Electronic Quizzes

Your computer can assist you with test construction by storing and sorting questions. You have the choice of using a word processing, a data base, or a packaged testing application that formats the tests for you. A word processing application simply gives you a place to store questions. When you are ready to create a test, it is a simple process of copying selected questions and pasting them into a separate document.

A database application is a bit more helpful. Each record is a single question. Then, there are fields for the question, answer, and category. The category can refer to the type of question (multiple-choice, true/false) or the content of the question (by sport or other topic). You can even have both categories—or more—if you wish.

Packaged testing applications provide you with the most features. Test Designer Supreme for Windows (Super School Software) and MicroTest Pro (Chariot) are examples of test generating applications that give you a choice of formats, including multiple-choice, matching, true/false, fill in the blank, puzzle questions (e.g., crossword puzzles), and short essays. ExamView (EInstruction) is an example of a testing tool that lets you create paper and online tests. This test generator is ideal for building tests, worksheets, and study guides (practice tests) in any subject. Using the online testing features, you can access numerous reports that help you focus on your students' learning needs.

Additional testing programs come packaged with some instructional applications, such as those from Bonnie's Fitware Inc. You can check out a demo of the program by clicking here. As noted, several pieces of instructional software (e.g., Volleyball Complete, Health Related Fitness Complete) come with this quiz program as well as 50 to over 100 questions per title. The teacher imports test questions into the software along with the answers, and/or enters his/her own test questions and answers. The teacher then selects the specific questions for the quiz, and either prints the test or has the students take the quiz online. When students take the quiz online, the computer scores the test.

Professional Development: Your Way

Do you need professional development hours or college credit? You might want to try one of our online courses. The registration fee for each course is $100. The registration fee covers the online course materials and a letter of completion. Textbooks are required for most courses (see course information). Click on each course for additional information. The fall semester will run August 19, 2010 - December 11, 2010. You may sign up anytime between now and October 11, 2010. You may take as many courses as you like.

You will receive a letter of completion when you finish. This may be used in some districts to verify hours of participation in meeting continuing education requirements.

If your district won't accept a letter of completion, then you can receive one semester unit of 700-level college credit. The additional cost for college credit is $373 for out-of-state residence and $290 for Kansas residence. (Pricing for college credit is subject to change)

Using Technology in Physical Education Podcast

Our first five podcasts/vodcasts are posted here. If you missed Podcast #5 it included the following:

Facebook Update
Heart Association and Wii
New Tablets
Kinetic
Problem Solving Complete Software
Images Basics
PowerPoint Basics
Recommended Heart Monitors
How we Created June's Vodcast
Questions and Answer: iPad Print

Podcast # 6 will be released on August 16, 2010.

Google Apps

Google Docs

Google docs allow you to create a document, a presentation, a spreadsheet, or an online form. Additionally templates are available or you can start from scratch. Google docs make for a nice "free" alternative to Microsoft Office.

Google Picasa

Picasa is a web-based photo-editing application. It allows for basic editing along with the creation of albums where your viewers can access and download copies of your photos. You can tag the photo with location where you took the photo on Google Maps, create collages, locate people by faces, and access up to one gigabyte of storage. Picasa has been a Windows program for years and now has a Beta version for the newest Macs.

Mobile Apps

QuickOffice Connect Mobile Suite

This app lets you create and edit Microsoft Office documents on your mobile device. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, iWork, HTML, and photo files. QuickOffice Connect can access these documents via Wi-FI file transfer from your Mac or from cloud-based services, including MobileMe iDisk, Dropbox, Google docs, and Box.net. You may be editing large files on a small screen, but the speed is impressive and the controls do stay out of your way. Available for iPhone, iPod Touch, Symbian, Palm, BlackBerry, and Android.

Creating Professional Looking Documents

In the last two podcasts we have provided step-by-step directions for creating a basic word processing document and a basic powerpoint document. Creating these documents is one thing, but creating professional looking documents is another thing. To insure that your documents look professional simply follow these simple rules.

