AUSTRALIA’S LEADING RESOURCE FOR PHYSICAL, OUTDOOR AND HEALTH EDUCATION PROFESSIONALS
active education ISSUE 31, OCT/NOV 2011
Using Social Networking To Get Students Active And Healthy
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ISSUE 31, OCT/NOV 2011
Using Social Networking To Get Students Active And Healthy
By Jarrod Robinson
T
hese days, many students find that their free time is consumed by social networking. A far cry from bike riding, walking and playing sport in the local park, this form of interaction with friends and family requires no level of physical activity whatsoever. And whether you love it, hate it or are still coming to terms with it, social networking is here to stay and is embedded firmly in students’ lives today. So rather than ignore it or hope for it to fade away, why not embrace it and use it in the PE classroom? In this article we will look at some very practical ways of turning this cultural phenomenon into an innovative classroom resource that will develop active and healthy minds and bodies. YouTube With over 490 million registered users, YouTube launched in the mid-2000s and is now one of the internet’s largest social networking communities, serving up over two billion videos a day across the world. Most of the registered users post video blogs, with the diverse content ranging from home-cooking shows to the latest tech reviews,
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with the key, common ingredient being that anyone with a video camera and an internet connection can broadcast these messages to the world. So how can PE teachers utilise this to enhance student learning? Let us look a few ideas. Film crews: Introduce a pocket video camera to the classroom and get groups of students to take up the role of a ‘film crew’ on a rotational – say week-by-week – basis. Their task is to capture the moments that make up a practical lesson, which might include anything from skills training to game-play or tactical instruction. They then edit and distribute the video to the class via YouTube. With a little guidance from you,
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the film crew will essentially be completing a scaled-up, modernised version of peer assessment. Once the content is online, students can comment on their own and others’ techniques, creating an online portfolio demonstrating their learning of new skills. Video coaching: Using the same camera, students can make a contribution to the wider community by teaching a game or skill to an online audience via video. Teachers paired up with counterparts in other countries to share lesson content and cultural activities, and with sport playing a major role in all cultures, it makes sense to use social networking to facilitate
this further. Imagine the higher-order thinking and physical-skill development on show when a student in regional Victoria teaches a group of students in India how to kick an AFL football in a one-minute YouTube video. All it takes is a video camera and access to the internet and the connections that students can make are endless. Demonstrations: The plethora of YouTube videos available has become an amazing source of content for PE teachers, with many showing sports instruction videos on mobile devices such as the iPad, effectively creating a second teacher within the classroom. This frees up teachers,
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giving them time to provide extra assistance to students, which ultimately enhances their skill development and learning. Social networking has the potential to become a worldwide social learning tool if the task is designed in a meaningful way. Facebook Facebook does not usually get a positive spin in terms of its position in the classroom, yet an increasing amount of teachers are tapping into the communication powers of the world’s largest social network. At present there are well over 750 million registered Facebook users across the global community and that number is growing every day. Although it cops its fair share of criticism for productivity loss, studies have highlighted that this need not be the case. Facebook breaks the boundaries of traditional communication channels, so there is certainly room to look at how classes utilising Facebook as an additional means of communication can experience high levels of success. Although the 24/7 classroom scares a
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lot of teachers, there are many benefits to a classroom that has no time-related boundaries, such as the capacity to share current affairs related to a subject and spark conversation on class content. For example, this can be done by setting up a subject home page on Facebook for senior students. This is a fantastic resource for teachers because it allows them to facilitate open communication amongst students, using a form of media they are becoming more and more comfortable with, without the need to use a personal page. Students simply need to ‘like’ the page in order to begin following its content. Alternatively, teachers can create a subject-based Facebook group, which means that students need to be invited to join the group and participate in the discussion. One school recently established a closed Facebook group as a means of communicating school-related information to parents, students and the wider community – a modern day newsletter, in effect. This proved to be a very successful exercise and helped the school model appropriate the use of social networking.
