KIN 710 Week 3 Homework Assignment

In the past few years, I have come to notice that I can't live without a lot of things. It's sad, but I look back and don't realize how I ever lived without a cell phone, the internet, cable tv with channels upon channels. Growing up I had regular attenae television, only a house phone, and I still typed on a typewriter.

Now, I can not only blog, tweet, check my facebook, as well as the internet and e-mail on my phone or computer. But now because of all these creative apps for everything, I can even tell my cable box at home to record a program by using my phone......I can't believe it, I don't even have to be home to record a program anymore.

For my assignment this week, I had to set up a bloglines account and add some news and twitter feeds to it. After playing with the bloglines account, it is actually a great internet site and tool to use. Because of adding all the different feeds, I can just go to this one account and check up on news and information from around the world, as well as friends, and classmates, rather than exploring all different sites.

Next I had to check out docs.google.com. I have to admit this website was awesome. I really liked that it had templates for budget spreadsheets, calendars, statistics information. Basically everything a coach is always going to need at some point in his/her career.

I also had to explore web 2.0 and their award winning sites. A lot of these sights I already use, like twitter, facebook, and the one I love the most google maps. I am such a map freak, I am constantly looking at google maps even if I am not going anywhere, simply so that I can see what things looks like in other cities, towns, and countries.

So, over all a lot of the things that we have explored in this class have not only been fun and entertaining, but I really see me putting a lot of this stuff to use as my career matures.

My Coach's RULE of the day is that technology is a lot like life. You may be scared to do things at times, but the more you experience and try, the more comfortable and relaxed you get. And then next thing you know it starts to come easy to you and is not as scary as you thought it would be.

My Article Reading Assignment for KIN710

Hello Everyone,

This week, really won't be a so called RULE of the day/week. Instead I had to read three articles for my Kinesiology class and then write a blog about them. So here it goes..........

The first article I read was "Social Networking" by Alfred C. Weaver and Benjamin B. Morrison of the University of Virginia. I found this article to be quite amusing since I have been active in social networking for the past five years. I originally got started with having a myspace account and then I did some youtube stuff and now I am very active with facebook and now this blog thanks to this class. What is really interesting is how social networks change as time goes on. I mean back in 2005 when I started on myspace, that was the "thing". As the years went on more and more of my friends and people around me started going to facebook and now I have too. In fact I don't even remember the last time I actually checked my myspace page, sorry Tom.

The second article I read was "Web, Library, and Teen Services 2.0" by Kimberly Bolan, Meg Canada, and Rob Cullin. One thing I like about this article was the way it was broken down. I'm not very big on reading and reading and reading and reading, even though I am making all of you do this now. But I really like the box of examples of Web 2.0 in the Library. All this time I've been using wikipedia or I should say wikis, social networking sites, like I discussed above, and blogs and didn't even realize that it had a main title. Web 2.0 I thought was just some jargin and it is but now because of this article I now know that it refers to on the content and things on the web like I said before, wikis, social networks, blogs, photosharing sites, even RSS, which I didn't know what just an acronym for Really Simple Syndication until this article meaning that it refers to all the news sources on the web.

The third and final article that I would like to discuss today is an "Editorial: Examining Social Software in Teacher Education" by Richard E. Ferdig from the University of Florida. It discusses ways that social software can be used in the classroom. Meaning that is doesn't only discuss how you can use blogging or facebook like we are doing in this class. But also how video games, PDA's, and other devices can be used. I find it interesting that they discussed video games especially since a while back they came out with video games that were supposed to help you with thinking and memorizing. I found it to be quite amusing and the students that I taught at the time enjoyed it to. I found that some online learning tools as well as video games could be a great way to award a student who has finished their work in a timely manner while waiting for the other students. Or maybe just have a fun day that could be learning at the same time. Like with my athletes I find that giving them so called day off from the regular practice plan and maybe just getting together and having fun still helps them think and move around because we will play with the Wii or even some of these dance games that are out on the xbox and other playing devices.

So over all, these articles had some great points and intriguing discussing topics. I sure hope that my blog about that has been as entertaining as I found some of these articles to be. Feel free to read it and enjoy. And you know what, I just can't leave this blog without having my Coach's RULE of the day, "Open your mind, let new things in on a constant. For one day you never know, you might need some of that knowledge that you took for granted at that moment."

My photo from flickr

I tagged this specific photo as the one for the assignment, because it was part of my road trip that I did this past summer. My wife and I went up to Portland and back down the coast and while doing so came across a tree you can drive your car through. Well, I should say most cars, many large SUVs had issues....FYI. But this pic is of me standing in the center of a tree that had fallen over many many years ago. I hope you enjoy.

Technology in today's world.

Twelve years ago, I couldn't understand why all my friends had pagers and thought they were so cool. Then seven years ago, I became a broadcaster and realized I needed a cell phone for my job, but still didn't understand why. Now today, as I write to you, I am not sitting in the comfortability of my own home. I am actually on the road to Santa Barbara on our FPU Sunbird team bus. I am not even typing this on my lap top or computer. I am doing all this on my iPhone. In fact I must admit it's hard for me to live without my iPhone. I have a gps on my phone, I can check my facebook and twitter page on here. I can talk to people without calling them, thanks to texting. A lot of my friends don't even have land lines anymore because of this. You can pay your bills online, buy tickets, to sporting events or even movies. Shoot you don't even need to leave your home now-a-days because of all the technology we have. And trust me, I'm not saying that is a good thing. But what I am saying is that technology has evolved in so many ways throughout my lifetime. It is hard to even understand sometime how we got by without all this, but we did. So Coach's RULE of the day is, "don't be afraid of technology, embrace it. Play with it, see what you might discover. Because you never know, you might actually realize it is better than what you had before."

Waz up people.........

Hello hello, y'all. It's Coach Rule coming to you from the middle of the Central Valley in California, in a awesome town named Fresno. I started this blog because of my physical education course that I am taking at the school I am coaching at, Fresno Pacific University. However, the journalist in me must say that he is going to like this journey of having his own personal blog. Hopefully I will be able to enlighten, inspire, and entertain you as the days, weeks, months, and years go on.......so let me leave you with Coach's RULE of the day............"Always be open to the unexpected, you never know if you might actually like it!"