When the final product will be printed:

Put all headings in the same sans serif font (those without curves such as Arial), style, and size.
Put all subheadings in the same sans serif font (those without curves such as Arial), style, and size.
Put all text in the same serif font (those with curves such as Times), style, and size. The text in the body should typically be no larger than a 14 point, and 12 point is more customary.
Use captions for photographs, diagrams, and figures.
Put all captions in the same serif font, style, and size.
Left-align all headings, subheadings, text, and captions.
Do not put any text in all CAPS.
Use only one space after each period.
New paragraphs should be signaled by adding additional space between the paragraphs or indenting the first line of the paragraph but not both.
If you choose to indent, be consistent and indent no more than the space equivalent to the width of five characters.
Avoid widows and orphans (one line of a paragraph by itself at the top and bottom of a page).
Use bullets for lists.
use one to three drop caps (depending on the number of other graphic elements on a page) that are two or three lines high. Check that the drop caps do not spell out a word (e.g., FAT).
Check spelling and grammar several times.

When the final product will be viewed on a screen:

Use no more than six lines per screen or six words per line.
Put all text and headings in a sans serif font.
Make all text at least 32 points and left-justified.
Make headings larger than the text, left-justified, and included on each slide.
Do not put any text in all CAPS.
Check spelling, grammar, and text positioning on slides several times.

Research on Technology

Manohar, C., McCrady, S., Pavilidis, I.T., & Levine, J. (2009). An accelerometer-based earpiece to monitor and quantify physical activity. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 6, 781-789.

Researchers developed an earpiece that quantified physical activity as measured in acceleration units and which was able to predict the associated energy expenditure. The technology can be used with portable music players, cell phones and similar mobile devices. Three separate experiments were devised to test the earpiece technology. In experiment one, 18 subjects wore the PASE during different body postures and graded treadmill walking. In experiment two, subjects wore the PASE and walked a known distance. In experiment three, subjects jogged at 3.5 mph using the PASE.

The PASE correctly distinguished lying from sitting/standing and standing still from walking in all subjects. PASE output also showed accurate sequential increases with increases in walking speed and energy expenditure. The PASE predicted free-walking velocity was 2.5 +- (SD) 0.16 mph as compared to 2.5 +- 0.18 mph actual velocity. Finally, the PASE accurately distinguished walking at 3.5 mph from jogging at the same speed.

New Devices (The Up and Coming)

Stand While You Work

Treadmill Desks (such as Steelcase's Walkstation) provides the opportunity to walk at one mile per hour and complete your desk work. There are several treadmill desk kits online. There are treadmill-ready desktops that you can place over a standard treadmill or you can get a flat treadmill that slips under an elevated desk.

EXOPC Slate

Is targeted for release on September 7. The Windows 7-based slate ($599) has an 11.6-inch screen, 2 GB of RAM and 1080p video playback. It comes with USB ports and a camera. Bonnie's Fitware Inc. teacher software and instructional software will run on it!

Do you like being kept informed of new devices that can be used in physical education - this check out http://pesoftware.blogspot.com/

Top Five

Top Five All Purpose Laptops

Lenovo ThinkPad W510
HP EliteBook 8440w
HP Envy 13
Lenovo ThinkPad T410
Sony VAIO EB12FX/T

Top Five High-Def Pocket Camcorders

Creative Vado HD
Cisco Flip MinoHD
Kodak Zi8 HD
Cisco Flip Ultra HD
Toshiba Camileo S20

Top Five Inkjet Multifunction Printers

HP Photosmart Plus
HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-In-One
HP Officejet 6500 Wireless
Canon Pixma MP490
HP Photosmart Premium Touchsmart Web All-In-One

Top Five Pocket Megazoom Cameras

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V
Canon PowerShot SX210 IS
Samsung HZ35W
Casio Exilim EX-FH100
Nikon Coolpix S8000

Source: PCWorld.com

Questions and Answers

When I download a file from the Internet using Firefox it is saved to my Downloads folder. Is there any way I can change the location that my downloaded files save to?

