Summary of Learning - Becoming a Digital Citizen

To help me in my summary of learning, I used Simplemind, a mind map application that assists users to visualize, explain, and organize their thinking.  I learned about this tool because of this class and was fortunate enough to review this tool in my blog.  I chose Simplemind because of its simplicity.  In my review of the tool, I stressed the importance of developing brainstorming and problem-solving skills and Simplemind is one avenue to take.  It contains a desktop version and a mobile version that only increases its ability to be used effectively in a classroom. 

Digital citizenship was one of the main topics that I learned about over the semester and many of the topics covered before this gave me an “ah ha” moment when finally putting everything together.  I created a mind map to somewhat organize my thinking.  Since digital citizenship is how you are known, act, and participate in the digital world, there are many factors that come into play when creating this identity.  

                Creating and sharing are the basics of your digital citizenship.  Obviously, content must exist for any kind of interaction to take place.  Once content has be created, this can be shared throughout online networks for consumers to digest, learn, expand, and even re-create.  This is the sharing process.  When educational material has been shared, it creates the opportunity for open education environments to form.   OERs have the ability to reach a large audience, cut education costs, increase connections, and create a snowball effect on the development of content.  When these open education communities exist, educators can use these resources in their F2F classes and create blended learning environments.  Responsible and active sharing can create endless opportunities for students and teachers across the globe as we can see in the two examples I stated above. 

                Sharing, OERs, and blended learning environments may seem to be the foundation of the digital citizenship, but there is another layer underneath these topics that can greatly affect them.  This ‘layer’ is copyright.  Copyright is like the master puppeteer that can pull the strings on anything that is online.  That being said, copyright isn’t necessarily an obstacle but more of a facilitator.  Through its permissions, copyright balances protecting content and allowing access to maximize the benefits of online educational content.  Through all these topics, your digital citizenship is born. 

                 I plan to incorporate new technologies into my classroom by always being a student myself.  I believe that some people can become content with the status quo and that hinders their ability to expand what’s in their ‘arsenal’ for effective teaching.  If I can keep the mindset that education truly never ends, I believe this will allow me to adapt new methods, tools, and strategies as my career progresses.  It has truly been a pleasure taking this class this semester.  It’s funny, I remember mid-way through the semester I said to myself, “What a great first class to take to enter back into school,” since I have been out of school since my undergrad graduation in 2014.  I said that because I feel like this class touched on so many aspects that I will experience as a student throughout my grad program.  I was skeptical about how quickly I would be able to adapt back into the student mindset, but this class truly dispersed any ill feelings. 

Week 12 Formative Assessment

This week will be my final reflection post and I will be discussing Formative Assessment.

                

There are a great number of opinions about assessment.  Some believe educators teach too tightly with the content on their assessments, others believe that assessing only the content in the standards doesn’t allow educators to be creative teachers.  I am a big believer in balancing formative and summative assessment.  As I have stated in my blog posts before, I can somewhat be an old-fashioned type and believe that if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.  I am talking about summative assessment.  I believe that summative assessment is still the bread and butter of understanding and analyzing where your students are in the learning process.  I know it is a new day and age and the students today are different to those of twenty to thirty years ago, but sometimes I think we have to drop all the bells and whistles and take a test. 

                

Now, that being said, one thing that I do plan to incorporate when I begin teaching, is what I like to call “advanced summative assessment”.  With all the new technology that we have seen and used throughout our class, these partners must be incorporated into today’s education.  My “advanced summative assessment” will be the use of bell work and exit tickets using technology partners.  I believe using shorter summative assessments like exit tickets helps alleviate the stress of taking a large test, but still gives the teacher useful information about their students.  Both of these tactics also play a part in classroom management.  Bell work can help get your students focused and on task as soon as they sit down in your class. 

