Fiji!!!

Well we have been here for 10 days and I am finally on the net!!! Been busy and booked with clinics and competing. God has been doing amazing things and I cannot tell you how amazing it is for me to see my team going through this experience. God is so good and He has continually lifted us up! I have to go. More to come today!!!

LibraryThing? But I Don't Read!!!

I was excited about LibraryThing! I was at the home of one of my biggest supporters today. He is a great guy who is always helpful and supportive of me as a coach. We spent about two hours looking at his library of track & field and running books from the 1800's till today. It was awesome! When I looked at LibraryThing I found a couple of those books and all the books I currently have in my library. The coolest thing was finding a book called, "Five Were Chosen", which was the first book I ever read cover to cover during my 7th grade year. I am excited about cataloging my books and finding some that I want to collect as well! This was a really cool activity!!! My catalog can be found at the following location: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/fputrak

So much GENERATING...So much FUN!

I have never been much for playing with images. I taught 7th and 8th grade computers for 7 years and we did plenty of this. I enjoyed it but couldn't spend a great deal of time on it because I got bored fast. My students on the other hand couldn't get enough! It was all they wanted to do. Playing with the generators for this assignment were great. I will admit that I spent a lot of time doing it. My favorite site was one that I never knew existed called Motivation. The web link is: bighugelabs.com/flickr/motivator.php. On this site you can upload a picture and make one of those motivational posters. They will actually make a poster for you after you create it! I was pumped! I actually am going to use this site a lot in the future as a way to reward my athletes. The first poster I created is the one I included. I am ordering a poster tommorrow that has my national champion triple jumper on it with a slogan that she and I have shared for years! Can hardly wait.

Technorati or not!

I am not a big fan of Technorati. Blogging is great but I would rather research and find information in other ways. The searches and tags are great and put me into contact with all types of blogs but it just seemed too much for me. Don't get me wrong, photos, videos, posts and blogs all in one place is amazing. I even liked the search component where each of these areas shows different things when the same search word is launched. But, I am just not attracted to it. Maybe once I use it more I will like it but for now, it won't be something I use a great deal. Maybe as a last resort. It seems that I am still having trouble getting used to the whole idea of how big social networking really is. I am starting to like parts of it, but as of now, Technorati is not my favorite component of this social realm. I am going to pursue a few more topics that I need to do research on anyway and I will start with Technorati to see if I can enjoy it more than I do so far.

Sooooo Del.icio.us!

This is my favorite experience using web-based tools so far!!! This site is awesome! I have so many bookmarks on different computers and my browser is a trainwreck. This is the tool for me! As an instructor, coach, mentor, and fundraiser, I have an incredible amount of sites and organizing them is crazy! This is perfect for organizing the sites the way I need and want them. Tags will keep me organized and will save me time. I really like the social aspect of it as well! I am always networking with other coaches and trainers so this becomes another way I can do that! Anywhere, anytime, and always growing and changing! The perfect combination for a site to keep track of my sites! It is certainly delicious!!!

Books...that I don't have to read? Where?

I've never been much of a reader! My intentions are good! I but what I want and then...it sits! I have a great library but it does me no good! When I started looking on the sites that were provided us I couldn't believe what I found! I am always trying to find more books that are based on living a life like Christ. I found all kinds of books that I could play in my vehicle! I spend a minimum of 10 hours a week in my vehicle so this is perfect for me! This is a great thing!

Podcast love!

Podcasting is great! Whether you are listening to a play by play of an event or watching a recorded instructional video, podcasting is of great value to anyone willing to search a little bit to find what you are looking for. I am really into fitness training and finding a podcast on weight training, speed and agility training, or coordination training was simple! Now, will I use it in its purest form with my team? Probably not. Why? Because I will take the information in a podcast and make it my own with all of the expectations and structure that defines FPU Track and Field. The best idea would be to create my own podcast on the same information or have my athletes create one that they can refer to based on my procedures and expectations, whether it be in the weightroom or on the track. One of the things that I really support is my athletes finding podcasts, watching them, and then asking questions about ways information is communicated differently. It is interesting to them, because they can watch these on their IPOD's, and it is a great way to make them more knowledgeable about their sport. For some reason, probably because they can take the podcast with them, they are so much more likely to do this than they are reading an article I give them that includes exactly the same information. In order to reach my athletes most effectively, podcasts are great!

It doesn't get better than YouTube!

I enjoy YouTube! I have used it a great deal the last couple of years. I use it frequently as a visual tool for my athletes. I have also used it as a core component of a couple of the kinesiology classes that I have taught. The visual component is as important for students as it is for athletes. Recently I have used it to coach athletes who live in other parts of the country. They load their videos onto YouTube and then send me the title so I can watch and send them back critiques. It has worked really well. I included one of those videos in my blog. It is titled "Sarah triple jumping." What a great tool! I love it! Entertainment, education, and easy to use! YouTube rocks!

Library 2.0...Hmmm!

I really like the idea of library 2.0! The interaction from library to patron and patron to library is a great thing because social interaction is how society tends to be leaning. One of the things that I have a hard time believing will happen is that librarians will give up the control necessary for this to happen as it should. The other thing that I am concerned with here is that the librarian to patron ration is rediculous and teaching all of these patrons to use library 2.0 effectively will be near impossible!!! I think we will be able to overcome these dilemmas and library 2.0 will rule!

