Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Monitoring my GAME Plan

Developing a GAME Plan that might be implemented into a physical education class and would aid student learning was not a major issue, but it is somewhat more arduous to get the ball rolling on it.

The idea of plan to record physical activity through a phone to self-assess seems plausible.  Over the last week, I have taken notice to what type of phones students were carrying around and realized that not as many as I thought have a smart phone.  Without a smart phone, the video quality would just not be strong enough to warrant recording with.  On a positive note, I also noticed that many students that do not have smart phones have something like an iPod Touch that has similar recording capabilities.  This would be just as effective for the application, but the wording of the plan will have to be adapted.

I have not received promising responses in regards to ensuring that proper permission has been granted when peers are recording.  I know that I can control my use of the video but not having a complete plan yet regarding how students can watch clips and then dispose of it so it does not end up in the wrong places.  I considered having students sign an pledge to not redistribute or show the video outside of class, but I still feel that such an oath would not cover me or the school in case it did leak.  Even if the student got in trouble it would still be problematic for us. 

This inquiry has taught me that as much as I want to implement technology, I still need to take the appropriate steps to incorporating it so it does not become a larger issue down the road.  Because of this, I am on a quest is to see if there are alternatives to having peers record this technology and then properly dispose of it, a question I hope to have an answer to in the near future.

2 comments:

  1. Rich, I think you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence of the last paragraph. Taking the appropriate steps to incorporate some of these technologies is a daunting task. With the recent issues our district has had with phone recordings of students fighting in the stairwells or locker room it may be a difficult task for you to supervise your students before and after class when their phones are readily available.

    I still like the idea of renting the district recorder for your video analysis in class. I recently spoke to the person who rents out technological tools such as this and she was practically begging for people to take advantage of the opportunity. She even said that it is possible to rent the recorder for multiple days or weeks at a time. I know this would take more time out of your lesson to only have 1 recorder available but maybe during your station work you could have a recording station.

    If you utilize the video analysis is this way it is more time consuming but it does eliminate the possibility of students putting videos from their phones out on social media networks like YouTube. You obviously may still have to get a waiver signed.

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  2. Rich,

    Your idea about students using phones to video does sound like quite a dilema. Not only would I be concerned about the video showing up in the wrong places, my school system does not allow cell phones at school. I do think you have the right idea about placing certain responsibilities on the students, but I believe you would certainly need the support of your administration.

    Even if you use the more time consuming method, I still think your plan will work. There is no better teaching tool to improve any physical skill than video. It allows students to actually mistakes they are making, because they always have some doubt until they can actually see the mistakes they are making.

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