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. 

Picture 1

                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. 

Picture 2

                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

Picture 3

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

Picture 4

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

Picture 5

                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

Cool Tool #3 Storybird

Storybird, the new and exciting way to make education come to life.

                For this week of my cool tool reviews, I have chosen Storybird.  This piece of technology is very interesting, but in my opinion, somewhat limited.  Storybird basically allows users to create a picture story about anything they please.  It comes with preexisting illustrations to add on to the story.  Students can use this create a long story with multiple chapters, a shorter story with lots of pictures, or a single page poem.  A complete description of the tool can be viewed here: https://storybird.com/educators/.  The user can create three types of presentations: longform book, picture book, and poem. 

Once the user had selected the type of presentation they would like to use, they can start adding content.

                

When they are finished, they then can share their work with anyone.

               

I said this is somewhat limited because I can see it has being very class specific and a little age specific.  I could definitely see an elementary language arts class using this so students can create a customized story of their own.  They can select from a wide variety of illustrations to help tell their story while they write their own content.  As stated before, these students could use it to create a longform story or even single poem.  As far as other contents being able to use this, I see it as limited.   

                One awesome feature with Storybird, is teachers can create their own classroom and add students and even parents to partake.  Teachers can add assignments for students that will show the due date and submissions. 

                I created a practice assignment for a U.S. history class about George Washington (see below).  I asked students to watch the video that was linked and create a three-page picture book about three facts they learned from the video.  This could be done at home or even in the classroom if everyone had the technology. 

                All in all, I think Storybird is a very interesting tool and it work wonderfully in a language arts type of class.  It is free to use forever, with only a few features that can be accessed from using the websites own type of currency.  Their currency is unlocked for free as the user explores all of the features it offers.  Check out a full Storybird example here. 

Week 7 Digital Citizenship

For this week, I will be discussing Digital Citizenship.

                Digital citizenship is basically how each individual is known, participates, and acts in the online world.  One video made available in my graduate course explains how digital citizenship is the first step for students to become media literate in the new age of technology.  Similar to drivers’ education for new drivers, digital citizenship is the precursor for students to understand how their online presence can affect them in their personal and professional lives. 

                Digital citizenship can have a massive impact on one’s personal life.  For me, digital citizenship includes any and all social media that I choose to participate in.  When the social media boom began, I believe I was well educated before hand which allowed me to pick and choose what social medias I would use.  When Facebook hit the scene, I was not a user until a few years after its release.  This allowed me to see my peers’ reviews and mistakes that they have already learned from.  This topic greatly relates to sharing.  Knowing what is appropriate to share ties right in with your digital citizenship. 

Another video that was made available to me shows the extreme measure of a young adult posting too much information on social media.  In the video it showed strangers asking personal questions simply because they followed her through social media.  I understand that it was showing the extreme point of view, but this simple fact must be presented to young students.  Digital citizenship can also have a major impact on one’s professional life.  In my senior year of college, when everyone was getting ready to graduate and begin the job search, most if not all of my friends changed their Facebook names so potential employers wouldn’t be able to find them on social media.  I have heard of countless stories of people not getting jobs because what they have posted online and even some people getting fired from their job because recent or even past posts. 

Fortunately, I have never been a part of online bullying or even posts that can hurt feeling because I was educated early on to avoid the type of actions that could potentially evolve into having an online presence.  I have however seen cases of this many times on the news and through friends.  As far as what I would do differently, if I do ever come across this type of behavior I would like to take action and not be a bystander. 

All of the negatives with online use could definitely scare away educators from using online sources.  A teacher that might use a classroom twitter could be worried that their students would use that specific account for personal things rather then just for educational purposes.  As I stated before, as long as the education about digital citizenship and sharing happens early in a student’s education, I do not think that future educators will stop the use of online education. 

Cool Tool Review #2 Haiku Deck

Introducing the Haiku Deck. The next gen of presentations.

This week in my series of cool tool reviews, I will be discussing Haiku Deck.  With this program, the creator has the ability to develop a presentation from scratch, upload a preexisting presentation, or even begin creation with the use of Wikipedia.  Haiku Deck contains all the functions must presentation programs have and then takes the functions to a more exciting level.   

