Electronic Contact Assignment

For this assignment I e-mailed a teacher from New York, Bill Ocker, that my older brother is friends with. The e-mail exchanges worked great. He was very helpful and I learned some new stuff about technology and how he uses it in his physical education classes.

My initial email:

Hello Mr. Ocker!

First of all I would like to thank you for responding to my request to converse about technology and education and how you as a teacher use it in your classroom. I am glad I was able to find a physical education teacher to do hold these conversations with because that is my major. I know from my experience with my EDM 310 Microcomputing Systems in Education with Ms. Averitt that teachers now a days have many opportunities to use technology in ways to educate their students. However, I personally believe physical education teachers need to be creative in discovering ways to use technology with their students because most p.e. classes are held in a gymnasium or outdoor setting such as a playground. The technology teaching tools we have learned how to use productively blogs, podcasts, and igoogle home pages. Are you familiar with these?

Personally, I think the overall concept of technology with education is more adapt for main course subjects such as math, science, english, and social studies just to name a few. The only teaching tool I think would be somewhat successful in the physical education setting would be blogs. As a teacher I would use a classroom blog as a communication partnership between students, parents, and myself. Through the blog, students will be able to share their opinions about my physical education class as well as share new ideas with one another on how class projects, games, and exercises can improve and be more fun. Students will learn how blogs can be beneficial by keeping their blogs positive and clean. Also, parents will be able to receive a better understanding of what their children are doing in their physical education classes.

I look forward to hearing back from you Mr. Ocker. Hope your school year is going well thus far!!

Mr. Ocker's Response:
Matt,

I am glad to converse with you about how we utilize technology in our Physical Education classrooms in the Maine-Endwell School District. We are very fortunate in that our district received a grant two years ago to furnish a great deal of our classrooms with Smartboards. We as Physical Education teachers were invited to staff workshops where we were trained on how to utlize this technology in our daily Physical Education classrooms. Smartboards are basically interactive whiteboards. You can connect them to a projector, computer, or camera/camcorder. This year will be the first year that we will utilize this new technology and are planning to do so after the first of the year when our classes will remain inside (most of the time) due to the weather.

Some of the ways we will utilize this technology is to play videos directly from the New York State Physical Education Profile website (http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/pe/profile.htm) We often use these videos to analyze the skill performances of our students. The smartboards will allow us to play these videos in our classes to help students gain a better understanding of what is expected of them. When utilizing the smartboards we can stop the video, draw/diagram on the screen, and break down the action/skill in a evry slow and precise manner. We have also purchased additional software that contains interactive lessons/activities to help reinforce our instruction while allowing the students to utilize the smartboard in a variety of ways.

We have already utilized smartboards during our football season this fall. We used the boards to watch our game films. We were able to have our athletes actually diagram certain angles and distances on the board during the footage. It was a very helpful resource.

We also utilize computers to analyze Fitness data. Every student in our district K-12 does the FitnessGram Fitness Assessment in the Fall and again in the spring. The students input their data each time into a computer and analyze their results. They then write a Fitness Program that they are encouraged to engage in during the summer months.

One additional way we utilize technology in our district is very similar to blogs. We have a tool called the Parent Portal that allows parents to utilize their home computers to look at their son/daughters grades on a daily basis. Parents actually can log into a pre-registered account and look into each teachers gradebook to see how their son/daughter is doing. they only have access to their childs grades of course but this has really opened up the lines of communtication between parents and teachers. They do not have to wait for 5 week progress reports but rather can see what their child is doing in Physical education on a day by day basis.

Hope this helps and I look forward to speaking with you again,
Bill Ocker
"Go Red Wave"

My Response:
Mr. Ocker,

Wow, sounds like your school district is doing very good with techonlogy in the classroom! That is fantastic your school district was able to receive that grant for the Smartboards. I actually hear of Smartboards about 2 weeks ago when I visited an ACCESS lab at a highschool in Robertsdale, Alabama. ACCESS is an acronym for Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide. Administrators and teachers all over Alabama are excited about ACCESS. ACCESS basically offers students to take courses at another school that are not offered at theirs through a webcam and a few other technology resources. Unfortunately I was not informed too much about the use of Smartboards outside of ACCESS.

However, Smartboards sound like they are great to use as physical education teachers. I love the fact that you can use them in a variety of ways, in the classroom and with your football team. The website (http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/pe/profile.htm) is pretty interesting. I am sure the students enjoy using the Smartboards so they can visually track their progress in the class. I think it is amazing how the Smartboards can stop video, draw/diagram, and break down action/ skill in slow motion. Hopefully schools across your area will be able to use them in years to come.

Like I said, I love the fact you can use the Smartboard with your football team. How is your football team doing anyways? But I am sure your student-athletes can learn what they are doing well and not so well better through this technology. I also think your use of computer software to track students fitness results is super. I just hope students follow through with their program over the summer months. But I guess thats totally up to them! I mean after all, teachers can't do everything for them.. They need to have a little self initiative too!

Parent Portal sounds very similiar to blogs. I think it is very important for parents to be able to see their son or daughters progress on a daily basis. Its good too that it is private and can only see their son or daughters information.

Well thank you for the quick response! You have been very helpful. It is interesting to learn how teachers in other parts of the country use technology to further their students education in the classroom!

His last response:
Matt,

It was nice to be able to share some information with you. This is the link to our districts Parent Portal information if you are interested: http://www.me.stier.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=590

Our JV Football team won our last 5 games in a row (after dropping our first 4 of the season) including a final game victory over a Chenango Forks team that is traditionally one of the best in our area. Our Varsity Football team lost in our Sectional Championship game as a 4th down pass play was intercepted in the end zone on the final play of the game that would have given us the victory. We created a new Website for our Football program this year: http://www.mespartanfootball.com/

I will be coaching a Basketball All-Star team this year...(The Sleepy Floyd Traveling All-Stars) and am looking forward to incorporating technology to keep the stats/video/audio commentary of our games.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions. Feel free to contact me at any time. Enjoy your Holiday.

Bill Ocker
"Go Red Wave"