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USING
TECHNOLOGY TO PROMOTE YOUR PROGRAM
By R.
Scott Tomassetti
 This
has been a unique beginning of the school
year for me, as I not only made the
choice to change schools, but to change
districts as well. Promoting my Physical
Education Program in a new school will
be a challenge, but a necessity in order
to get the supplies and equipment I
need to run a quality physical education
program. What technology will I use to ensure that everyone understands what I want
my students to know and learn before
they leave my program?
How can I
provide a central location for all of
these things, and more? Ah yes, a web
site. Not just any web site, but an
interactive web 2.0 web site. These
web sites are called dynamic web
applications. A dynamic web application
differs from a static web site in that
its content changes through member interactions
and input with the site. A static web
site holds content that must be manually
changed by the web master via HTML,
and saved to the web server. Dynamic
websites can be changed by anyone with
permissions to enter data or content
via web forms. The data or content is
then saved in a database or data file
for retrieval by the server. Many social
web sites are dynamic in nature, like:
blogs,
Twitter
and Facebook.
Also, many shopping sites are now dynamically
generated so that products can be changed,
or prices updated for the user without
site down time.
The nice
thing about dynamic sites is that you
can secure the content. So any content
(like pictures) can be viewed only when
authenticated with a username and password.
However, unauthorized users can still
be provided basic content like school
about page and contact information.
A dynamic
web site can be structured in such a
way as to create user accounts for logging
in. The user accounts can be then tied
to roles, such as parent, teacher, administrator,
and student. The web application can
then be designed to only show certain
content to certain users based on their
role. So this then becomes my task.
To create a web site that presents only
content that interest certain user groups
by role.
New web site
technologies exist to control web content
by "Role" so that only those
persons authorized to see that content
will. Students (and their parents) could,
for example, only see their assessment
scores, no one else’s, while the
teacher of that class could see all
the students within her/his class. Then
Administrators can view all scores for
all students. Dynamically created web
applications can be quite powerful tools,
but organizing and creating them is
quite a chore.
The time
to learn the technology and create the
web application is extensive, but the
upkeep is minimal. Time spent on a static
web site is minimal, but ongoing to
maintain relevant content.
Who is my
audience? Well in this case there are
several: Parent, Administrator, Staff,
and Students. Each might need their
own understanding and information.
Parents might
need information provided to them via
the internet, like an e-newsletter,
or web page; these might work best for
them with pictures of students performing
tasks or participating in an event.
The Parents content might provide a
picture gallery of events, physical
fitness assessment results with graphs,
information regarding upcoming learning,
community opportunities to get themselves
and their student’s physically
active. I might also like to provide
a links section to educate them regarding
national standards, healthy living,
and more.
Administrators
may want to see graphical information
about how my students did on the fitness
assessment, or see lesson plan matrix
done in Excel, or other spread sheet.
Videos of performance based assessments
are also a great head turner.
Staff might
like to see pictures of students learning
some interdisciplinary task, or using
an academic area during physical education.
Staff might like to see pictures and
recess activity types as well as upcoming
opportunities for themselves and students
to be physically active within the community.
Students
always love to view themselves both
in pictures and video. Creating student
performance videos is a great help for
both providing students with self esteem,
but for parents to view. When a student
signs on I want them to be able to see
pictures of themselves and others participating
in physical activity and events. I want
students to see what we have done in
physical education, and what we will
do using student friendly language.
I would like to collect data from students
about what types of activities interest
them, or create an online log/journal
for them to complete.
So my task
becomes clearer now. To create a dynamic
web application template for the school
to be able to view and contribute to
content both about the school and during
physical education classes specifically.
Wish me luck!
Where
can you start?
Most of us
do not have the knowledge, background,
time or resources to create their own
interactive web site, so a semi-static
web site might be the trick. Google
Sites offers templates for schools,
classrooms, and teachers. These templates
have both static and dynamic content,
and can be secured, however not by role.
They offer picture galleries, a place
for documents and files, news, lesson
plans, and much more. To check this
out go to www.google.com
and use the menu at the top to navigate
to "more," and then to "even
more" that will take you to a page
with many choices. Navigate to "Sites"
and use the interactive pages to select
your theme and template of choice. My
student teacher, Mike, used the "Teacher
Portfolio" template offered, and
is working on this electronic portfolio
for his final project.
If you are
having difficulty, and need moral support
you may email me at r.scott.tomassetti@gmail.com
for help. I wish you well.
Resource:
www.asp.net
- Information about creating dynamic
web applications, and learning computer
languages associated with the web.
http://sites.google.com/
- Google’s free online web site
service.
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