Post by Ernie Williams.
With so many options out there, it makes it hard to choose a personal learning network. But I ultimately went with Storify because there are multiple videos on YouTube demonstrating how use it and how to embed it into a blog. I had no idea this kind of web resource existed, and I can defiantly see myself using this in the future when updating my leisure and professional blogs. The great thing about Storify is that you simply type in a search term and it collects information on that topic from various social media, etc. in a story of timeline. A word of caution: Storify works best with well-known topics as opposed to obscure ones. My first story includes a combination of adapted physical education and beep baseball using web resources from Google+, YouTube, and Twitter. Personal Learning Through the Internet
Google it! The phrase that pays. For anything unknown, it is the place to find it. Google Processes over 40,000 searches per second or 3.5 billion searches per day. That’s a lot of information at your fingertips and it one of the first places I go to find information. For example, I recently took up kayak fishing. I’d never been in a kayak before let alone fished in one. I went online and “Googled” local kayak shops. I found one nearby and went by several times to ask the owners and employees questions. I then went to my second favorite online stop, YouTube, and watched several videos about kayak fishing. After watching a few videos and talking with the owners, I thought I was ready for a guided fishing trip. I quickly discovered that there are some things you have to learn through trial and error (like how to maintain your balance and not tip over the kayak). Professional research is no different. I search Google and YouTube for quick information about a topic. I subscribe to multiple channels on YouTube: Motor Skills Learning, Artic Kamiya, Carly Glanzman, and Jorden Weber. It’s my way of keeping up to date. While there are obvious benefits of the internet, there are also pitfalls. Not all information on the internet is reliable or credible, and sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake. With so many different outlets for social media, keeping up with all of them can also be daunting. I opened a Facebook account recently and find I am completely confused about how it works. I’ve been using Twitter for so long that managing messages, groups, and pages for Facebook is a little overwhelming. Not to mention all the people out there who want to like you. I never knew I was so popular. But I’m a firm believer in embracing technology. My coworkers and I started a YouTube channel for sharing our lesson plans and ideas about teaching adapted physical education. Our Adapted Physical Education Channel on YouTube has 80 subscribers and over 5,000 views. We’ve also been contacted by two college professors about the channel who wanted additional information. While we’re not on the same level as the Education Channel on YouTube (which has 10 million subscribers), if we can help one teacher or one student, that’s all that matters. As an adapted physical education (APE) teacher, I have many different roles. First of all, I am a teacher, planning lessons and teaching students. Second, I am an Individual Education Plan team member, writing goals and recording data about how my students are performing in class. Third, I am a leader, working through problems and supporting those under me. Lastly, I am a staff member, helping other colleagues. I don’t lump this last category in with teaching, as it is something extra I do to for the school site that houses my office, from organizing a jog-a-thon, escorting students or parents on (or off) campus, coaching, and helping with other after school activities. But of all the things I do, my “sweet spot” is problem solving. Give me a problem that needs to be fixed, and I excel. How can I teach my blind students how to run? What sports can by student with prune-belly play? These are the types of questions that keep me up at night and that I look forward to finding ways to answer. There are few things more satisfying than helping a student accomplish something they previously thought was impossible. If I’m being honest, writing is not my forte. One of the reasons I became a P.E. teacher was because it involved a lot less writing than being a math teacher or a general education teacher. But I’ve discovered the best way to compensate for being a bad writer is to find a great editor. I try to have someone review anything important I’ve written. I have been an admirer of Twitter since 2009. I frequently turn to Twitter to find breaking news and current trends, instead of waiting for the 6 o’clock news. Hashtag (#) is a convenient way to search Twitter to find topics. I am also a big fan of using only 160 characters; it requires concise thought and makes it easy to go through your followers quickly. With the posts being so short, it is quicker to send updates than a traditional blog (seconds versus minutes or hours). The one drawback that I find with microblogging is that sometimes 160 characters are just not enough. There’s been more than one occasion when I came up with (what I thought) was a brilliant Tweet only to find it was just one or two characters over the limit, forcing me to delete a coveted word, leave out a period or comma, or make an obvious grammar mistake to get my thought out.
My Personal Web Presence
I know I’m not the only one who thinks twice about making an online footprint—once you post something on the internet, it is nearly impossible to remove completely. That said, taking control of you online presence allows you to dictate (to some degree) what other people learn about you. And having a presence on the internet is a near necessity in today’s professional world. As a teacher working at 12 school sites, the best (and sometimes only) way to reach me is through the internet or email. I have a LinkedIn account, a personal twitter account @Drycreekgolfnet, and a hunting and fishing blog. But perhaps the thing I am most proud of is being a co-creator and manager of the Adapted Physical Education Channel on YouTube, as well as the manager of the @adaptedPEchann on twitter. Others Personal Web Presence I work with a colleague at one of my schools who is a fifth grade teacher and on the technology committee for our district. I’ve been in her classroom and seen her teach a lesson, and it’s safe to say she is very tech savvy. She has a blog called Teacher Geek is Chic!. My colleague averages two to three posts a month on her blog, sharing information on technology and how to apply it to teaching or how it is geared for teachers. The blog links over to her twitter and Facebook accounts and has an embedded feed of her twitter posts. I think the site is very professional Having seen her class, and how she uses technology in class, I think her blog would be even better if she posted information about how she personally is using technology in the classroom. Most of her posts currently link to or share information from other sites or stories. She has some personal touches to the site (such as the Twitter posts about game one of the World Series), but I’d personally like to know more about what she’s doing with technology. As far as layout, I would probably change how little of the posts come up on the main screen. Most of her blog has a click-to-read-more after the title and first two lines. I would also add more pictures/videos within the posts. But I really like how she posts in the left 2/3 of the page and the right 1/3 includes feeds, introduction, upcoming events, and subscribe. My name is Ernie Williams. I always knew I wanted to teach; I just was not sure what I wanted to teach. I spent the first four years at Sacramento State University studying to become a math teacher. In my final semester, I realized what I really wanted to do—physical education. I switched majors, started over, and finally graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology, with a concentration in Physical Education. I earned my single-subject physical education teaching credential the following year and began working for Manteca Unified School District in 2006. The rest, as they say, is history.
While there are a lot of things I like about my job as an adapted physical education teacher, one of the things I love most is working with such a diverse set of students. My students range from three years old to twenty-two years old and from the intellectually delayed to the physically disabled. My goal is to teach them how to be safe and successful with physical activities. Being a member of the California Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (CAHPERD), and attending the annual CAHPERD state conference and CAHPERD Adapted Physical Education Conference, are some of the ways I work on this goal. |