Physical+Education

__**State Curriculum Standards**__

1. Participate in moderate to vigorous physical activities. 2. Participate in a variety of physical activities outside of school (e.g., exergaming, rock climbing, dance, martial arts) for maintaining or enhancing a healthy, active lifestyle. 3. Participate in and report on at least two available fitness and/or recreational opportunities in the community. 1. Evaluate personal needs and set realistic goals for improving physical activity participation. 2. Develop a schedule that accommodates participation in a variety of moderate to vigorous physical activity most days of the week. 3. Monitor physical activity and intensity levels using technology (e.g., pedometer, heart rate monitor and/or physical activity log). 4. Document participation in a variety of physical activities for one month.
 * Participates regularly in physical activity **
 * Benchmark A: ** Identify and engage in regular physical activities inside and outside of school to meet daily national recommendations for daily physical activity.
 * Indicators: **
 * Benchmark B: ** Create and monitor a personal plan for physical activity.
 * Indicators: **

__**Technology Needed**__

[|www.blooger.com] [|www.myfooddiary.com]

__**Task/Activity**__

Students in Physical Education I will create a health and fitness blog to track their progress toward a personal health goal (lower BMI, loose five pounds, become proficient at a new type of exercise, run a 5K, etc.) throughout a three month time period. They will use the site myfooddiary.com to monitor their calories consumed and burned, to document their exercise completed, and to create several reports that track their progress in a graph. In addition, students will be required to subscribe to two health and fitness RSS feeds and read these blogs each week. Their personal health and fitness blog will consist of a daily reflection on their progress toward their goal and new insights they have learned from their RSS feeds or other sources.
 * 1) Students will determine a personal health/fitness goal at the beginning of the semester. This goal must be approved by the teacher to ensure that it is realistic and attainable for the student. Students will work toward this goal for three months (one grading period).
 * 2) Using blogger.com, students will set up a health and fitness blog. Their first blog post will articulate their goal, why it is important to them, and steps they will take to achieve it.
 * 3) Students will set up an account in myfooddiary.com and monitor their calories burned and consumed and their exercise completed each day. They will also create three reports (such as a nutrient report or a calorie report) that display their progress.
 * 4) Students will be responsible for daily blog posts commenting on their progress.
 * 5) Students will subscribe to two RSS feeds that relate to their personal goal and will read these blogs weekly.
 * 6) Also, the students will be required to comment on their peers’ blogs. Students can encourage one another and/or commiserate about their progress toward their goals.
 * 7) Finally, at the end of the nine weeks, students will present their journey and their results to the community at the Health and Fitness Expo that the physical education classes will hold at the high school.

__**Resource That Supports the Use of Technology**__

In the article “Eatfit Guides Adolescents to Improve Health and Fitness”, the authors discuss “EatFit”, a program geared toward adolescents (ages 11-15) for setting reasonable, healthy lifestyle goals. An evaluation of the program “found that 74% and 79% of 8th graders participating in EatFit made at least one positive change in their dietary and physical activity behaviors, respectively” (Byron & Warnert 10). The program has an interactive website that helps students monitor progress toward their goals.

Warnert, J., & Byron, J. (2004, March). Eatfit guides adolescents to improve health and fitness. //California Agriculture, 58// (1), 10-11. doi:10.3733/‌ca.v058n01p10

__**Tried and True or New and Innovative**__

Using blogs is a tried and true technology, as blogs have existed for about a decade. However, I doubt students have used blogs in physical education, so using this technology in this content area could be considered new and innovative. Myfooddiary.com is a new and innovative technology. Although working toward a personal health/fitness goal and keeping track of progress in a journal is not a new concept in the area of physical education, being able to monitor progress on one website that consolidates data about exercise and food intake as well as creates graphs (the reports) to display this information is new and innovative.