Yes you can. Go to the Tools menu and select Options. Under the main tab, locate the Downloads section. Click the radio button next to the Save Files To option. Firefox automatically saves any downloaded files to a particular folder which you can change by selecting the Browse button and using the Browse For Folder window to navigate to a different location. You can easily create a new folder within the Browse For Folder menu by selecting Make New Folder. When you have selected your preferred folder, then click OK.

I recently got an iPad and will use it to take and compile my volleyball stats. I want to print out a hard copy of the stats an was wondering if I could send the stats to my printer which is wifi?

Apple did not make printing easy for the iPad. You will need to go to the App store and purchase a printing app. Take a look at ePrint 3.4 for $3.00. This app gives you an elegant option for outputting to printer on a local network. ePrint does a superb job of printing readable Web pages, photos, notes, or a list of selected contacts. If you can't find a way to print from the stat software - you can always take a picture of the screen with the stats by pressing the home button and sleep (off) button simultaneously. The screen pictures are saved with your photos which can be printed.

I can't find the copyright, registered, or trademark symbols on the iPhone. Where are they hidden?

You can find quick a few special symbols and accented letters by pressing and holding down different keys on your iPhone's keyboard. However those three symbols are not included. To get those, you will need to purchase iEmoji from the App Store for 99 cents. It will include those three symbols plus 600 more.

August Web Sites

Handheld GPS Units

http://freegeographytools.com/?widgetType=BlogArchive&amp;
widgetId=BlogArchive

Cycle Simulator

http://cyclesimulator.com/

SHPPS

http://www.cdc.gov/HealthyYouth/shpps/index.htm

Teachers TV

http://www.teachers.tv/videos/ks1-pe-fundamental-movement-skills

Browser Tips: Effective Searching

You can save yourself a lot of time and frustration but understanding how searches work. Each search engine works slightly different. The information here pertains to Google.

Capitalization does not matter.
The first words in the search are given more weight.
Google shows you only those pages that include all the search terms that you use - up to ten words.
You can use "OR" to tell Google that you want the search to include two OR more terms - you do have to capitalize OR.
If you want to limit the search to a specific phrase, use quotes.
Exclude pages from the results by putting a hyphen in front of the words you don't want.
Google ignores a large number of short words (such as to, is, how, who) and single-digit numbers.

New Edition of Using Technology in Physical Education - 7th edition

The seventh edition of the popular book Using Technology in Physical Education is now available. Everything you need to know about technology in the field of physical education. Includes information on spreadsheets, word processing, desktop publishing, web, pedometers, heart monitors, virtual reality-based exercise equipment, software, electronic portfolios, e-learning, and much much more! Lots of step-by-step directions and photographs showing how things work! Cost $45. Click here for more information.

Check out our support page with videos and agendas for undergraduate and graduate courses.
Order book
Support Page

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Technology in Physical Education
Chapter 2 - Computer 101
Chapter 3 - Text-Based Documents
Chapter 4 - Data Manipulation
Chapter 5 - Using Images
Chapter 6 - Using Videos
Chapter 7 - Using Audio
Chapter 8 - Using Telecommunications
Chapter 9 - Instructional Software
Chapter 10 - Assessing Student Learning
Chapter 11 - Measuring Devices
Chapter 12 - Interactive Devices
Chapter 13 - Online Physical Education
Chapter 14 - Improving Instructional Delivery
Chapter 15 - The Future of Technology

College Level Assessment in Physical Education Course

Standards-Based Assessment and Grading in Physical Education, K-12

Purchase Book

Check out our support page:

http://www.pesoftware.com/Support/Assessbk.html

Includes hundreds of assessment ideas and rubrics for all six national standards. Adaptable to state standards.

August 2010

Railyard

Standards-Based Middle School Physical Education Curriculum

Standards-Based High School Physical Education Curriculum

Podcast

EPEC

S & S

Fall Online Courses

The registration fee for each course is $100. The registration fee covers the online course materials and a letter of completion. Textbooks are required for most courses. Click on each course for additional information. The fall semester will run August 19, 2010 - December 11, 2010. You may sign up anytime between now and October 11, 2010. You may take as many courses as you like.