               

In class last Monday, I used and created a short assessment activity using PearDeck, which I can’t link here because I have to add specific emails to share over google drive or we must be in person to take the assessment using a code just like the application, Kahoot.  We did however take this assessment in class and my fellow students and I enjoyed it very much.  Similar to Kahoot, students can join this activity using a code with a device that has internet connectivity.  The cool thing about PearDeck is it is not just a test with multiple choice questions.  PearDeck creates questions that allow students to answer questions correctly in different ways. 

               

After watching Scott Kinkoph’s video, it may be simple, but the thing that stuck with me the most is that he said, “when it comes to learning, especially using technology, students can move at different rates.”  This may be a no brainer, but before I heard that I never asked, how can I control the rate of my students’ learning with technology.  Now looking back, I realize there have be many applications that help control that.  One application can even control the reading level of how each student can view the lesson.  Every student can be on the same lesson, but the teacher can control the reading level for each student if need be. 

Major Blog Post #7 - The Summary

Today will be my last post for the strength program I have been working on and it will be the final summary for my major project.

The ending of the semester and the major project assignment could not have been at a better time because it concluded perfectly with my team’s final max week before we begin to transition outside to now include speed and conditioning into the program.  I have truly enjoyed writing about my experience running this strength program because it allowed me to explain my thinking rather then just keep all my thoughts in my head.  Somewhat like a mind map, I was able to visualize my learning or my thinking and then make adjustments and improvements all along the way. 

To assist me throughout my project, I used Microsoft Excel, Word, Google Sheets, and Hudl.  Microsoft Excel was my bread and butter because that is where I created the program and included the day’s goal, exercises, repetitions, tempo, and volume.  I also used Excel to record my athletes’ strength gains and used a one rep max Excel that my fellow IT teacher created at St. VM to figure out the percentages of each max.  I used Word to write my thinking down.  Word has been my journal and Blogger has been the facilitator to share my experience.  I used Google Sheets to record attendance that I shared with my fellow coaches.  This was very beneficial so those who are in the building full time were able to stay on top of those athletes who had poor attendance rates. 

The last partner I used in my program was Hudl.  Hudl is mainly used for video breakdown of games but it also has a great communication feature which allowed me to send messages to my seventy plus athletes when unplanned events occurred.  As we have seen throughout my project, I spoke many times about where I had to make game time adjustments because of snow days, early releases, and other school events that effected my program’s schedule.  Hudl was a perfect answer to this problem, not only because I am not full time in the school, but it allowed me to communicate with the largest sports team in the school without the need to rely on administration to communicate messages.     

As I stated above, blogging about my major project greatly helped my thinking and problem-solving abilities.  I first established my goals of the program which were to increase my athletes’ strength (observed and analyzed through max lifts), keep and increase team/family environment (observed and analyzed through consistent attendance), and finally be an effective coach (observed and analyzed through my blogs and this summary). 

Once I created my goals, I moved to look at my athletes’ needs.  I started with a general strength program to assess these needs.  After I observed for the first few weeks I was able to understand the gaps that needed to be filled as a team and within certain athletes.  As a team, we needed to adapt to my style of workout.  This included my terminology for all the exercises, form for all the exercises, the warm up, transitions throughout the lift, and the cool-down and closure of the lift.  This gap was bridged through reps and more experience with me as their coach.  I then was able to look for more individualized gaps for my athletes.  Some were flexibility needs, overall strength needs, advanced athletes, and less experienced athletes.  Observing and blogging all this allowed me to create more effective and individualized workouts. 

Finally, I implemented my program and evolved it over the course of a few months.  I was able to be quite effective in adjusting workouts for specific athletes’ needs.  I made heavier lifts for some position specific athletes like my linemen, and quicker more explosive movements for my skilled positions.  One major theme in my blog posts was, what is the best way to prepare for our max week, which occurred every four weeks.  Writing down my thinking allowed me to experiment on the preparation.  At first, I tried lighter, strength band workouts to prepare and then after me maxed I was able to analyze that method.  For our second max prep, I tried heavier, slower movements to build one rep strength.  After, I analyzed my findings.  For this last max prep, I looked back at all my findings and recorded numbers and implemented a preparation that included aspects of both of the previous preparations.  With no surprise, we had the biggest numbers recorded using this method.  Without this blogging experience, I do not know if I would have been able to organize my thinking to evolve my program as effectively as I was able to.  I hope everyone that followed me throughout my journey enjoyed my writings and picked up something that they will be able to use in whatever their future career may be.  Thanks for reading!

