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.