My tilt at gaming theory engagement in PE

As most PE teachers would agree, you can never quite get all kids active in the one lesson. It might be that some kids don’t like the activity, its too hot, too cold etc etc. I guess its always been my quest to get everyone involved and engaged in the work that we do in class.

Recently I’ve initiated something in our school’s Year 10 HPE classes that I see as a 21st Century approach to this challenge.

I had read a question in a thread in the DET Yammer feed asking about a rewards system to record and display positive behaviour.

This got me thinking. I’d seen positive behaviour charts work to engage and motivate students. Why couldn’t it be ramped up, 21st Century style,to include gaming based rewards and get it to work in HPE lessons as well?

The birth and growth of the concept was done in a 21st Century way too. The foundations were laid in a collaborative Google Doc, where HPE teachers (worldwide as it happens) were invited to contribute to a list of possible achievement levels or badges that could be awarded in PE lessons. The link for that embryonic document is here.

To make it an achievement based strategy, the progression path had to be established. This I took to Twitter again, and then to my staff, the people who would be making it work. The discussion draft of the Achievement Levels and Badges looked like this.

The poster we made to advertise the scheme and put around the school looks like this

The teacher record sheets, where the achievements are marked off, look like this.

We will award small badges and certificates to mark the achievements and levels.

The measure of success with this scheme will be two fold, we hope. Apart from marks (which we have to collect), I’m looking for anectodal and hard evidence that kids are motivated to engage more generally with PE lessons. Whether that’s because of  the sense of achievement provided by the scheme, or otherwise, I endeavour to determine that by surveying the kids.

I’ll admit, staff are cautious in their expectations (read – dubious it will work). But I’m willing to bet it will get more than a few in. It’s early days yet, but if the interest already amongst the kids is anything to go by, exciting times could be ahead. I’ll keep you posted.

What do you think? Is there a place for gaming based strategies in PE?

GPS dataloggers in PE

Recently I bought some MainNav MG600 GPS dataloggers, initially to add some interest to my Yr 10 Physical Activity and Sport Studies (PASS) class.

They are pretty cheap and relatively easy to use (the interface is a bit clunky, but OK once you get used to it). I believe they have a lot of potential in the many aspects of the PE courses and other physical activity experiences we offer at school.
Today in class, as a test, I had one of the students wear the unit and then got him to move around on our school oval. I got one of his mates to watch him and draw his path on paper as well. I will reveal the analogue and digital versions of the tracking in our next theory lesson. The students were already curious as to how the datalogger would perform. I’m looking forward to an interesting discussion.

The software that comes with the unit acts as a download interface.

The interface also allows you to immediately see the downloaded data in Google Maps (with an internet connection)

You can zoom in as far as you want.

You can then save the GPS data in .gpx format (which works in Garmin Connect) or .kml which works in Google Earth (see below)

As you can see, he didn’t move much (doh!), but it tracked his path. Our next test will be to use all of the available units on players in a touch footy game and track their movements for analysis later.

From what I’ve seen so far, you can upload multiple tracks from multiple students to Google Earth.  Initially, the uploaded tracks would all be the same colour (by default). This issue is solved (I understand)  by manually changing the colour of the individual tracks once you upload them. All this will be trialled and tested over the next few weeks by the kids and I.

As I said, it started out as a way to make my PASS course more engaging, and allowing the kids to use use technology in a sport environment, in the way they see elite athletes using technology (Gator Tracker, for instance). The conversations won’t just be limited to what has already been recorded, but could be about how to improve movement around the field too. The GPS data analysis opportunities are exciting.
I now see many more possibilities as well – creating bushwalk tracks, cycling routes and maps for our school Cross Country course, for instance. The kids could borrow them and create physical activity maps of the local area. As we discover and create applications, I’ll share our experiences.

My thanks go to Jay Trevaskis (@jaytrevaskis) and @igitdog for the great conversation about using GPS in class after a bike ride at Ourimbah. The chat about your plans for the same sort of gear inspired me. Sorry if I stole any thunder!

Tracker video analysis and modelling tool.

I’ve been playing around with a cool little app on the DER laptops that are in schools in NSW.

Tracker is a free video analysis and modelling tool, designed originally for physics classes, but perfect for analysing movement in PE classes too.

While not being an uber sport scientist geek, I found the app to be easy to use and  engaging for the kids.

I shot some video of my students practising their golf chip shots.

Tracker screen

Importing the video is simple. The kids were intrigued to see their performances, and some great discussion about what a good shot looked like ensued.

For the more technically minded, there are a variety of analysis tools that can be introduced over the video.

Golf swing analysis

I then used a video of a pro playing pretty much the same shot at the students for comparison. This produced a lot more talk!

For those in NSW, the biggest feature that makes this eminently workable is that Tracker comes as a .jar file. This still doesn’t mean much to me at all, except that it doesn’t require installation to work. Which makes it a perfect tool in the DER laptops.

So now I have two options for analysing video. Tracker (thanks @benpaddlejones for the heads up), and The Zone, as suggested and blogged about by @mrrobbo. Both great tools for PE GEEKS and their classes.