-Coach K

Major Blog Post #6

Spring break is over, my athletes are back, and this week we hit the ground running.

This week was our last preparation week before our fourth max week.  Basketball ended so all of my players that were playing basketball are back with me in the weight room which increased my daily attendance.  One challenge I had this week was scaling down the basketball players workouts.  Obviously, since this was the basketballs players first week back in the weight room, they wouldn't be near the strength level that the rest of my athletes are at.  I had to be careful each day to make small changes to the intensity level and volume of exercises that my basketball players were to do, until their bodies, for a lack of a better phrase, catch up. 

As far as the actual workouts, I kept it business as usual.  Monday was our lower day and Tuesday was our upper/chest day.  Boxed in yellow below shows the volume, or the number of reps and sets for the workouts.  This week I slightly decreased reps for some exercises but increased the tempo.

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Wednesday and Thursday were also normal days, with slightly altered volumes.  

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I am excited to max again next week and evaluate and talk about the gains that have been made! #staytuned

Week 11 eBooks and Global Publishing

It it nearing the end of the semester and for this week I will be discussing eBooks and Global Publishing.

This week, Dr. Lisa Lenhart stopped by my grad class to teach us more about these subjects.  There are many benefits of using eBooks in the classroom.  Students are able to utilize a variety of cool tools that can help them create an eBook.  In my class on Monday, I used a tool called book creator and a classmate and I created a quick eBook about Greece.  The process is simple, and the great thing is that the created information can reach a large audience with no trouble at all. 

In an article written by Jon Smith, Mr. Smith used eBooks in his classroom and saw the contribution levels of his students greatly increase.  It made the writing process more fluid and collaborative.  I believe when students are able to work collaboratively, they have the opportunity to develop a multitude of skills.  I also believe this eases the pain for teachers in the classroom of trying to get students to participate. 

In the future, I plan to use eBooks as a way for my students to create an online textbook.  It will be completely from the student’s perspective and it won’t just be another dry classroom textbook.  I will have them all contribute a section from a specific lesson or unit and the end product will be a student version of our book that we use in class.  I think the main challenge will be balancing the freedom the students will have when they’re creating and facilitating what information should be added. 

Major Blog Post #5

This past week, St. Vincent St. Mary HS was on spring break and my head coach gave my student athletes and myself the week off from the weight room.  So on my major project front there is nothing to report other then I will be writing this weeks program today, when I am finished posting here.

What I did want to talk about this week was kind of the side project that I am doing in conjunction with my major project.  Obviously my major project is to develop and effectively implement a high school strength program for a football team.  My side project is developing and effectively implementing a college preparation strength program for my graduating seniors who will be playing football in college. 

In this program, I am able to be much more attentive and detailed because I am only coaching three to four athletes at a time rather then forty.  Each college prep athlete receives a binder to track their progress through this program.  In the binder, I include a meal program, daily workouts, protein and meal shake options, and a spread sheet where I record their progress of body weight and strength gains that they can see daily. 

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I have been running this side project for about a month now and have structured it very similar to my major project except with more individualization.  Since I had the whole week off, I had my college prep athletes come in at 3 PM when my high school lift would begin rather then 5 PM when they normally would come in. 

Other then that, nothing much else to report.  I'm off to write this week's program! #staytuned

Week 10 TPACK Framework

Spring break is over and I am back with this week’s topic: TPACK.

                TPACK, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge, was something that I was not familiar with prior to my Monday grad class.  Simply put, TPACK is a theory that is used to explain the set of knowledge that teachers need to teach their students (McGraw Hill Education).  These sets of knowledge are broken down into three categories that each overlap one another to explain the connections that will be made with each set of knowledge.

