Gerry Cernicky

EDITORIAL:

I would like to discuss ways to prepare for the winter season and present ideas to promote a healthy New Year by developing activities to encourage creativity. All of the ideas presented are interesting activities that can help keep students involved during the winter season.

Sign up at the NASPE listserv, from Sportime, to stay abreast of all information in health and physical education being shared by teachers across the country. Included in this issue will be a continuum of vocabulary terminology and tips and tricks to be utilized with software, hardware applications, and programs.

As in past issues, I feel it is important to mention that technology plays a big part in closing the gap between how physical education is perceived and what it has to offer. We must do all we can to demonstrate we are ready to fit in with the global education process and take our place in the development of the whole child. This entails more than pedometers and heart rate monitors. It includes knowledge of software and hardware equipment that is comparable to anything the core subject teachers are presenting to their students.

With each technology issue, I have presented the terminology in such a way that it is understandable and comfortable for all teachers. The most difficult part is taking the first step to understand the terminology, but this makes the learning part easier.

There are many devices and software programs that can make teaching informative and fun. One of those is Palm TX that has the capability to store documents in the Word program. In the Documents To Go software, you can sync from Excel, Power Point, and Word. This can be helpful in the fitness testing, grading, and record keeping statistics for each class.

There are also free alternatives. The easiest one is called Zoho. Use your PC to proceed through an easy registration process to set up an account for word processing and PowerPoint applications. The ease of use makes it a viable product. Another application is Thinkfree, and even though it's not as aggressive as Zoho, this free application is worth looking into.

The Glide Society is a simple and free signin that can sync with mobile phones and any Windows, Mac, or Linux platform, and also a Blackberry or iPhone. This Glide program is used with photos, audio, video, documents, contacts, email, calendar, and bookmarks. The story board makes an easy transition with an icon click for a calculator, weather, blog, chat, email, and "stickies," which are interactive notes and reminders. Even though it is in a beta release, Glide is only a click away from storing important information similar to a personal web site. A well designed Help program makes the transition easier to understand. The Glide program uses Flash 9 technology to produce graphics and animation in a state of the art setting.

MP3 players are valuable devices that play in MP3, WMA and AAC content. They are capable of playing podcasts, RSS subscriptions and music when the students are participating in station or circuit activities. A stereo speaker set up will be necessary to keep the sound at an appropriate level.

MP3 players can be found at Creative, which has the capability to play videos in its Zen V Plus series. The ever popular iPod series, that includes the Shuffle, Nano, and iPhone, can be found at Apple.

In both players, there is a sync process with iTunes for the Apple products and a sync cable for the Creative series. Audio books, RSS content, pod casts, and video lessons can be used as resources in skill development. The students can download a lesson and play it back either in audio or video form. Also, there is a new device from Sony, called the Sony Reader (SONY), that can display photos in a slideshow presentation. The portable book is very light and can store many ebooks and digital pictures. This can be a valuable tool to display photos and demonstrate what skills are being presented in your classes. The screen is large and clear enough to make it an easy way to show parents or teachers what really goes on in physical education. More importantly, it can store Microsoft Word and PDF documents. You can save lessons, worksheets, homework, and even your entire curriculum in PDF documents. This ease of use makes it a desirable complement to a PC or laptop.