When I was going through school, I absolutely loved learning about the Human Body & specialised in remembering each of the various names of bones & muscles. My parents knew this and they bought me an interactive picture book which included interesting facts about the human body & a skeleton model which you put together and hung from your ceiling.

This love continued into my senior schooling & eventually helped me enjoy much of my undergraduate degree where we explored high level anatomy concepts on cadavers. While this was an outstanding hands on way to learn, as soon as we got outside of the anatomy labs we were stuck with the task of continuing our learning with boring textbooks. The problem was these textbooks hadn’t changed in forever and they sucked the life out of learning.

Fortunately today we have an array of options when it comes to teaching about the Human Body that bring its magic to life.

If you’ve followed this blog for any period of time you’ll know that I enjoy purchasing new devices & exploring the role they can play in my PE classroom.  I also speak with thousands of PE Teachers yearly who share the gadgets they simply couldn’t be without.

So with this in mind I wanted to share my Top 5 Tech Gadgets from 2017 that are perfect for your PE classroom.

Read the full post at www.thepegeek.com

In this long running series we bring you the latest apps we've been busy using in PE Geek Workshops & PE Classrooms. This edition includes a new leader in team generation apps and an innovative way to generate QR Codes with your own media.

Teammates

From the incredible team behind the app 'iDoceo' comes this brand new Team Generation app that is without a doubt the most feature packed in its niche. Simply start by Import students from a CSV/XLS file, from Google Classroom, from your contacts, from iDoceo and have your teams ready right away. 

See the video demo here

 Cloud QR

Anyone who reads this blog knows I'm a massive fan of QR Codes and their potential for simplifying offline access to online content. While we've shown numerous times how to create QR codes in seconds on websites such as QRstuff.com it becomes a little more tricky when you plan to connect the QR Codes to media such as your own videos, audio files or images.

This is why I LOVE the app Cloud QR, as it automates the creation of more complex media driven QR Codes. 

See the video demo here

Bracket

At least once a week I get asked questions about apps useful for tournament or bracket creation. While there are certainly no shortage of options, Bracket is a simple solution that serves its purpose. Easily use it to sort similar brackets by categories, and share brackets with people via email and social networks. I recently used the app to generate a tennis tournament competition with a group of friends

Passwords….we all have and use them & likely find remembering and changing them a frustrating practice. This usually leads us to using the same ones over and over on all of the websites we use. The problem is that this makes it far too easy for your online life to be compromised.

So what should we do instead

1. Make Your Password Longer

“A longer password is usually better than a more random password,” says Mark Burnett, author of Perfect Passwords, “as long as the password is at least 12-15 characters long.” In fact it is far better to use a longer password than some random combination of alphanumeric gibberish that is only 6-8 characters long.

2.  Don’t bunch together your special characters

Most password fields as for combinations of special characters included in your password. This is good practice but the safest option is to ensure they are not bunched together. “Put your digits, symbols, and capital letters spread throughout the middle of your password, not at the beginning or end,” says Lorrie Faith Cranor, FTC Chief Technologist and Carnegie Mellon computer science professor.

3. Don’t use the same password

We all know this, but very few of us actually practice unique passwords for each website or service that we subscribe to.  However, this is by FAR the most dangerous thing you can do and could very easily lead to your personal information being compromised.

4. Add 2 factor authentication

Two Factor Authentication is an extra layer of security that is known as “multi factor authentication” that requires not only a password and username but also something that only, and only, that user has on them. In most cases this is a unique temporary code sent to a mobile phone that needs to be entered to complete the login.

There’s got to be a better way?

I know what you’re saying by now – “Ok Jarrod, this is great but I have no way of remembering so many complex and unique passwords”.  Is there some way of assisting me?

Fortunately there is & its the most game changing tool for securing your digital life that you MUST start using it.  Introducing Last Pass.

What is LastPass?

