As PE teacher-candidates prepare for student-teaching and a career in transforming children's lives, they will be required to demonstrate their ability to impact learning with the assistance of technology (Standards established by NASPE, NCATE, ISTE). Given the ubiiquity of technology in society today, I feel it is our responsibility as teacher educators to demonstrate competency in multiple forms of technology and to provide meaningful learning opportunities that impact learning across the domains (psychomotor, affective, cognitive). We also have to keep in mind that they need to have the skills and understanding to provide great learning activities for their students once they start teaching.We use social media, blogs, Facebook, electronic portfolios throughout the year as part of Learning How to Teach PE Like a Rockstar - http://www.rockstarpe.org/ but we also give them opportunities to learn how to incorporate technology to impact health - and to that end we turn to simple forms of technology (foam letters, Hyper Dash, cups, etc.) to exergaming systems (iDANCE, Move +, DDR, Wii, EyeToy, SmartCycle, GameBike, BrainBike, ExerGame Station, and Kinect,..to name a few) and monitoring systems like heart-rate monitors (Suunto, Activio, Polar) as well as accelerometers (ArmBand, Actical, RT3, S2H) .
Given that technology skills have a half-life of two years, it is so important to not only expose them to what is currently available, but to start their own professional development (PD) and Personal Learning Network (PLN) to stay current with the ever changing faces of education, learning, growth, and development. Remember to Play for Better Health!
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Great blog.I really impressed to read your thoughts that our responsibility as teacher educators to demonstrate competency in multiple forms of technology and to provide meaningful learning opportunities.What a great thinking.wish all the teachers thinking like this.
ReplyDeletethanks.
Thanks for the kinds words. Our role as educators should be as you say demonstrate competency as well as give students the opportunity to learn how to use technology to influence student (K-12) learning. That's the trickier part of the equation, but if we don't start by learning ourselves, how will we ever expect our students to be lifelong learners...
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