Saturday, May 15, 2010
Resources for powerpoint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revolution
http://exergamelab.blogspot.com
http://exergaming.pbworks.com/
http://exergamelab.blogspot.com
http://exergaming.pbworks.com/
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Letter for DDR
To Superintendent
It is common knowledge that obesity problems are escalating in our society. We need to inform our students of the dangers of inactivity and also teach them ways to counter the growing trend. The activity in physical education classes’ isn’t enough to keep our youth healthy and fit. We need to teach them activities that will benefit them outside the classroom. We need to inspire them to be active. They need to have the heart and desire and interest in activity or nothing will be accomplished. Often times we hear about how videogames are keeping the youth of today inside and glued to the television set. Well what if we could incorporate videogames and physical activity? It’s definitely possible. There is a game out where people stand up watch a screen and attempt to follow the actions on the screen. At first that might sound boring as if a waste of time however there's more to it. The students stand on a mat, which is touch responsive and records the student’s skills and ability to keep up with the game. The students will be able to track their progress and therefore will be motivated. After all isn’t that the number one thing we need to try and achieve is to get our students motivated. The game is dance dance revolution and is spreading worldwide in homes as well as arcades. The game is a rhythmic game where the students try to follow the steps on the screen to pop music songs. Sounds perfect right. We are trying to reach out to our youth to be more active so lets give them an activity that relates to them. The kids love pop culture and dance music. Why not exercise in an environment that is more comfortable and accommodating to the student’s interests? We often hear about the kids who stand in the back don’t participate in physical education class. Many times its because they don’t have the skill level as others and in a way are targeted and embarrassed. We need to change that. What’s great with DDR is that there are different levels of difficulty. The game can be played split screen so that less skilled students could work on an easier difficulty than more skilled students. What we need for equipment is a videogame system, along with mats, a projector and a portable screen. The environment for the game is set up so that all students face the screen where the game is projected and focus their attention on it. What’s nice about that is that everyone will feel comfortable in their own ability because they wont be singled out. All the students will have to pay attention to the screen. They will be preoccupied to worry about how well or how poorly someone is doing. That will absolutely spur more involvement from students. Students will no longer have to worry about being singled out. They will be able to exercise while having fun and building confidence. I would like you to think this over and consider adding it to the curriculum. Other schools are achieving great success with the system in place. I have a large assortment of information for you to see such as a k through 12 scope and sequence. I also have a slideshow presentation available to you with many visuals so that you can get a greater grasp on what I’m trying to accomplish.
Thank You For Your Time
Dan Murphy
It is common knowledge that obesity problems are escalating in our society. We need to inform our students of the dangers of inactivity and also teach them ways to counter the growing trend. The activity in physical education classes’ isn’t enough to keep our youth healthy and fit. We need to teach them activities that will benefit them outside the classroom. We need to inspire them to be active. They need to have the heart and desire and interest in activity or nothing will be accomplished. Often times we hear about how videogames are keeping the youth of today inside and glued to the television set. Well what if we could incorporate videogames and physical activity? It’s definitely possible. There is a game out where people stand up watch a screen and attempt to follow the actions on the screen. At first that might sound boring as if a waste of time however there's more to it. The students stand on a mat, which is touch responsive and records the student’s skills and ability to keep up with the game. The students will be able to track their progress and therefore will be motivated. After all isn’t that the number one thing we need to try and achieve is to get our students motivated. The game is dance dance revolution and is spreading worldwide in homes as well as arcades. The game is a rhythmic game where the students try to follow the steps on the screen to pop music songs. Sounds perfect right. We are trying to reach out to our youth to be more active so lets give them an activity that relates to them. The kids love pop culture and dance music. Why not exercise in an environment that is more comfortable and accommodating to the student’s interests? We often hear about the kids who stand in the back don’t participate in physical education class. Many times its because they don’t have the skill level as others and in a way are targeted and embarrassed. We need to change that. What’s great with DDR is that there are different levels of difficulty. The game can be played split screen so that less skilled students could work on an easier difficulty than more skilled students. What we need for equipment is a videogame system, along with mats, a projector and a portable screen. The environment for the game is set up so that all students face the screen where the game is projected and focus their attention on it. What’s nice about that is that everyone will feel comfortable in their own ability because they wont be singled out. All the students will have to pay attention to the screen. They will be preoccupied to worry about how well or how poorly someone is doing. That will absolutely spur more involvement from students. Students will no longer have to worry about being singled out. They will be able to exercise while having fun and building confidence. I would like you to think this over and consider adding it to the curriculum. Other schools are achieving great success with the system in place. I have a large assortment of information for you to see such as a k through 12 scope and sequence. I also have a slideshow presentation available to you with many visuals so that you can get a greater grasp on what I’m trying to accomplish.
Thank You For Your Time
Dan Murphy
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Videogames in PE?