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One of the main questions that I will consider before introducing new tools into the classroom is what is the content that my students will be learning.  When looking at the TPACK model, the pedagogical and content circles must be addressed first.  This must be looked at first because it will explain the what and the how of a lesson.  The technology is just the partner and trying to choose the technology first can lead you into some problems when developing a lesson. 

                When introducing new tools into the classroom, students will have the opportunity to try something new.  I believe that when something is new for students, it immediately will spark interest and increase engagement.  I believe introducing new tools will also keep content fresh for students and reduce the chance of “burn out” by students.  As with any new tool there could also be some barriers.  Number one, the tool might not be well known or easy for every student to use.  Even for technology native students, there still is always the potential for a learning curve or education of the tool before use.  Selecting the correct tool for each lesson is also very important.  I believe some of the most successful teachers could botch a lesson by choosing a tool that is not relevant to the content. 

                When choosing tools for my classroom, as I stated before, I will always look at the “what” first.  What is the exact lesson that I will be teaching.  If it is a lesson on American Colonization, I would then look at how do I want to teach this content to my students.  I would most likely begin with direct instruction and choose tools such as PowerPoint or Emaze to begin my introduction.  Then if I moved towards cooperative learning, I would choose a tool such as Google Docs and have my students begin to cooperatively develop an “online book”.  This is somewhat the process I would follow for each lesson that I would create. 

                TPACK is relatively easy to understand and it is even more easy to use to develop lessons.  This link to a video shown in my Monday’s grad class breaks down TPACK in a very pleasing manner.  My only question about TPACK is how to effectively reach the sweet spot of all three of the TPACK categories.  The only way to really answer this is to start using TPACK to assist me in my lesson development and find a more effective way to reach that every time.    

Major Blog Post #4

Although it was spring break for me and my classmates at Akron U, my major project continued because my high school was not yet on spring break.

Since St. V is a catholic high school, students get Thursday and Friday off for Easter weekend.  I ran a three day week with an optional/free lift on Thursday.  Since I was able to plan for this week beforehand, Monday was our lower body day, Tuesday was our upper body day, and Wednesday was a double.  Continuing with a mixed preparation for our third max week, on Monday I incorporated heavy build lifts which are indicated in red along with speed and corrective movements indicated in blue.

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For our upper day, I follow the same format.  (Red for build, blue for corrective.)

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Wednesday was our double day which means we lifted both our upper body and lower body.  (Green for lower body and orange for upper body.)

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Next week is spring break for St. V and there will be no scheduled lifting and it will be an off week for me.  I will still be running my college off-season program which I will blog about next week and explain more about it since I haven't yet.

#staytuned

Major Blog Post #3

I have chosen to write my week three blog post on a Thursday because my lifting session with my athletes as well as school for St. Vincent St. Mary HS is cancelled tomorrow, the 23rd, because our boys basketball team has made it to the state playoffs down in Columbus. 

Although this week was a short week and it may seem like there might not be much to post about, it is actually quite the opposite because I had the opportunity to experience a different kind of lifting week.  Monday and Tuesday were both early release days, which meant the athletes had a lot of time between the end of school and my lifting start time.  Since, I work full time, my head coach and I decided to keep lifting as scheduled and everyday it began at 3:00 p.m.  Since the first two days were early release, attendance numbers were down since many athletes, once they left school, were not able to come back for lifting.  This was a challenge that was foreseen and addressed the week before. 

Wednesday, however, was not a challenge that was prepared for.  Wednesday, was a snow day for the school, which meant my athletes would be away from campus until lifting began.  In our football program, we use a piece of technology called Hudl.  In this application, we send, share. watch and breakdown film.  I also use this application to communicate with my eighty some athletes.  When I received the call in the morning that school would be closed, I jumped on Hudl after speaking with my head coach and my school's administration and messaged my athletes that lifting would go on as scheduled.  Wednesday was also a lower attendance day. 
In a snowball like effect, today was also a low attendance day because of the altered week schedule. 