My Hero! Jonathan Edwards: Triple Jump World Record Holder

RSS Feeds

This is just fun! I can come into the office every morning and turn my computer on and have all the information I want to start my day right in front of me! I can't believe how easy this is to set up! At first I didn't think it would be a productive assignment but I was wrong. I located many great feeds that I can use every single day. My favorite was the "Quote of the Day" feed because I put new quotes on my track and field bulletin board a couple times a week. This just blesses me with time! I don't have to search all over to find good quotes. They are at my disposal every minute of the day with new ones coming all the time. The use of these feeds has me pretty motivated right now because I can use them in so many ways to make my coaching and teaching better and...more up to date! Like by the minute up to date!

Google Docs

So I just bought Microsoft Word for my new laptop and now I am ticked off! Kidding! I really like the idea behind Google Docs but I don't think I could use it like I do Microsoft Word. One thing that I do love about Google Docs though is that I can send all of my workouts (track and field) to fellow coaches and have them edit them and save them under different names so that I can see how they would do things different! I am going to do this immediately!!!!! I can also use this for syllabus editing with fellow teachers and for group projects! I was so pumped about this because it unifies the platform that we all work under. Honestly, I will be using this immediately for coaching! HUGE BENEFITS! HUGE! HUGE! HUGE!

Web 2.0 Award List Review

Going through the Web 2.0 awards was pretty cool. My favorite one was easy to identify. Since I fitness train many of the teams on our campus, the Health section drew my attention. I looked at a site called PEERtrainer and I was pumped! Not only was the site organized well but the focus was on exactly what any site dedicated to fitness should be focused on...motivation! I was impressed by all of the links and threads that were available and specific to keeping motivation at the heart of the site. There were links to individual, group, and team blogs, posts, and sites. There were links to success stories and links to hints on how to use the site more effectively. My favorite part was the "lounge" which was a section of the site that had a way to really inspire people and keep them moving forward in terms of their fitness. Knowing that this site focused on peers to help a person stay motivated and reach the level of fitness they desire made me think that some of the sites we have been exploring that are blog based, might be more valuable than I initially thought.

Comments to weekly readings

I enjoyed reading these articles this week. Some were long but all had some great insights. In the article called, "Social Networking" (Weaver & Morrison, 2008) I was a bit perplexed by the idea that Google has to standardize social networking by creating a common platform(OpenSocial) on which things will be based. As large and all encompasing as the internet is, is it really possible to standardize things this way? I understand the benefits, but it seems like a common platform is impossible. The second article that struck me was called, "Web, Library, and Teen Services 2.0" (Bolan, Canada & Cullin, 2007). This article talked about library services for the new age. The one thing that struck me over and over was the mention of the word "trust". It is a great goal to reach the youth in terms of library services but how feasible will in be for this to happen on the scale that was proposed? Trust is a word that seems to be being chipped away at these days and it will be hard for our current library service people to have enough of it to make the changes that they are talking about. One other thing that struck me about this article was that it is cool to have a library in your own home but as a coach it has obesity written all over it. The last article that struck my thinking was, "Examining Social Software in Teacher Education" (Ferdig, 2007). There was a great deal of information that I found interesting, but the part that really got me was at the beginning when the author talked about finding his student on "Facebook" and how he saw things he really didn't want to see. As a coach, this is a huge issue! I let my athletes know that their "Facebook" and "MySpace" pages need to represent not only themselves well, but those who they are associated with also. Many college teams throughout the country are limiting what their athletes can put on their accounts with these internet networks. I agree with this to an extent. It is important that if students are part of our team and are striving to meet the expectations we have set, then certain things should not be part of these pages anyway. This year our team theme was "Purpose In Every Step" from 1 Corinthians 9:26. If we have purpose in all of our steps, including those online, then this won't be an issue anyway. What a challenge?

Something Simple

I was pumped this week! Why? Because I plugged my digital camera into my computer and downloaded a few pictures. When I was done I found that I had also saved a video of one of my jumpers as well. My computer brought it up as a quicktime movie and as I was watching it I used the arrow keys to go frame by frame. I love biomechanics so watching the video in a frame by frame sequence was awesome. It got even better when I printed about 140 frames and after some careful scissor work, created a sequence of photos that show my jumper in every body position possible during a triple jump. What a tool! Simple, yet such a great tool for teaching!

NATional Champion

NATional Champion
Originally uploaded by fpu trak

My FPU Track team leaves on Monday morning for St. Louis for the NAIA National Championships. I am excited about the kids that are going! One of those going with me is Natalie Friesen (NAT), who is pictured here. I have coached her since she was 7 and I believe that at the end of the week she will be the outdoor national champion in the triple jump! She won indoors in March. What a stud!

FPU Track & Field

I love track and field! The last four years that I have spent as a coach at Fresno Pacific have been incredible. Our program has grown by leaps and bounds and I spend everyday as a proud coach of incredible student-athletes. I used to have a bunch of hobbies but now my hobby is helping my student-athletes develop physically, socially, academically, and spiritually! I love every minute of it!

Greetings!

Hey everyone! I have never been much of a blogger! My studend-athletes have set up "myspace" and "facebook" accounts for me in the past and I have deleted them for a couple reasons. One is because I don't have much free time to blog, and the other is because I found myself constantly checking up on my athletes. I didn't enjoy the experience. Hopefully this one will be different.