At the recent NSW PDHPE Teacher’s Association conference, apart from an inspiring keynote from Ben Jones (@benpaddlejones on Twitter) on 21st Century opportunities in PE, amongst other brain snapping concepts, the rest of the workshops dealt with technology solutions I was pretty much familiar with. Still, it was good to have my knowledge and understanding in these areas expanded. Ben and I also ran a little “unmeeting”, promoting Twitter as a powerful PLN option, and I think the message was heard. This was the second exciting moment for me at the conference.
What I also saw at the conference was the look in many people’s eyes, and I heard the comments that they made when the were introduced to new technology approaches. They were saying “this is big, very big..I want to get into it…but where do I start?
The information overload issue is a big one.
Spread yourself too thin, try to do too many things, and you don’t do anything REALLY well. The danger of burn out becomes a real possibility.
I’ve been guilty of that in the past, and don’t want to feel that sense of drowning again.
Just like in sport training, I’m beginning to think specificity in using technology is a crucial component of successful technology integration.
So after a productive NSW PDHPE Teacher’s Association conference , I’ve decided on some specific goals as far as technology in my teaching goes.
1. Know Moodle much better. My school has committed to Moodle, so to make work like it should, I have to be as one with it.
2. Blogging – I’m going to use the BlogEd tool given to me by the DET and focus on building reflective writing skills in my students.
3. Mobile devices – using both Moodle and blogging, I’m aiming to weave mobile LEARNING devices through what I do. Up to now, I’ve postulated about what might be done with ubiquitous mobile technology, and collected lots of ideas. Now is the time to act.
Specificity – specific actions designed to produced specific results. Time to aim up for gold.
Great stuff jonesy. Looking forward to hearing, reading your journey
Well said. It is so easy to get excited about the new possibilities technology brings us, and then implement half-baked attempts at integrating this technology in our lessons.
Sounds like you’ve got a good handle on this. Keep going and encouraging all those other ‘PE Geeks’ out there!