As I stated above, Friday there will be no lifting.  I bring all this up because I have now altered my strength program schedule.  Next week was supposed to be a very low intensity week, somewhat of an off week, because we are at that point where body recovery is a necessity.  I now have decided to make this week our recovery week and next week will resume as a higher intensity week.  My athletes will have a long weekend of three full days of body recovery. 

With lower numbers each day, before our lift began, I made changes to accommodate the attendance.  Monday was still our lower body day, but I incorporated low intensity lifts such as speed squats, band workouts, and core exercises.
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Tuesday and Wednesday, I again made similar changes to lower intensity.
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Today was again a less intense day, which included more body weight and corrective lifts.
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Since my max results from last week showed that some athletes benefited from the heavier, muscle building lifts and some benefited from the lower intensity, speed, and corrective type lifts, our three week preparation for our next max week will incorporate both styles of lifts to accommodate both types of athletes.  I was glad I was able to experience a week like this because it made me think on the fly and problem solve on the spot.  I had to make game time adjustments to have the most beneficial week.  I am also looking forward to the three day weekend because sometimes coach needs an off week too. 

Cool Tool #5 Canva

Canva: A true canvas for education.

                For my last cool tool review, I will be reviewing Canva.  Canva is a free tool available online with only a few “pay to play” features.  Broken down, this tool is a presentation application that contains many avenues for creativity.  Probably the most interesting part of this tool is it contains Google Doc like features that allow the user to have as many editors and contributors as they want which I will explain through my use.  Canva allows users to create a social graphic, logo, poster, flyer, resume, web banner, presentation, invitation, card, photo collage, and a few more design types (see picture 1). 

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For my review, I chose to create a presentation and before you jump on me and say “well, that’s boring” let me explain my choice.  When I chose my list of cool tools to review I had a master plan.  I am a big lecture guy and I enjoy a teacher centered learning experience so many of the tools I chose to review were presentation tools.  I then used a similar lesson through out all the cool tools, so I could then analyze which tool I enjoyed the most and saw most beneficial.  What I also looked at was the different ways to use these tools to provided new and creative way to present a lesson and engage my students.   

Once I chose to create a presentation, Canva offers many different styles of presentations to choose from (see picture 2).  I selected an education presentation to create an American history lesson. 

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                Once the style of presentation is selected, the user is then taken to the editing stage.  For each slide, a background or format may be selected to coincide with the slide’s purpose.  Canva offers a variety of slide layouts which each contain specific elements to present information in the most beneficial way. 

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                As the creation process continues, the user can select illustrations and photos that are provided in the Canva database to add to the presentation.  This is the one feature that contains the “pay to play” aspect.

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                Once the creation is completed, the user can decide to share their work with specific people through email, through social media, or through the link feature.  The link share option is what contains similar features to Google Docs.  I selected to share my short lesson in this blog, with the option for any viewer to be able to edit it.  This feature has endless applications in the classroom as we have seen with Google Docs. 

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                You can check out my creation here: Road to Revolution and you are welcome to try the editing feature right there in my lesson.  Since my cool tool reviews will now be coming to an end, I wanted to share with you what my favorite tool was so far.  My answer: all of them.  Each contained a feature that I could see myself using in my future classrooms.  Emaze, for a new version of PowerPoint.  Haiku Deck, for its innovative way to create presentations from Wiki, which I would use to speed up the creation process and allow students to focus on then learning the information to present.  Storybird, to use as a possible online classroom.  Simplemind, for its simplicity to capture thinking and finally Canva, for its ability to create many materials beyond a simple presentation. 

Week 9 Blended Learning and Productivity

This week I will be discussing blended learning and productivity in the classroom.