Well the story for lab D is a long and stressful one. I was hoping to get golf, swiming, bowling, anything that i had some knowledge and interst into. However the unthinkable happened. I was assigned to teach DDR. Its funny in a way because i actually asked the one of the TAs if she whould see whay she could do to make sure that i didnt have to teach DDR. Hey who would have thought that i would be teaching it. I guess deep down inside i knew all along that that was what i was going to be teaching. My prior knowledge on DDR before being assigned to it was that of near... hmm nothing. I really had to indulge into the game and speand some time playing at home while mom and dad laughed at me dancing in the living room. I was having a miserable time for quite awhile trying to figure out how to put the game into a lesson plan. However i finally put it all together and came up with a gameplan. This teaching lab trully was my most stressful experience in school. Ive just never been so worried or paranoid about something. The weekedn before i had trouble sleeping and the times i tried to get it off my mind i couldnt get it out of my head. It really consumed me. It threw me off a little. The fun factor completely diminished with all the work involved and worry about hitting everything on the C9 form. Im not exactly a class clown but im usually the loud one that everyone has no trouble telling that im having a blast. When watching my videos i dont even look like myself. I didnt smile much. I didnt have much enthusiasm. Truth is it was hard to have fun when i was so worried about teaching. The teaching aspect took me over.It took me out of my comfort zone. It made me act like a robot. Thats completely what i didnt want to happen. Overall i wasnt happy with how my lesson went. When i talked to the other students afterwards they said it went well but its not the same when you are teaching. I made several mistakes that werent big deals but im hard on myself and they took alot out of me while i was teaching. If i were to teach DDR again i feel like i could do much better because i could learn through my mistakes. My lesson had way too much instruction and management time according to my time coding form
There were alot of things that had planned in my lesson that i had forgot to do while in my lesson. I wanted to have everyone switch mats after every lesson or song. I completely forgot about that until i had half my lesson over with already. I had planned on walking around and giving feedback throughout my entire lesson however i didnt get to walk around until i got the students into the training mode. Something that was hard was trying to run the DDR changer and work with the students at the same time. If i had more time and multiple lessons i would teach the students how to changed the lessons and songs and all that jazz. That way i could focus on helping students and try to change up the tasks for them to keep their interest better. SOmthing i lacked in my lesson was intratask variation. That was something i would have liked to have hit on so that was disapointing not to have included. One thing that i was very pleased with was that all the technology ran smoothly. I figured it out and that on its own is a miracle. i was so stressed trying to get all the equipment up to the gym for the lesson. Then i was in a pinch getting set up because there was a class in the gym before i had the floor.I recieved help from students in class getting set up from Miles and Amanda and that was so helpful. This really was one heck of an experience. I cant say im not glad its over because i am. Im getting pounded with work this semester. And there isnt alot of time left to get it all done. Back to DDR. My final thoughts on it are that it is a great tool for phys ed teachers. I think that it absolutley has a place in class and that it helps students in many ways aside from cardio. It really stimulates the mind and requires alot of thinking. Whats nice about it is its a life long activity. Its something students can do at home and in the future.
There were alot of things that had planned in my lesson that i had forgot to do while in my lesson. I wanted to have everyone switch mats after every lesson or song. I completely forgot about that until i had half my lesson over with already. I had planned on walking around and giving feedback throughout my entire lesson however i didnt get to walk around until i got the students into the training mode. Something that was hard was trying to run the DDR changer and work with the students at the same time. If i had more time and multiple lessons i would teach the students how to changed the lessons and songs and all that jazz. That way i could focus on helping students and try to change up the tasks for them to keep their interest better. SOmthing i lacked in my lesson was intratask variation. That was something i would have liked to have hit on so that was disapointing not to have included. One thing that i was very pleased with was that all the technology ran smoothly. I figured it out and that on its own is a miracle. i was so stressed trying to get all the equipment up to the gym for the lesson. Then i was in a pinch getting set up because there was a class in the gym before i had the floor.I recieved help from students in class getting set up from Miles and Amanda and that was so helpful. This really was one heck of an experience. I cant say im not glad its over because i am. Im getting pounded with work this semester. And there isnt alot of time left to get it all done. Back to DDR. My final thoughts on it are that it is a great tool for phys ed teachers. I think that it absolutley has a place in class and that it helps students in many ways aside from cardio. It really stimulates the mind and requires alot of thinking. Whats nice about it is its a life long activity. Its something students can do at home and in the future.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Murphys Law
Well as you all know the popular law is that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. My session wasnt taped because of some malfunction which is really no problem. It just made it difficult to fill out my forms. That go aloong with my lesson. Well aside from that to refelct on my lab c i think i did an average job. I showed good enthusiasm and was happy with my hook and the way my class flowed from activity to activity. I'll be honest by the time i was up to teach i think the class was more than ready to get off the ice. Lets get real the majority of us down right skate awful. So we were struggling as well as becoming sore for we werent used to whereing skates. Im sure some of my peers got some nice blisters out of the deal. I was a little deflated trying to teach a lesson to students who i could clearly see really wanted nothing to do with it. I suppose however that thats the way teaching is going to go. Another obstacle that i faced was that i taught last out of all four of us on speed skating. Alot of the points i wanted to address in my lesson were already taken. I was kind of going ont he fly in a way. That made things nerve wrecking for me. The time really flew by on my lesson. I went to wallmart and bought some hulla hoops a big ball and cones for an activity and i never even got to the activity. I even made a really big visual aid explaining the bisual aid. Speaking of the visual aid my history visual aid had facts similar to other students. We all probably googled speed skating and took the same history facts. I also lost have the rink when the open skaters came in. I was upset with myself for the amount of feedback that i gave. I feel that i hit on many of the items on the C9 form but i know i missed several important things. I addressed safety but it was hard to plan a lesson without having a pre assessment of the students skating abilities. We had such avariety of skills on the ice. Some of the students were ex hockey players and some hadnt skated in years. Thank goodness no one got hurt. i really thought we should have had helmets on. But im a worry wart to begin with. i was in charge and i was teaching but i got annoyed when i asked the students how many had played chuck the chicken before. Everyone raised there hand and said they knew how to play. Well when the game started people came skating to me asking what the heck was goign on. Well lesson learned. No matter if students say they know what they are doing im going to be specific and teach as if they know anything. From the first day of class up to today im learnig loads. When looking at my time coding sheet im happy with my lesson.I had everyone moving and active for the majority of the lesson. There was very little time where they were standing around. Overall the on ice teaching experience was a good time while atthe same time quite a challenge. I hope to improve frommy mistakes in lab D.
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