my area of strength when having to analyze what opponents are doing schematically against us during a game. I think this is true for a couple of reasons. First, I tend to focus on my strength of watching what we do defensively and struggle to instead sit back and focus on what the opponent is doing offensively. The second thing that makes this a weakness of mine is not having film of our opponent to watch before we play them. Because I coach the sophomore team I rarely get film to watch and figure out what our opponent does, which would make their schemes easier to pick up on during the game. For a year or two now I have debated creating a twitter account as it is an incredible tool for receiving news and staying connected. I'm excited to have finally joined, and have already found feeds which I know will provide material that I am really interested in. I think one of the reasons it took me so long to join was the fear of putting myself out there as a current educator. A couple years ago my school district created a social media policy for all teachers on posting, following, etc. This policy was a good idea as it is intended to protect teachers. However, since I was a part time teacher trying to keep a job, I think what it did for me was scare me away from even becoming a part of different social media sites. As is the case with anything, I think common sense and good judgement is necessary when your name is attached to something. Keep what you say professional and appropriate, don't use student names or pictures, and there shouldn't be any problems. Hopefully it's that easy!
The educator who’s PWP I decided to take a look at was Michele Culpepper. The first thing I noticed about her site was how neatly organized it was. It was very easy to locate links to such things as her philosophy, education, portfolio, etc. as they were all located along the top of the page. The picture of her on the front page helped me make a connection and made me feel like I knew her personally, even though I didn’t. I also really liked the addition of videos within different pages of the site, and her list of notables was equally impressive. In fact, there really wasn’t anything I could find that I would do differently in order to improve this site. The site as a whole has a combination of both personal and professional elements. Michele talks about her personal philosophy and interests, as well as advertises her professional philosophy and experiences. When it comes to creating my own PWP, my plan is to incorporate a picture of myself to help make a connection with the viewers, as Michele has done. The other element I plan on incorporating from Michele’s site is the layout of different links along the top of the page for easy locating. Here is the link to her PWP for reference… http://mculpepper.weebly.com/philosophy.html
Hi,
My name is Kevin Mueller and I live in Chicago, Illinois. I am 30 years old and have been teaching Art and coaching at the high school level for the past seven years. Currently, I am our school's sophomore basketball and assistant varsity baseball coach. I am excited to be going back to school in pursuit of a Masters degree so that I can teach PE, something I have always had a passion for. My goal is to one day soon become a head basketball coach and PE teacher. For fun, I love to stay active through working out, golfing, and playing basketball. Other interests I have include going to concerts and playing guitar when I get the chance. I am excited to get going in this program and get to know everyone else in this cohort! |
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