                Somewhat reeling back a bit, I wanted to touch base on a previous topic: blended learning.  In my post about blended learning, I definitely was pro about using blended learning in today’s education, but I had a skeptical view as well.  In a video that I watched for this week’s post called, “Ending the Classroom Factory Model”, Michael Horn, an educational professional spoke on his thoughts about blended learning.  He was asked how he felt about students going into a classroom and immediately being put in front of a screen and he said that kids need a blended learning environment and the school provides that safe, custodial, and supportive environment for online learning.  This really opened my mind to blended learning because before I did just think that using blended learning was just setting students in front of a screen.  I wasn’t thinking about the complete environment it provided for the students.  The teacher is there for support as they pace their learning and the students still have the opportunity to learn with their peers.  I’m glad I was able to come across this video.

                Getting to more of this week’s topic, productivity is a key aspect of becoming an effective teacher.  Let’s face it, in this age of tech, the students are not the only ones susceptible to becoming distracted and teachers must manage their time efficiently.  Technology can be looked at as the “kiss of death” because of all the benefits it can provide still comes with plenty of distractions.  There is hope for teachers because there is technology available to assist in productivity.  One tool that can assist in this is called RescueTime.  This application basically blocks users from distractions and records the users’ time spent on different tasks.  For the most part I use applications that assist with organization because I truly believe that organization is the foundation for being productive.  As I continue my career, I plan to explore more technology that can assist me even further.

                Technology can also help teachers solve problems.  Some examples would be constant communication with students even when they are not in the classroom.  Another big example would be developing lessons that can cover a wide variety of learners.  Using technology to develop a broad but specific lesson helps teachers connect with all levels of learners in their class, it gives students the opportunity to have a more individualized lesson, and it gives parents access to their child’s education. 

                One productivity tool that I will use as a staple in my classroom will be Google Docs.  With this tool I can have students collaborate on a project or lesson while facilitating the individual creativity of my students.  Another simple tool I would utilize is Google Calendar.  With this tool I will be able to share my class schedule with parents and administration to ensure participation from parties outside of my classroom.  As I have stated in a previous post, the applications for technology in education seem endless and if it is even possible, the opportunities only seem to be growing.  

Cool Tool #4 Simplemind

Simplemind the actual simple way to capture your thinking.

                The cool tool that I will review this week is called Simplemind.  It is the first time that the title of an application truly held true to the actual use of the tool.  Simplemind is the easiest tool I have ever used to create a mind map.  According to simplemind.com, a mind map is a tool for the brain that captures the thinking that goes on inside your head.  Mind maps are perfect for brainstorming and they provide a platform to collect knowledge, remember, and create ideas.  This tool can be utilized on a website browser or as a mobile application.  I choose to use the tool in the mobile app manner.

                Simplemind is free and very easy to download.  It is offered in the Google app store for androids and the Apple app store for iPhones.  After downloading the app, the user is brought to an example mind map that shows the ins and outs of the tool.  Since I have used mind maps before I started to create my own and used a eighth grade social studies lesson on the American Revolution for the content.

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                After selecting to begin a new mind map the user can select the design of their map.

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                As seen below, the mind map will start with the central idea in a blue box and the user can then begin to add content to expand on information. 

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                As stated before, I created The Road to Revolution mind map which includes events, acts, and people to support thinking for the main idea.

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                After content is added, the user can scroll through their ideas to add or remove information.

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                Since I used this tool for educational purposes, I created an assignment bubble for my students to complete after the lesson.  The mind map can be shared to any number of people and the people it was shared to have the ability to view and edit the map.

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                Unfortunately, to fully access all of the features that Simplemind has to offer, the user must buy the full version of the app.  For this reason, I am unable to share and link the mind map that I created with the tool.

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                I would use this tool to help develop my students’ brainstorming abilities and to actually show how a mind map can explain their thinking using images and text.  I would use this tool in the classroom for a variety of purposes:

1.       Presentation     

2.       Brainstorming after lesson

3.       Organization of thoughts

4.       Problem solving

5.       Retention of information from text sources

6.       Simple notes.

I see no major challenges using this tool because it is as simple to use as its name suggests.  The only concern would be whether the student has access to the technology to use the tool.  Sometimes the simplest of tools can have the greatest effect and I believe Simplemind has that capability. 

