I plan to determine if technology that is used in a Physical Education setting will increase the activity levels of junior high students compared to those that do not.

For my qualitative approach my research questions could be as follows:

1. Would you be interested in physical activity more if you could use technology during class and outside of class?

2. Do you think that technology is a motivating factor for physical activity?

Quantitative approach:

1. Are there ways to improve student activity levels through the use of technology? If so what kind?

2. What technologies are available that will allow school to home collaboration?

Methodology

As a result of the different questions I will be researching I will be using the mixed-method approach. This will help me to introduce technology into the gym and see which students have improved activity levels or not.

General Problem Statement

Problem/ Purpose Statement

I plan to determine why students in junior high are becoming obese and/or why they have a lower activity levels, also I could research what they would like to do to increase their activity level and if technology could play a role in this (eg.. pedometer, Ipods, Wii, Iphone apps, heart rate monitors).

Who: Junior High Students
What: what they would like to do differently and if technology would play a role in this
Why: students becoming obese and have lower activity levels

Reflection of Bridging Learning Week 8-6711

When I started this class I felt as thought I used both the cognitive and behaviorist theory in my teaching practice. During this course I have found out some great ways to strengthen the way that I teach, it also has open my eyes to some different ways other may teach. I found that it is very beneficial that if i give both consequences for positive and negative behaviors students will understand what is expected. Also I believe that it is important for the students to work together and teach each other information thought different assignments.

Some adjustments that I plan on making will be to incorporate different technologies into my assignments. This will help the students to familiarize themselves with different technology and also prepare them for what is to come. One resource that I can't wait to incorporate into my teaching are voice threads. This is a great online tool that students can us both in groups and alone and there is endless creativity. Secondly I will have my students create a jigsaw that will help them with gathering new information and sharing there knowledge with one another. I believe that this will create a learning environment that is conducive to a more hands on environment with technology as well as team work.

My two-long term goals are for my students and myself to us more technology so we are gaining the different knowledge, as well as working more hands on. I want to be able to challenge them with technology and see how creative they can be with different assignments like PowerPoint's, voice threads, blogs, and pod-casts. I will be able to schedule more time in the lab, so they will have more opportunities to work on the different projects with other classmates.

Voice Thread

http://voicethread.com/share/893513/

Social Theory

One of the great social theory approaches that we learned about in this weeks resources is the jigsaw strategy. This described by Dr. Orey and he states, that students learn about certain subjects and then they are able to teach them to the class. This helps the students to do their own research cooperatively and find a ways as a group to present to everyone else. I believe this is an effective way to use the social theory as long a the perameters are set by the teacher and each group follows them. According to Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, there are a few strategies that they talk about where blog sites and wikis are used and students can interact socially through the different technology (p. 150). they also said that when allowing studnets to work together they are allowed to share ideas to create better sites that would include more valid information compared to them creating their own. Blogs and wikis are a great technology tool that helps the students to strenghten the assignment as well as to furture the discussion topics.

Trenton

Constructivism and Constructionist Learning Theories

Dr. Orey explains that we as teacher must prepare ourselves and our students for technology. He also talks about specific mechanisms that help the learners to get involved in this process. The first one he talks about is the assimilation, which he states is external reality that is made to fit current beliefs. The second mechanism is accommodation, which suggests that the meaning is fit externally to connect with reality. And the last one is equilibration, which explains how balance is achieved. When we as teachers can get students actively engaged in using their creativity they will create something that is unique and makes sense to them. I believe we are responsible for teaching students what they is expected and the knowledge so they can create their own project which allows for them to be creative and construct the assignment. I think allowing a student to learn on their own will help the student to understand the process and they will remember the information. This will also help the students to engage in higher learning. The idea of having the students to create spreadsheets and power points that will help them to understand information they have learned as well as past experiences.

Trenton

COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES

Cognitive learning theorists believe learning is a process that begins with information entering through our senses!! After this information enters it is processed and then storied in short-term or long-term memory. As educators, it should be our goal to ensure that information that we teach reaches long-term memory. The best way we can ensure that it reaches this stage is to directly relate the information to that of existing information. The better connection we can make with that student, the more likely they are going to retain the information!!
During this week’s resources they gave several examples that help me to better understand the principles of the cognitive learning theory.

The first example that I really like was the use of brainstorming with inspiration rapid fire tool. This could really help with our school because they are really encouraging all subjects to focus on writing. When using this tool students will really be able to use visual representation of their main ideas in the form of a web. This would be a very valuable lesson to use concept maps in my Health classes to help the students to remember and visualize the information.

The second example given in our text is the AutoSummarize tool by Word. This tool helps the students to reduce the amount of information and chunks it together into a manageable summarization. After they have chosen the key words they will need to summarize the information that the computer automatically summarized.

The last example that I am going to give is virtual field trips. I myself find this to be the most interesting because this is a powerful tool that can create a superb learning environment. This tool is great because the field trips allow the students to develop great long –term memory for the information. All of the above are great examples of cognitive-based tools that will help the students to will expand their knowledge, increase their cognitive thinking, and increase their abilities to recall and apply the information from the their long-term memory.

Tkeller