The flipped learning model can be applied in physical education classes with great success.

Physical education (PE) teachers are often on the short end of the stick when it comes to technology innovations in school. When the battle of the bulge is fought every day in our schools, the conversations are usually more about removing the symptoms of childhood obesity, like limiting soda pop in vending machines and offering healthier school lunch options, than addressing the true cause of the problem–lack of overall physical activity.

I know what you’re thinking – “Technology in PE? Is this guy crazy?”

While I admit that PE is likely the last educational frontier you would expect to see being reshaped by the digital revolution, this is exactly what is happening at my school. I hope to be just the first of a new breed of PE pioneers in the classroom, keeping students engaged and moving by “flipping the gymnasium”–a new take on the flipped learning instruction model.

When flipping a class, teachers film lectures with software like Camtasia Studio (my go-to video recording and editing tool) and have students watch the videos at home, so that class time is spent covering questions on the material, not teaching new content. While it might seem strange to learn that I’m taking this approach in my PE class, of all places, it’s actually a perfect “fit” (forgive the pun). After all, isn’t the whole point of physical education to get, and keep, kids moving?

I’m no technological pioneer. I’m a physical education teacher at The Joseph Sears School in Kenilworth, Ill. during the day; a football, basketball, and track coach in the afternoon; and a “PE class flipper” at night. To the students and athletes I coach, I’m doing some things they’ve never seen done with technology before. And my Pickleball flipping video is nearly legendary.

It’s amazing what happens when you embrace emerging technology in school. It makes a huge difference in the classroom as well as on the athletic field. And I use technology available to any student or teacher.  It’s not magic, but it really works.

Flipping my PE class was actually pretty simple. Jon Bergmann, our school’s lead technology facilitator, came in at the beginning of the school year to introduce us to the flipped learning model. After his talk, I thought if we could spend less time in class talking about what the students were going to do and how to do it, and instead just come in and give them a few reminders and go, then activity time would increase (which is ultimately one of our top priorities in PE).

If you follow the dictate that we teach what we test, it’s understandable why schools haven’t spent more time preparing students to be web literate since NCLB was passed.

In 1998, a 15-year-old high school student used the personal website of a professor at Northwestern University, Arthur Butz, as justification for writing a history paper called “The Historic Myth of Concentration Camps.”

That student, who we will call Zack, had been encouraged to use the internet for research, but he had not been taught to decode the meaning of the characters in a web address. When he read the web address, http://pubweb.northwestern.edu/~abutz/di/intro.html, he assumed that the domain name “northwestern.edu” automatically meant it was a credible source. He did not understand that the “~” character, inserted after the domain name, should be read as a personal web page and not an official document of the university. As with any media, punctuation counts.

Without web literacy, Zack believed Butz’s explanation. Zack read about how the Nazis were fighting typhus, a disease carried by head lice. He went on to read that the pesticide Zyklon was used to kill the head lice—not the prisoners in the gas chambers. Without basic knowledge of web punctuation or the skills necessary to validate internet content, Zack was at a disadvantage to think critically about what he was reading. He had been taught to read paper, but he had not been taught to read the web. Zack was illiterate in what undoubtedly has become the dominant media of our society. At the time, Zack’s teachers also were illiterate about the web.

It turns out that validating content is not rocket science. Even a first-grade student can begin to understand the organization of information on the web. It seemed obvious at the time that understanding the grammar, punctuation, and syntax of the internet was so basic to being literate in our web-based society that schools immediately would begin to teach all children web literacy. Yet, that hasn’t been the case in most schools.

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It is our sense that two forces have worked in historic tandem to create the conditions where most of our schools do not teach our children basic web literacy. One is NCLB, which—even though it included funding for technology and staff development—we believe has had a chilling effect on introducing any innovation to the U.S. curriculum. The second is that web filtering became the de facto policy for keeping children “safe” online.

Instead of taking the high moral ground to teach students how to deal with odious content and the ethics and critical thinking skills that go along with social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, too many schools simply block these sites. As a point of information, the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) does not require schools to block social media sites (see “FCC opens access to social media sites for e-Rate users“).

To this day, when we visit schools and give students various research problems to solve, it is the very unusual student—who is usually self-taught—who understands how to decode content on the internet. We know many librarians and individual teachers who creatively include web literacy in their curriculum. Colleagues such as Joyce Valenza will tell you this is not enough. As we did with books, we need every teacher to be web literate and to be designing assignments that require students to learn how to research and decode across grade levels and subject areas.