Major Project Post #2

I am back with my major blog post number two and I have much to discuss.

For this post I will be discussing my past week of the implementation of my strength program which began Sunday the 11^th to Friday the 16^th.  As I mentioned in my previous major blog post, this past week was my athletes’ max week, which is a week where we retest our four main lifts to quantify strength gains.  First, I would like to start with my attendance.  Since other sports are now coming to a close, my attendance numbers have drastically increased.  I have had to prepare everyday for a bigger and bigger group of athletes.  This is a key element because the number of athletes determines my time I will be able to spend with each athlete during the lift.  As seen in picture one, I organize my attendance numbers using an excel worksheet.  I first broke the sheet down by the month and day that each lift will occur and then I assign a number one for attend or zero for unexcused absence.  In the sample of my entire sheet I provided here, you can see my number values for each day as well as abbreviations for involvement of other sports or excused absences. 

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                Now, getting on to the exciting part.  As I mentioned in my last major blog post, my preparation for this month’s max week was different then my approach in the first month.  For this preparation, I had my athletes utilize corrective/strength band workouts which lessened the intensity and workload of the body before maxing.  In my first approach, I had my athletes perform low volume (number of reps) high intensity (heavy weight) workouts.  I was pleased with my first results, but I continually like to evolve my program and challenge my athletes’ bodies to see what works for each individual.  Some may say that striving for program individualization is impossible for the amount of athletes I train, but I am able to determine the greater increases for each athlete by comparing their gains from the two max session approaches. 

                Monday was our max squat day.  For the sample I provided below, the selected athletes that are highlighted in a yellow box, show the small to no gain from the first approach to max week and the larger gain from the second approach.  This tells me that approach number two was most beneficial for these specific athletes.  The athletes highlighted in a blue box shows my counter evidence.  This tells me that this specific athlete benefited most from the first approach and I now will adjust his workouts accordingly. 

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                Tuesday was our max bench day and will the sample provided below I have made the same highlights to notify gains. Yellow = approach number one had greater affect / Blue = approach number two had greater affect

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                Wednesday was max dead-lift and the sample below again shows high gains in yellow and lower gains in blue.

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                Thursday was max floor press.  See below for the same format of information.

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                Overall, I felt it was a very successful week for me and most of my athletes.  I use the weekend to write up the new workouts for the upcoming week and with my new max numbers I will now be able to make more individualized workout plans to maximize the possible gains.  Next week I will discuss the changes I made for specific athletes and how I implemented these changes during the workouts.  #staytuned

Week 8 Digital Learning Spaces

For this week I will be discussing Digital Learning Spaces and this ties right into many past topics I have discussed.

                Learning spaces are environments, whether physical or digital, where learning happens.  According to Dr. Jeremy Brueck, who spoke in a video given to my grad class, contemporary learning spaces are based in learning ecology composed of physical, digital, and virtual experiences.  Digital learning spaces can encourage student engagement because it provides students with multiple pathways to reach the desired proficiency.  In a video by Holli Tonyan, four forms of learning are discussed as possible pathways to create digital learning spaces.  These four forms are: campfires, watering holes, the cave, and the world.  If educators can effectively develop spaces for each of these forms of learning, I believe they will then be able to reach and encourage more student engagement. 

The campfire space could be a podcast or a video of a teacher lecture that students can pace themselves through.  The watering hole is the student interaction with peers and a form of this could be as simple as an online discussion form.  For the cave, a space for this would be anything that is reflective. This space allows alone time for students to engage in deep thought and reflection.  The final form is the world and this provides students the opportunity to apply their knowledge to actual world situations.  This also engages students in sharing and allows them to go outside of the classroom and see how others are learning about a similar topic. 

                Google Apps for Education will most likely be the future in the development of learning spaces.  GAFE provides a multitude of applications that can be the center piece in each space that an educator will develop.  One easy example of an app is Google Classroom.  This app simply is a classroom that is online; it is the epitome of a digital learning space. 

