Some serious dedication went into this.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, November 26, 2012
What did you do at school today?
What did you do at school today?
Were you ever asked that as a kid? Do you ask that of your own children? The answers you probably get from your kids are the same ones you gave your parents years ago. Nothing.
Why are parents so interested in what their kids did at school? And why do kids lack the knowledge or skills to respond to this simple question? What if the question didn't need to be asked or answered? What if parents already knew what happened at school because they were there.
So.....our middle school PE class invited their parents to school to come and share the learning. This open house was to be used to showcase the unit of work on Frisbee that we had just completed. Invitations were sent out with the expectation that they were to come dressed appropriately for sport. Days before the event, students planned the lesson, deciding who would greet and introduce, who would show videos, who would set up the activities. Students would show their 'How to Play Ultimate Frisbee and Frisbee Golf' videos and then take their parents out for a game of each. There was a great deal of excitement as the big day approached.
Today, the parents showed up. Each enthusiastic to be a part of the learning, each excited to be hanging out with their kids in an unusual environment and each dressed appropriately.
The parents were fantastic. They participated and followed directions from their children. They experienced new things and were excited and laughed when they succeeded and equally as much when they needed some extra coaching.
The students were brilliant. They guided their mums and dads around a Frisbee Golf course in the playground and challenged them in a game of Ultimate Frisbee. They explained rules and strategies, gave feedback on technique and supported their parents with encouraging suggestions for improvement.
Hopefully, the question tonight will be "What are you hoping to do at school tomorrow?"
Were you ever asked that as a kid? Do you ask that of your own children? The answers you probably get from your kids are the same ones you gave your parents years ago. Nothing.
Why are parents so interested in what their kids did at school? And why do kids lack the knowledge or skills to respond to this simple question? What if the question didn't need to be asked or answered? What if parents already knew what happened at school because they were there.
So.....our middle school PE class invited their parents to school to come and share the learning. This open house was to be used to showcase the unit of work on Frisbee that we had just completed. Invitations were sent out with the expectation that they were to come dressed appropriately for sport. Days before the event, students planned the lesson, deciding who would greet and introduce, who would show videos, who would set up the activities. Students would show their 'How to Play Ultimate Frisbee and Frisbee Golf' videos and then take their parents out for a game of each. There was a great deal of excitement as the big day approached.
Today, the parents showed up. Each enthusiastic to be a part of the learning, each excited to be hanging out with their kids in an unusual environment and each dressed appropriately.
The parents were fantastic. They participated and followed directions from their children. They experienced new things and were excited and laughed when they succeeded and equally as much when they needed some extra coaching.
The students were brilliant. They guided their mums and dads around a Frisbee Golf course in the playground and challenged them in a game of Ultimate Frisbee. They explained rules and strategies, gave feedback on technique and supported their parents with encouraging suggestions for improvement.
Hopefully, the question tonight will be "What are you hoping to do at school tomorrow?"
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Student Blogs
All of our students in grades 3 -8 have now begun using blogs in PE class. We will use blogs to house reflections of our PE journey, photos and pieces of work that we have completed during class and videos that we have made for sharing. All of our students are being encouraged to start posting on anything they like and begin to accumulate a collection of blog entries that will serve as a portfolio of their work over the year. Another component to blogging is commenting. It's great to write your own entries but even better when a conversation starts over one of your posts with someone who has left a comment about your post. All students, teachers and parents are encouraged to comment on student blogs.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Ni hao......
There are a thousand tools out there for creating an online presence. That seems to be the big thing now. Having an online presence. It's inevitable. Apparently, if you're not online then you're missing out. And I don't mean being online like having access to the internet. I mean being connected to others online, creating and sharing online and having the online world know who you are. I was told recently that if you aren't on Twitter then it's too late. You've missed the boat. Twitter was only created in 2006.
It's kind of scary putting yourself out there for the whole world to see. Sure, you can limit who can see this and who access that but it kind of defeats the purpose. I don't think we are used to that kind of exposure. I don't think that we have the skill set to deal with interactions. Nobody ever taught me how to interact with some random lady from China who likes something I wrote on twitter. A faceless username. And I guess it's all kind of new. So there's no real in-depth understanding of how it affects us. I'm not sure how I feel about letting the whole world know my thoughts on how it feels to have the whole world know my thoughts. Does that make sense?
It's inevitable. I think. It's the future. We need to be careful though. We live in a world that is more connected now than ever before and we need to make sure that we present ourselves to the world in a way that not embarrass our mothers.
So here I go. My first serious attempt to connect to the world. Have an online presence. Let the random lady in China get to know me a little bit.
I'll let you know how it goes.
It's kind of scary putting yourself out there for the whole world to see. Sure, you can limit who can see this and who access that but it kind of defeats the purpose. I don't think we are used to that kind of exposure. I don't think that we have the skill set to deal with interactions. Nobody ever taught me how to interact with some random lady from China who likes something I wrote on twitter. A faceless username. And I guess it's all kind of new. So there's no real in-depth understanding of how it affects us. I'm not sure how I feel about letting the whole world know my thoughts on how it feels to have the whole world know my thoughts. Does that make sense?
It's inevitable. I think. It's the future. We need to be careful though. We live in a world that is more connected now than ever before and we need to make sure that we present ourselves to the world in a way that not embarrass our mothers.
So here I go. My first serious attempt to connect to the world. Have an online presence. Let the random lady in China get to know me a little bit.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Athletes for a Better World
A colleague, Shane Van Staden just directed me to the Athletes for a Better World website. I've really gotten a lot out of this website and appreciate the work they have done to set something like this up. I think there's a lot of validity in highlighting the importance of the concepts of the Athletes for a Better World code in sports for our students. Not enough time is dedicated in schools today to teaching fundamental sports related concepts. I'm looking forward to exploring this more and sharing this project with my students.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
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