Geldof says teachers are now responsible for all the "stuff we don't want to do ourselves."

Sir Bob Geldof—an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor, and political activist—noted during the Consortium for School Networking’s recent K-12 Technology Leadership Conference that the world’s economy is changing, thanks largely to mobile technology.

Geldof is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, an honorary knight, and recipient of the Man of Peace title, which recognizes individuals who have made “an outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace.”

“When I heard the statistic recently that 20 percent of the world’s population has a mobile phone, I thought ‘tyranny can no longer exist,’” Geldof said.

The only problem is, those who don’t have access to mobile technology—including students who don’t have access in the classroom—won’t be a part of the future, and as a result, the nation’s economy will be at a standstill.

Another problem, according to Geldof, is that while “those who contribute no social benefits get millions, teachers, who do nothing but provide social benefits, get paid ‘buttons.’”

Watch the interview with Geldof:

Conference organizers expect a record-setting crowd.

InfoComm International, the trade association representing the commercial audiovisual industry, will hold InfoComm 2012, its annual commercial audiovisual show, in Las Vegas from June 13-15. InfoComm 2012 will showcase more than 925 exhibitors with integrated display, projection, audio, conferencing, lighting and staging, digital signage, and communications system solutions.

Corporations, government agencies, and educational, healthcare, and religious institutions from more than 90 countries are expected to crowd the 500,000 net square feet of show floor exhibits, special events and product demo rooms, attend education sessions, manufacturers’ training, networking events, and more.

“Support of InfoComm 2012 has been very encouraging,” said Jason McGraw, CAE, InfoComm senior vice president for expositions. “Trade show attendance is on the rise overall, and InfoComm 2012 is no exception. We are tracking well ahead of last year’s registrations to date, and our attendees will be exploring a Show floor that has never been larger.”

Limited space on the Show floor is still available. Contact exhibitsales@infocomm.org or call +1.703.273.7200 to secure a booth. Attendees can register for InfoComm 2012 at infocommshow.org.

ISTE expects 18,000 attendees at its 33rd annual show in June 2012.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) will hold its 33rd annual conference and exposition, with a theme of “Expanding Horizons,” June 24-27, 2012, at the San Diego Convention Center.

Presented by ISTE in cooperation with Computer-Using Educators (CUE), the annual conference and exposition is one of the world’s most comprehensive education technology event. Last year’s conference in Philadelphia, Pa., attracted more than 18,000 participants and nearly 500 exhibiting companies. This year, ISTE expects 18,000 educators, tech coordinators, teacher educators, administrators, and industry and government representatives to attend from all over the world.

“We’re pleased to return to this lively, innovative, and beautiful city for our 2012 event,” said Leslie Conery, ISTE deputy CEO and conference chair. “San Diego offers an inspiring backdrop for the engaged, thought-leading educators who converge at ISTE’s annual conference and exposition.”

“With a theme of ‘Expanding Horizons,’ our objective is to create a conference experience that focuses on how educators can fuel students’ passion to learn,” said Conery. “We believe that a comprehensive, digital-age education expands students’ horizons and better prepares them to succeed in college, career, and civic life.”

General registration is open now. Prospective attendees, especially those traveling to San Diego from other regions, should register soon to take advantage of early-bird discounts and because housing tends to fill up quickly. Housing, registration, and travel information are available on the ISTE 2012 website.

International inquiries should be directed to (541) 346-3537 or to eMail at conf-reg@iste.org.

The full conference program, searchable database, and conference planner have recently been posted and special registration for ticketed workshops, sessions, and events is now available. Keynotes and program highlights will be announced in the coming months. ISTE 2012 includes nearly 300 formal sessions, 400 informal sessions, and hundreds of opportunities for networking and over-the-shoulder learning. Get details at www.isteconference.org/2012.

Each video on the TED-Ed site is tagged to a curriculum subject and is accompanied by supplementary materials to help teachers and students use or understand the video lesson.

TED, a nonprofit organization devoted to spreading big ideas through a series of conferences and a free video platform, has continued its expansion into education by launching a brand-new TED-Ed website with tools to help teachers use video in the classroom.

The new platform allows educators to customize videos with follow-up questions and assignments, TED says—an initiative that could help power the “flipped learning” model.

This is the second phase of TED’s expansion into education, following the launch of a TED-Ed YouTube channel last month with several educational videos. (See “Free video lessons offered by leaders in innovation, thinking.”) Five weeks after its launch, the channel has attracted more than 2.4 million views, 42,000 subscribers, and more than 3,000 comments, TED says.

