Recently it occurred to me that when talking about mobility and bringing technology into the classroom, we almost always are referring to technologies such as, iPads, BYOD vs 1:1, infrastructure etc. etc., basically your typical modern day tech-driven classroom setting.
There is, however, one major classroom setting which we haven’t really addressed, I’m talking about gym class. For many students especially teens, gym class has always come with mixed feelings, some enjoy the physical activity, while others not so much.
Many high schools are out to try and change the way students think about physical education, and now that more and more schools are embracing technology and the “digital age” there might be solutions out there for everyone to want to get involved, get some exercise and have some fun.
Let’s take a look at 2 different schools and how they are using technology to enhance physical education.
In West Virginia, at Cameron High School, students have the ability to spend gym class in what they call the “exergaming room”. Here, students can play games that all require movement, including: Xbox Kinect, ping pong tables, arcade style basketball (pop-a-shot) and even a large digital light board.
Each game speaks the language that today’s students are used to, and by doing so has been very successful at getting students to be more active, competitive and social. The class has been so successful and popular that they plan on adding another class next year.
This coming fall at Charlottesville High School in Virginia, they will be offering a “virtual physical education class”. This class takes advantage of new wireless “wearable” technology, specifically wristbands.
They have combined two very popular wireless trends, wearable technology and online learning.
Students in this class will use wristbands to track and log their movements throughout the day, and will combine that with an online course covering nutrition, exercise and fitness principles.
In both scenarios, each school is taking technology normally used outside of school and reimagining it’s original purpose for education. These new types of interactive programs inside of physical education are great alternatives or additions to mainstream competitive sports.
At SecurEdge we often talk to a lot of our customers about the application driving the wireless network design and infrastructure. In this case schools want to promote physical education and social interaction through things like wearable mobile devices, as well as online interactive gaming. This application drives how you plan for or adjust your school wireless network to ensure you can properly support those new devices or applications.
Will you be using these new devices in a 1:1 or BYOD environment, what kind of training will be needed to implement them, how do you ensure security, what kind of impact will this have on your wireless network (doing a wireless site survey here is highly recommended). These are just a handful of questions you should be asking before you try and implement programs like these.
At SecurEdge we have helped hundreds of schools throughout the United States achieve proper mobility. If you have any questions or comments you can contact us here or use the comment section below, we’d love to chat with you!