Health and PE teachers can use these groups and pages to post up-to-date content from a variety of news sources, providing a rich focal point for discussion. The teacher can then set related homework that encourages students to investigate and share interesting matters, ultimately creating a network of simple, informal learning in an environment that students are comfortable in. The added bonus of restricting access to the class page means that you can operate within a controlled environment. Google Groups Google is often seen to be a simple and less-threatening version of a social network and one that is perfect for all age groups. Teachers need simply visit www.google.com/groups to create their very own private group and group members are then invited by email and a unique email address is generated for the whole group. Whenever the teacher or students want to post and share any content with their group, they simply send an email using the generated account. In a
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PE classroom, a Google group is a fantastic way to share information about scores, announcements or any other interesting class-related content. You can also take it a step further and invite an Olympic athlete or sports nutritionist into the group to answer student questions and provide feedback. Many schools separated by the tyranny of distance will invite virtual guest speakers to share their thoughts via a simple email. Twitter Launched in 2006, Twitter may be a relatively recent addition to the social networking world but it now has 200 million users and receives over a billion search queries a day . The basic idea behind this popular platform is the concise dissemination of information within a maximum of 140 characters – a practice known as ‘tweeting’ or micro-blogging that is not dissimilar to sending an SMS. Without
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an intended focus, Twitter becomes like any form of free speech in that the majority of what is tweeted is usually meaningless and without purpose or focus, and so it is often ignored. However, if you give students or teachers a focus, then Twitter can become an enormous environment for learning and sharing. With the simple click of a button, teachers can connect with anyone around the world who is willing to share their lessons and ideas. The influx of technologies into schools over the last few years has brought about a growth in the number of PE teachers, all of whom are looking for the latest resources and innovative tools. PE teachers wishing to use Twitter to improve their professional practices should look no further than the group #pegeeks. By simply adding this group’s link to any of their tweets, they will be broadcasting to hundreds of likeminded PE and health teachers around the world. For an idea about who your
tweets will be speaking to, a superb list of PE teachers on twitter has been created at https://twitter.com/#!/benpaddlejones /pe-geeks. In the PE and health classroom, Twitter can also be used to help explore current world issues. During the bird flu outbreaks of the last few years, for example, students at Boort District School, Victoria, were able to follow and interact with those who were affected directly by the flu. This involved asking questions of those willing to share, and then plotting their location using Scribble Maps (www.scribblemaps.com). To make this happen, students simply went to www.twitter.com/search and specified the term ‘bird flu’. The thousands of tweets that followed provided a rich environment for developing an insight into the effect of disease. Only a few schools have begun to introduce Twitter into their practical classes. These instances have included
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injured students tweeting the results of matches from the sidelines as well as other key moments of games, creating a brilliant micro-blog snapshot of the year’s learning, including pictures and other classrelated information. Teachers can even take it one step further and introduce a media relations role into the SEPEP (Sport Education in Physical Education Program ) model that involves tweeting and updating other social media. This is a brilliant use of the technology, as it actually mirrors what the sports media is presently doing during professional matches. Just imagine students making real-world connections and gaining followers from the other side of the world. In fact, imagine no more, as teachers interested in doing this can start by setting up a class Twitter account and giving students access to this via a school iPod, iPad or other mobile device. Students can also utilise Twitter to break down the key components of sporting skills in less than 140 characters and share this with the world. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. One example of how to use Twitter in a practical class is to create a modern version of the ‘task card’. In years gone by, task
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cards have been printed, laminated and placed around the room allowing students to take themselves through a designated series of skill development activities. However, using a class Twitter account, the teacher can tweet the task card and any associated pictures directly to individual student devices giving the activity a more dynamic and interactive edge. Another example is to use Twitter to facilitate scavenger hunts by posting short tweets that contain cryptic clues to locations around the school. Once again, using the class Twitter account and a service called www.tweet-u-later.com you can schedule tweets for a specific time in the future. This automates the delivery of cryptic clues directly to the students’ individual devices. Upon receiving a clue, students can then work in teams to race to the next location and take a picture to prove that they were there. Another idea is to automate the tweets so that each group of students receives a different clue at a different time so that they are all moving in different directions around the school. Edmodo Launched
in
2010,
Edmodo
is
the
education sector’s equivalent of Facebook and allows teachers to create an instant personalised social network with students and parents. Once registered, students enter a unique class access code given to them by their teachers, which will then enable them to share resources with each other easily. Edmodo can handle all types of media, from images, documents and videos to website URLs, making it a fantastic place to develop a rich tapestry of discussion around health-related concepts. The instant nature of the Edmodo social network also provides the possibility of creating a back channel within a health or physical education classroom. The basic premise of a back channel is similar to that of a chat room, in that it allows a discussion about content to occur behind the scenes of the direct classroom teaching. This approach has been described as providing the quieter students in the classroom with an opportunity to become among the loudest in the classroom. It also enables every thought and idea to be captured by the teacher during the presentation of their content, enabling them to modify their teaching in response to the back channel. One example is an innovative teacher who
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recently asked students to select a sport and to use Edmodo to post any content they were able to find on that sport, such as its current world champions, its rules, relevant images and so on, essentially creating a virtual information booklet that could then be used to prompt teachable moments on the sports they were playing in their practical sessions. Into The Future At the end of the day, social networking is not going away and is a reality that is here to stay. Schools that fight it will find it more and more difficult to engage apathetic learners. Furthermore, schools have an obligation to introduce their students to the workings of the internet. In the same way that learner drivers are tutored in road rules and good driving practices before being allowed onto the road, students
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should be guided through the many ways that the internet can be used, which today includes social networking. Schools that ban or restrict access to social networking sites are doing no favours to their students or teachers; they are simply alienating them from a world of creativity and innovation, which can be used to promote healthy and active minds and bodies in a huge variety of ways. Social networking should be placed in the same vein as any other classroom tool: that is, useful for enhancing an activity but never just for the sake of it. With careful planning and a focus on ensuring that activity time not lost, schools can enhance their physical-activity message by sharing it with a dedicated and like-minded audience from across the globe. Smart students, smart teachers and smart schools are already tapping into the immense powers
of social networking tools. It is time to think of social networking sites not as toys but as tools that have the amazing potential to give every child a front-row seat in a global, interactive and active classroom. Jarrod Robinson is a physical education and outdoor education teacher who utilises emerging technologies in his classroom. He has presented at numerous conferences where his focus has been on providing simple, practical examples. Jarrod’s major interests revolve around the use of mobile learning tools and the role they play in physical education. To read about more ways to use technology in physical education you can access Jarrod’s eBook, 100+ Ways to use Technology in Physical Education, at http://bit.ly/f0edli
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