I have been pondering doing something like this for a long time – time to get ‘er done!
“This” is figuring out a way to better integrate Twitter (and other technology) into my undergraduate classes (Curriculum and Pedagogy in Elementary Physical Education) and also further connect with those either new to teaching elementary PE or those just finally coming to the glorious realization that whole child education includes education of the physical!
So, here goes… #321pe
What? A hashtag? Seriously, didn’t Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake do that already? Doesn’t the online PE community already have #physed, #pechat, #pegeeks, etc.?
Why, yes. Yes it does. However, many of the folks that use these current tags are PE specialists. Not all – but many. Now, that is not a bad thing – au contraire! I LOVE PE specialists and wish we had more of them – especially in our Elementary schools. But, I wanted something distinct and focused for the elementary based teacher.
The teacher who is passionate about PE but may be the only one in their school.
The teacher who maybe had 1 class in University on how to teach PE.
The pre-service teacher inundated with “core” subject responsibilities.
The pre-service teacher who wants to connect with others interested in quality elementary PE.
The pre-service teacher who wants to learn from experienced elementary teachers who also love PE and teach it amazingly.
You get my point…
My hope and dream for #321pe is that it can grow organically and rhysomatically as it morphs to meet the needs of the community with input from said community. Although I don’t have all the details yet, here is my initial plan:
- Start using #321pe with my classes this term.
- On the 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month (September 25th to be the first!) anyone can post questions and ideas to #321pe and, for now, I will direct those questions to people I think have a good idea of how to address them.
- Summarize those Thursday discussions and questions and post the summary to Google Drive.
- Speaking of G-Drive, springing from the #321pe conversations I will add shared file folders for folks to be able to access resources, links, co-created lessons, etc.
- Eventually, I would like to have “featured hosts” who will coordinate a Thursday session (maybe 1 hour, maybe just sum up the day’s discussion and provide links and ideas).
As another way to launch and explore this idea, I will be submitting a #321pe session for the #PhysedSummit on October 25th, 2014. In the meantime – tweet me your ideas, comment on the blog and let’s build a community together!
So why #321pe and not something else? You’ll have to wait for the #PhysedSummit to find out!