               

The user can first begin to create a “deck” from scratch, as seen above, and add images, titles, information, links, and all sorts of beneficial information.  Haiku Deck is a pay to use application so for this blog I was only able to use the basic of formats for my creation.  When I began I decided to use a feature completely new to me and chose to create a project from Wikipedia (see image below).

After selecting this path, a search bar pops up (as seen below) to begin searching the database for any kind of topic the user would like. For my purpose, I chose Abraham Lincoln, to hopefully develop a presentation to use in an 8^th grade social studies course. After choosing the article the program analyzes the article and takes the most beneficial information to add into your presentation.  Before selecting an article, the user can select how long to make the presentation.  The longer it is, the more detailed it will be and the shorter it is, the more basic it will be. 

Once the article is now uploaded, the user can now edit all the information it has pulled from the article to the user’s preference (see below).  Something to keep in mind is to thoroughly review the information since the information is from a source such as Wikipedia which anyone and edit at any time.  Each bullet point will be a slide and the sub points are the information displayed on the slide. 

After the user is satisfied with the information, the program will take you to the image selection page (see below).  In this feature, the program does the image selection and adding for the user, allowing more time for the information to be reviewed and strengthened.  For those who have used presentation tools before, I think many would agree finding copyright free pictures can be a difficult task and this feature relieves all the headache of that process. 

Once all the slides are finished you can preview your deck (see below).

Unfortunately, this is a full pay to use program (see below) so I am unable to link my created deck without paying for the service.  You can view a fully completed project “deck” here.

Haiku Deck is another fantastic presentation tool.  Students and teachers can use this to create more appealing presentations.  The program is very user friendly and all “technology natives” should have no problem using this program to its full potential.  The only downside is to use such a premium product, the user must pay to use it.  I recommend Haiku Deck to all educators willing to make an investment in a fun and advanced presentation tool. 

Week 6 Blended Learning Environments

It’s week six and today I will be discussing blended learning environments.

                Blended learning is a relatively new topic in education and many classrooms around the U.S. are putting its benefits to use.  In my graduate level instructional technology class, I have already been a part of a blended learning environment.  My class is usually in person with direct teacher instruction but for one of our days we had a completely online class.  As well as experiencing an online class, most of our resources are found online through a University of Akron program called, Brightspace.  My class somewhat operates like this:

1.       Direct instruction

2.       Utilizing online resources

3.       Class Discussion

4.       Direct instruction

5.       Conclusion

6.       On your own/continue instruction/reflection

This classroom example is basically blended learning summed up.  In one educational video, it describes blended learning as the integration of brick and mortar learning and personally paced learning while creating an active and collaborative environment.  The only con of blended learning that I have experienced in my graduate class is students that benefit more from direct instruction and complete guidance from a teacher will have a harder transition because blended learning cooperatively shares the responsibly of learning with all rather then it all just being on the teacher.

I believe with today’s student, blended learning is a must.  In my opinion, I believe that we have somewhat coddled today’s student with regards to the learning process and this isn’t necessarily bad as long as there is an answer, which for this example would be a blended learning environment.  Technology has drastically increased the speed at which students send and receive information which I believe has created a new type of student then there was before this technology boom.  As with many topics I have discussed, there is a time a place for all this new technology, but it must not be overused.  I believe blended learned definitely has a place with today’s student because a teacher now has the ability to give the students learning responsibility which allows the teacher to work in smaller groups and focus more on individuals. 

One educator that I learned about in my graduate class is Stacy Hawthorne and she created a video/podcast titled Building Blended Learning Environments.  One great point I took away from this is Ms. Hawthorne states, “blended learning is more than electronic textbooks and productivity tools. It means inventing and adopting new learning environments that work better for teachers and students.”  This will impact my own learning because I will now try and understand what it is about the lesson that is most beneficial when being presented in a blended learning model. 

Another topic in Ms. Hawthorne’s video that I felt I connected with was the “10 Drivers of Blended Learning”.

In the topic she explained that the main goal of blended learning is to make learning more personal and not just in the sense of having lots of content to cover everyone’s interests but rather allowing the students to explore while the teacher is able to guide and focus on smaller groups of students.   

That’s all for this week! #staytuned