LastPass, an award-winning password manager that saves your passwords and gives you secure access from every computer and mobile device. All you need to do is remember ONE password which gives you secure access to your password vault. Once inside your vault you can have LastPass automagically log you into any website you have saved in your vault, all without ever needing to know or enter your passwords. Its the BEST.

Take a look at LastPass in action in this episode

Without a doubt one of the most game changing mobile applications is ‘sprintTimer‘.  Essentially the app turns your iPhone or iPad into sprint timing app complete with photo finish employing the same techniques as the professional equipment used at the Olympics.

How I’ve used it in the past

During a senior PE class I was able to conduct a 20m sprint test with all students running at once, drastically reducing the time it would have normally took to conduct the same test individually. It also resulted in much more accurate results

It also features as part of our annual track & field school meet replacing the hand timing that used to be conducted by 8+ volunteers. Not only did sprintTimer result in much more accurate results, but it also freed up the volunteers to assist in other events.

The app truly is game changing. However, over the years I’ve had a number of emails from people asking for assistance with using the app correctly, as it does require a little bit of practice to get correct.

So with this in mind, here is a video tutorial outlining how to use this amazing tool to ensure you have nothing but success using the tool.

As many of you will know – I LOVE QR Codes & have blogged about them extensively over the years. I simply love how rapidly they connect those scanning them to digital content, avoiding the need to manually enter a URL or search term manually (which takes forever).

However, while I love QR Codes for accessing information – the first time I ever used them in a Physical Education class was as part of Treasure Hunt activity, which I blogged about in 2009 here.

Essentially a QR Code Treasure Hunt is an activity you can use to encourage students to get active while discovering QR Codes hidden all around the school, classroom or local area. These QR Codes could reveal questions that students need to answer or suggest activities/exercises that students need to complete. The opportunities are endless.

QR Code Treasure Hunts are so much that they form an activity during the PE Geek Workshops. So with this in mind, I wanted to share with you one of the simplest ways to piece together and question & answer style QR Code treasure hunt.

See the step by step video below showing you how to use the QR Treasure Hunt Generator at Classtools.net

If you’ve followed this website or completed any of our webinars you’ll know of my love for video delay based applications such as ‘BaM Video Delay‘ & ‘Video Coach‘. However, while these have been excellent for mobile devices I often get asked about tools that make video delay possible on laptops and chromebooks. The problem is that there really has been nothing available. So with this in mind, I set out to change it by bringing to life a FREE Video Delay tool for the Google Chrome Web Browser.

Introducing Replay It

Replay It is the worlds first Video Delay application made exclusively for Google Chrome. A simple yet powerful real-time video analysis tool that helps you analyse and improve your sporting activities or the performance of your students or athletes.

Replay It records videos and displays them continuously with a time delay for quick and handsfree visual feedback. This allows you to record your performance and watch it a few seconds later directly on your laptop or Chromebook without touching a button.

Multiscreen support means you can set different delay values and view a performance multiple times. This makes it the perfect tool for sports coaches, physical education teachers, dancers, students and much more

Meet Me Monday with Kevin Tiller of PhysedReview sharing how he uses the Comic Life App to create engaging posters and classroom resources for his #physed students #pegeeks #education #pegeektv #comiclife #learning

One of the most game changing features in Monsuta Fitness is the ability to place custom monsters with up to a 140 characters of text into the real world. This gives you the opportunity to ask questions, pose statements or have students complete tasks or activities you choose. The opportunities for all subject areas are truly unlimited #gamification #physed #education #pegeeks #teaching #pegeektv

Get your students active & engaged by placing virtual monsters in your school, city or anywhere you choose. Watch as your students use their iPhone or Android devices to hunt the Monsuta's and battle to capture them with exercises you prescribe. You choose the monster, activity & number of reps needed to catch them. Your students earn points for each monster caught and progress to more difficult activities. Get access now at www.monsuta.fitness #education #pegeektv #pegeeks #teaching #tech