                One assumption that we should challenge as we design learning spaces for the future is that one specific application or piece of technology has a defined use when it comes to learning.  I say this because educators must delve into the technology and explore all the ways it can apply to learning.  According to Dr. Jeremy Brueck, we must ask ourselves “what do we want to accomplish beyond the device?” 

                We can see examples of the development of learning spaces right here in The University of Akron’s campus.  The main space utilized by the campus is Brightspace.  Brightspace is an online resource that professors can use to share, communicate, encourage discussion, assign assessments, and even hold class.  The discussion form in Brightspace can be the watering hole, a reflective assignment can be the cave, and added class content can be the campfire.  I believe that these learning spaces are very beneficial to my needs as a graduate student.  Many grad students hold full time jobs and the convenience of Brightspace allows us to be connected to our classrooms at all times.  I have also grown fond of learning at my own pace while using online sources as I never had the opportunity to experience this in my undergrad studies. 

Major Project Post #1

My first offseason high school football strength program.

The major project that I have selected to learn more about and execute is going to be developing and implementing a sport specific strength and conditioning program.  Over the course of this project I hope to effectively be able to run a strength program for a high school football team that will increase the physical attributes of my players.  These increases will be quantifiable by records of each specific lift maxes, players gain or loss in weight, and by body mass composition.  I will first learn to identify the weaknesses of my players.  I will categorize these weaknesses and create a weekly strength plan that will be able to address and develop the weaknesses into strengths. 

This is the first week of many that I will be posting about my experience of implementing a strength program for the St. Vincent St. Mary High School football team.  Since I am only a month in, I believe that this will truly be a learning experience even though I will only be posting about it for a short period of time for my technology grad class.  Starting at the beginning, my biggest challenge so far was creating the program.  I sat down with Armani Martin, a well-known performance coach from Miami, Florida.  Before I got the job of strength coach, I took a trip down to Miami to visit my fellow coach and refresh my mind of the workings of a strength program.  I spent a little less than a week there and Coach Martin and I developed a sixteen-week program (see below).

Picture 1

            I will remain in constant contact with Coach Martin with the use of Google Sheets as seen above in arrow number one.  Arrow number two shows my set up for each of the sixteen weeks (only seven are shown), the exercise database, and each current week.  This past week, which I will be discussing, was week seven.     

            I have created my program to run in four-week cycles, the fourth week being the week that we retest for our maxes.  I test four different lifts to gauge the overall strength of an athlete: bench, squat, deadlift, and floor press.  Week seven was our last prep week before we max again in week eight, which begins on Monday the 12^th.  Next week I will be able to discuss the new maxes and decide what went well during those four weeks and what I must change. 

            For week seven I implemented more of a corrective lift schedule, which means lifts that are lighter in intensity (or weight) and lifts that are usually done with strength bands.  This strength band approach to a max week will be something I’ll definitely look to change or keep after I record the new maxes.  I say this because many professionals believe that heavier lifts, that build muscle are required to have better maxes and since I went lighter and somewhat eased off, I am excited to see the results.  Monday was our lower day and I included two explosive lifts which can be determined by the xxx under the TEM column.  I point this out because explosive lifts take a toll on the body and usually the rule of thumb is one per day.  Tuesday was our upper day which consisted up a moderate bench exercise, one explosive, and strength band corrective lifts. 

Picture 2

            Wednesday and Thursday were our single arm upper day and single leg lower day, which as I stated before, were ran much more in the corrective lift/strength band fashion. 

Picture 3

            No unusual challenges this week other then keeping on top of attendance.  I have about forty football players that I look over and about another thirty football players that are involved in other sports so being able to streamline my attendance program is something I will always try and advance.  I am very excited to post next week after we have recorded our second set of maxes.  The main goal of next weeks post will be to compare and contrast the strategy I used to prepare ourselves for the max week compared to the past preparation which I will delve into more next week.  #staytuned