With the new TED-Ed platform, “you can use, tweak, or completely redo any lesson featured on TED-Ed, or create lessons from scratch based on any video from YouTube,” the organization says.

In other words, the site allows users to take any useful educational video, not just TED’s, and easily create a customized lesson around the video. Users can distribute the lessons, publicly or privately, and track their impact on a class or an individual student.

See also:

Why Khan Academy is so popular—and why teachers shouldn’t feel threatened

Flipped learning: A response to five common criticisms

Empowering Education with Video

Teachers also can browse TED content based on the subject they teach. Each video on the TED-Ed site is tagged to a curriculum subject and is accompanied by supplementary materials to help teachers and students use or understand the video lesson. Supplementary materials include multiple-choice questions, open-answer questions, and links to more information on the topic.

But the most innovative feature of the site is that educators can customize these elements using a new functionality called “flipping.” When a video is flipped, the supplementary materials can be edited, and the resulting lesson is rendered on a new and private web page. The creator of the lesson then can distribute it and track an individual student’s progress as he or she completes the assignment.

What’s more, visitors to the site are not restricted to flipping the featured TED-Ed videos: They also can create a lesson from scratch using any video from YouTube that permits third-party embedding. Users can offer these lessons for wider distribution, and the best of them will be featured on the TED-Ed site for others to make use of.

Federal policy makers and many school reformers seem oblivious to current research about learning and motivation, Broderick noted.

Speaking during her organization’s 72^nd annual conference, Mary Broderick, outgoing president of the National School Boards Association, described a letter she wrote to President Obama urging him to reduce the federal emphasis on testing and give local schools the latitude to nurture students’ creativity.

“During my travels, I [have] observed brain activity in a young child with a complicated puzzle to solve,” she told conference attendees. “You could see the fascination and engagement on this child’s face as he used trial and error to manipulate the puzzle. His brain was stimulated, and he was learning. But, as soon as that little boy was told the answer, he lost interest—and the brain activity stopped.”

She added: “You know what that looks like on the face of a child. Their whole body is in motion when problem-solving, but their eyes glaze over when we pour information into their heads. They feel powerless and disrespected. This is what we are now doing to our children—and to our teachers.”

Federal policy makers and many school reformers seem oblivious to current research about learning and motivation, Broderick noted. And while standards and accountability have their place, “we cannot build our children to spec and expect consistent results. Children are not golf balls.”

For more news from the NSBA conference, see:

How to expand students’ ed-tech access—and stay out of court

Why Khan Academy is so popular—and why teachers shouldn’t feel threatened

NSBA Conference Information Center

The nation’s education leaders must find a better balance between accountability and innovation, Broderick argued. She referred to a letter she wrote to President Obama April 17, in which she made this very point.

“The focus on strict quantitative accountability has never worked for any organization, and it has not worked with No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top,” Broderick said in her letter. “Teachers’ focus on tests is undermining their potential and initiative, making it more difficult to share a love of learning with their students.”

She added: “Though intended to encourage equity, our current policy is, in fact, driving us toward mediocrity. Our students may be becoming better regurgitators, but what we need is excellent thinkers.”

The jobs that today’s students will pursue will be “significantly different” from the ones we have known, Broderick said. “Future work will be more complex, so we had better prepare students differently than through standardized tests.”

What’s more, she said, the carrot-and-stick approach to motivating educators that the Obama administration has embraced has been proven by researchers such as Daniel Pink and others to be ineffective.

Cracking down on cyber bullying, searching students’ cell phones, and filtering internet access are some of the areas where educators can get into trouble if they don’t know their proper legal boundaries.

Finding the right balance between keeping students safe and letting them explore their world digitally was the focus of an April 21 session during the National School Boards Association’s 72^nd annual conference, in which NSBA senior staff attorney Sonja Trainor gave advice on how school districts can open their doors to technology without getting sued.

Cracking down on cyber bullying or harassment, searching students’ cell phones or laptops, and filtering school internet access are some of the areas where educators can get into trouble if they don’t know their proper legal boundaries, Trainor said. Here’s what she had to say about each of these areas.

Cyber bullying and harassment

When school leaders discipline students for using technology inappropriately, this discipline is challenged most frequently when the use of technology occurred off campus, Trainor said.

