PE, Tech and the MYP

Last weekend I was lucky enough to go to Yokohama International School and meet up with Jarrod (aka @mrrobbo) and  a room full of keen and inspired PE teachers from all over the region.  We met under the hashtag #pegeeksyis and we went to talk about how we can really push forward with integrating technology and mobile apps into our classes.  Jarrod presented some fabulous new apps that have come out both apple, android and also web based, and I have summarised most of those in this document.

What I came away with was the feeling that it was time to start documenting what we do as an MYP school.  There are obviously some bigger issues for UNIS Hanoi in that we live in a developing country, we have little bandwidth and we are a tablet based school – we are having ongoing discussions about mobile technolgoy and I will bring this up in a different post.

But as an MYP school, I felt that maybe it was time to start looking at what we ACTUALLY do with technology and how we can enhance rather than add extras to our busy lives.  Some of the questions we came away with included:

1. Do we as a PE department have to teach everything?  I personally have a very hollisitc view of how PE should be taught, but do we have to do it all?  And do we have time to do it all well?
2. Is technology an added extra and all shiney and new or does it bring real depth and more meaningful assessment to our students?
3. Where do we begin and how do we map the journey?  It is already clear that the map is changing – students are more familiar with technology from previous experience in PE and other subjects, we need to map this and probably adjust it every year or so as the technology changes and as we see more teachers develop tech in their subject curriculum.
4. As an MYP school, where can we use Tech as part of the Areas of Interaction?  Obviously they link to the ATL’s and we should map this, but what are the implications on the Environment and Health & Social Education too?  Are we losing some of the interaction of our students or does technology bring more interaction?
5. Within the MYP we are looking at the different criterion in PE and trying to find creative but also meaningful ways to assess formatively and summatively, and I have put out a google document where I would love to get more feedback from other MYP PE schools to see what others are doing too.
6. Do we need to be mobile?  In PE it always helps to be mobile, and certainly using ipods, ipads etc. will change our subject, but with a certain budget, what can we acheive and how does this change our planning and our way of thinking?
7. Flip classrooms are important too – we need to change the way our school sets homework (presently we are allowed to assign homework on the day our class is, not the day before) – watching a video of your dance routine and then coming back to the next class having watched/practiced and with new added ideas from the podcast or screencast from your teacher or peers is such valuable learning, we need to discuss this in detail.
8. Blogging – some great posts out there about the power of blogs – WhatEdSays most recent post is really powerful about how we need to move our blogs along with kids, and the power of technology allows for greater sharing and quality within our communities.
9. Common assessments – our department has lots of team teaching but we don’t always agree on the assessment or way forward – could we go with a common theme around our assessment and lose rubric language so that we can offer the students ways to hand in their work based on how tech savvy they are or their teacher feels?  Does this work?
10. How much can we do?  And what is expected (this doesn’t just apply to PE or MYP!)

Technology is adding so much to PE and to MYP schools with common assessment criteira, I look forward to hearing from others.