Emerging Technologies

Teacher Tube

TeacherTube provides an online community for sharing instructional videos. They seek to fill a need for a more educationally focused, safe venue for teachers, schools, and home learners. It is a site to provide anytime, anywhere professional development with teachers teaching teachers. As well, it is a site where teachers can post videos designed for students to view in order to learn a concept or skill.

With TeacherTube, community members can:
-Upload, tag and share videos worldwide.
-Upload Support Files to attach your educational Actvities, Assessments, Lesson, Plans, Notes, and Other file formats to your video.
-Browse hundreds of videos uploaded by community members.
-Find, join and create video groups to connect with people who have similar interests.
-Customize the experience by subscribing to member videos, saving favorites, and creating playlists.
-Integrate TeacherTube videos on websites using video embeds or APIs.
-Make videos public or private - users can elect to broadcast their videos publicly or share them privately with those they invite.

Most importantly, TeacherTube community members are a major part of the evolution of the site. Members are encouraged to not only upload educationally relevant videos, but also to make constructive comments and use the rating system to show appreciation for videos of value to one as an educator or learner. Users also have the ability to preserve the integrity of the site by flagging inappropriate videos. TeacherTube staff review flagged sites and will remove any inappropriate posts. With more collegial commentary and discussion through messaging and responses, the quality of this resource will only increase.

The service is free for everyone. They always encourage their users to contact them with thoughts, suggestions, or other feedback. They do have a vision for TeacherTube to truly be a better alternative to other video storage sites. With the community's help, it can become more interactive and engaging for all teachers and learners. I have used TeacherTube in the past to help my substitute teachers take up time in class when I could not be there. This is a great resource to use when substitute teachers do not have a background in your particular subject.


Wii Fit

Wii Fit is a video game developed by Nintendo for the Wii console. It is an exercise game consisting of activities utilizing the Wii Balance Board peripheral. The balance board measures a suser’s body mass index when told of his or her height. The game has roughly 40 different activities, including yoga poses, pushups, and other exercises. Furthermore, Wii Fit allows its players to compare their fitness by using Wii Fit’s own channel on the Wii Menu. The game tracks a user’s “Wii Fitness Age” through a body test basing the result on the user’s current age, weight, and balance. Like the rest of the Wii Series, WiI Fit integrates Wiis into its presentation and gameplay.

As a physical educator I have found that using the Wii Fit to get kids involved with exercise is a great tool. I work with students from Northwest High School as a personal trainer. One of the biggest challenges I face is getting kids into the weight room. The school already has a Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) that they use during gym class. After speaking to one of the Physical Education teachers about DDR I thought it might be a good idea to have a dance off to get students interested in coming to the weight room. I found the money to purchase a Wii DDR Super Group Fitness Pack, which includes:
2 - DDR “Energy” metal dance pads for Wii™ with recessed arrow buttons that accurately
recreate the look and feel of an arcade platform
6 - Practice pads without cables
8 – DDR game digital pedometers

With the new group fitness pack we can have a dance off with 2 students dancing and the winner moves to the next round. To make use of the practice pads we have the students that are competing next warm up and/or practice on the practice pads. You can have up to 6 students practicing at once and you can use the pedometers to determine how much movement each student has completed during your gym class. DDR not only gets kids interested in gym class it makes them physically active and elevates their heart rate increasing the amount of healthy activity they participate in. The kids love it and they are starting to stay after school to participate in our weekly DDR weekly dance off. While using the DDR during gym class it is hard to keep everyone busy that is not participating. You can only have 8 students participating at once and most of the classes at Northwest have an average of 25 students. So to keep everyone active during class you can split the class into three groups letting one group use the DDR, and the other two groups can have different activities to keep them physically active until it is their turn to use the DDR.



NASPE's Teacher Toolbox



NASPE’s Teacher Toolbox shares ideas for promoting your quality physical education, physical activity, or youth sports program. Every month will feature activity ideas that meet the national standards, elementary and secondary fitness calendars for you to send home with your students, bulletin board ideas, puzzles and games, information about the nation’s health observances, and the newest resource materials.


This could easily be implemented into my classroom setting. The first important aspect of this tool is the activities listed for physical education that are updated regularly. There are ideas that can be used in your lesson plans and ideas that the students can take home to their parents to get them involved as well. One good piece of information to take home is the Early Childhood Physical Activity Calendar. This calendar can be taken home with the students and shared with the family to help keep them physically active. It also helps stress the fact that physical activity is important to a healthy lifestyle.