On campus, the courts have ruled that schools have the right to regulate…

• Speech or actions that are disruptive or that interfere with the rights of others (Tinker);

• Lewd or vulgar speech or actions (Frasier);

• School-sponsored speech or activities, such as a school newspaper (Hazelwood); and

• Activities associated with illegal drug use (Morse).

Off campus, it’s more problematic, as a pair of recent court cases indicates—and unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year declined to step in and provide some clarity on the issue.

The High Court let stand the suspension of a West Virginia high school student who created a web page that suggested another student had a sexually transmitted disease and then invited classmates to comment. The court also left alone separate rulings that said schools could not discipline two Pennsylvania students for MySpace parodies of their principals that the students created at home.

However, all states except Montana now have school bullying ordinances, Trainor said, and many of these laws also address cyber bullying. School leaders should be aware of their state’s laws regarding bullying via traditional or electronic means and make sure they are in compliance.

Sal Khan's nonprofit now contains more than 3,100 free video tutorials, mostly on math and science—but the site has begun expanding its scope to other subjects, too.

Sal Khan, whose online Khan Academy serves up video tutorials to more than 6 million students worldwide each month, wants to reassure teachers that the free educational service isn’t out to take their jobs—nor is it a statement about a teacher’s ability to deliver a lesson effectively.

On the contrary, Khan said, teachers who are using the service with their students feel more empowered than ever.

“It liberates the classroom,” he told attendees of the National School Boards Association’s 72^nd annual conference in Boston, “and teachers’ creativity comes out.”

Warm and engaging, with a self-deprecating sense of humor, Khan discussed his nonprofit venture during an April 22 keynote speech to a few thousand school board members, who interrupted him with frequent rounds of applause.

Khan Academy now contains more than 3,100 free video tutorials, mostly on math and science—but the site has begun expanding its scope to other subjects, too.

What started as an idea to tutor his 12-year-old cousin Nadia from a distance in 2004 has now surpassed 140 million lessons streamed online and is helping 10 times more students learn each month than the entire number of students who’ve graduated from Harvard University since 1636, Khan said.

And the reason for the website’s success is simple: Students can access the content “when and how they want it.”

When he first posted his video tutorials on YouTube in 2006, his relatives said they liked the YouTube versions better than Khan’s live tutoring, because they were more comfortable watching the videos privately on their own time. No one was looking over their shoulder, or waiting for them to indicate they understood the material before moving on.

See also:

Flipped learning: A response to five common criticisms

In fact, this ability to engage with the content in private—over and over again, if necessary—was cited as a key advantage in a video testimonial that Khan showed of a man who was able to earn a degree in electrical engineering with help from Khan Academy.

After admitting that he’d had to watch some of the website’s videos 20 or 30 times before understanding their high-level math concepts, the man noted: “There’s no [human] tutor who could sit with me and go over the same material 20 or 30 times.”

In 2009, encouraged by the reaction his video tutorials were getting on YouTube, Khan took a leap of faith, quit his day job as a hedge fund analyst, and established Khan Academy as a nonprofit organization. The site eventually caught the attention of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, whose Gates Foundation supported it with a $2 million grant. Google also has contributed $2 million, allowing Khan to hire staff and pursue his dream of “providing a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere.”

Now, the site’s video tutorials are sequenced, so students can move through increasing levels of competency on the path to mastery. This is how video games work, Khan said—but until now, it’s not how schools traditionally have operated.

New episodes of the snappy, jam-packed web shorts (5-7 minutes) will be released once a fortnight and will feature real educators sharing tools and instructional practices that showcase “bright spots” in innovative classrooms around the world. “Sometimes all you need is an idea or to see something being used to send you off in an amazing direction.

We aim to supply teachers with those “Aha!” moments by having teachers, administrators and students demonstrate fun ideas for the classroom using the latest tools and technology available,” said Chris Fitzgerald Walsh, co-executive producer.

Hosting the web-based shows is Dr. Ramsey Musallam, a California-based high school teacher. “I cannot wait to see and hear how these videos help teachers approach the use of technology and new ideas in the classroom. The ITM model is really about inspiring teachers to think in different ways. Even if teachers don’t have time to explore and implement the latest technological devices, these web shorts will give them a different approach or way of thinking about material they’ve taught for years,” Musallam said.

The first episode of the redesigned show is available now on YouTube, and the second episode launches today along with the infinitethinking.org website. Subsequent episodes will air every other week and can be watched on both YouTube and at cue.org. CUE plans on broader syndication for the show in the coming year.