The amazing wonderful world of podcasts....

This assignment kinda depressed me. I made a very tragic and devastating discovery while I was folding my laundry last week and this assignment only perpetuates the pain... I ACCIDENTALLY sent my pink iPod shuffle through the washer and dryer in the pocket of my sweatshirt!!!! And now that i've spent time discovering all the cool podcasts and even subscribing to some, I can't even download them to anything beyond my computer! (Good thing my anniversary is coming up.. I think I've dropped enough hints) So aside from having to be reminded that I am now subject to listening to only my very loud breathing when I run, I enjoyed this assignment because I discovered what I've been missing out on. My husband just recently discovered the wonderous world of podcasts and now downloads an ESPN podcast to listen to while he does yard work or walks the dog. I thought he was kinda nerdy for doing this, because I only thought music was what an iPod was used for, but apparently I was wrong. I typed in "Physical Education" into the search engine for podcasts and that didn't yield very many hits. So then I tried "Fitness" and whola! There were so many to choose from. I looked into quite a few and eventually added 3 of them to my bloglines account so I can be updated when new ones are downloadable. I have only been able to listen to the demos that they provide on bloglines because I am staying at my in-laws place while they are on vacation (they have AC and a pool.. we don't have either) and they do not like to download ANYTHING to their computer. So I must wait until I go back to my place to actually explore the podcasts in full detail. Though I must say, I am already seeing the potential for using podcasts in my classroom. I think I could easily create a weekly or maybe monthly assignment out of these. Something like having my students listen to a podcast and then summarize it and try to describe how they would apply what they learned to their fitness plans... or something like that... I think not only would I love it, I think the kids would really like it because it's something on their level. Technology like this being integrated into the classroom is something unheard of and I think that would provide buy-in! I'm getting chills thinking about how this would work!!....

Oops I didn't follow directions!

Here is the actual video, not just the link!!

Hilarious YouTube Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koJLusDwl5E

This "Fitness Made Difficult" video made me laugh so hard! The concept is kind of cruel, but the video itself is really funny. I found this video by typing in "Fitness" in the search box and it was about the 2nd one I chose to look at. I like the YouTube site because you have so many videos available to you. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot of filtering that goes on and you can end up with a video you didn't want to see even when you type in the most innocent of words! One of the things I found myself doing when I was searching for videos was hopping from the video I originally clicked on, to one that was "related" and was suggested once my video was over. I guess you can say I was cloud jumping in the land of YouTube. It took me a while to find a video related to Physical Education that was fun to watch and wasn't so clinical. This one definitely hit the spot. Enjoy! If there was a competition... I might win!

yu.m.my..... I mean del.ici.ous!

The del.icio.us.com site we explored this week was very useful. I started out by watching my favorite common craft video production about del.icio.us.com, I set out to discover all that this social bookmarking site had to offer. I was able to search popular websites via tags that I was interested in, or by typing in keywords that I though might yield the sites I wanted to find. After finding these sites I was able to post them to my del.icio.us account which very neatly organized them in a variety of ways. I think this type of organizational tool will be very helpful for research purposes in the future because you can network with other professionals and share search results with each other. It will help facilitate collaboration on research projects and provide a quick and efficient way of locating information on a specific topic. It almost feels like the bloglines site we've explored previously but somehow it is different. With so much information available to us, it is definitely nice to have an organized way of tracking everything. If you are going to search for my del.icio.us list you can search for bad4 that is my username. Have fun...

Technorati Site

After search for "kinesiology" through a variety of different ways, I realized, although they did produce different results, none of the results seemed to satisfy my idea of the types of blogs I though would show up. Many of the blogs or posts that were suggested had to do with chiropractic work or applied kinesiology which have nothing to do with what I am interested. There were a few hit and miss sites about exercise and the health benefits, however I don't think this way of searching was as effective as I had hoped it would be. I thought I would find my classmates blogs, since many of us have titled our posts as "Kinesiology 710" or something to the like. Just like with any search engine, there were also smut blogs that were suggested which just annoyed me even further. Why would anyone tag a blog that has to do with naked girls "kinesiology." Just annoying....

Web 2.0 Discovery!!!

Very cool list, by the way! I explored the "Events" category, although I kinda made it to the site that got first place! upcoming.yahoo.com was pretty neat! I was able to type in any city and state and the genre of event I was looking for, and then it would list, in chronological order all the events in that area and surrounding areas. It sadly reminded me that I would be missing the Carrie Underwood concert happening in Fresno this Wednesday..... so sad! I would LOVE to see her in concert! I also used this site to help me find some things happening in Idaho where I will be spending quite a bit of time this summer. Unfortunately there aren't any good concerts in the CDA or Spokane area this summer.

Eeny Meeny Miny MOE!!!!

Oh my gosh... or shall I say OMG!!! (which I do sarcastically of course... that "saying" drives me bookers!) I don't know where to start.... What technology explored so far could be incorporated into my career? Well I got some pretty cool news last week!! I am going to be teaching the Junior/Senior AVID (advancement via individual determination) class for 1 period next year. Which basically means I get to teach these kids how to be successful and prepare for college.. all the while I am still going to school too! I think I am definitely going to incorporate into my curriculum a blog assignment for these kids to vent, discuss, explore, share, and discover all the little things about college they are looking forward too to are scared about. I think this will be a great trial run for how I might begin to incorporate blogs and other cool technologies into my Physical Education curriculum too! Twitter originally seemed annoying to me, but it is actually kind of fun to just "update" people, whether or not they care to know exactly what I am doing when I feel like posting on twitter! It's fun to see what other people are doing or are excited about. I think personally I will continue to use twitter, but I for sure see a few problems will allowing my high schoolers to keep me that up to date about there lives!!! Yea technology!!!

Online Productivity Tools

Not really a big fan of the online productivity tools. I looked into Google Docs. I think the concept behind them is pretty cool because I don't know how many times i've tried to open documents from someone or something and I didn't have the source they created it in. It was really annoying, but then I discovered... or shall I saw was introduced to a thing called adobe. So for the most part I don't have difficulties anymore. I tried creating a spreadsheet the way I do in excel and some of the shortcuts I use are not there or are not the same on Google Docs. It got pretty frustrating, which is why I chose not to publish it to my blog.... oh well... one dud tool among all these really cool ones isn't so bad.... see ya!