Using Technology to Combat Obesity

By Jacob Gutnicki

Over the past few years there have been numerous articles that have reported that the increase of childhood and adult obesity is growing at an alarming rate. Additionally, various medical journals have documented that obesity related diseases including diabetes and heart attacks have sharply increased. In fact, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention the following alarming trends have occurred over a period of 20 years;

- In 1990, among states participating in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, ten states had a prevalence of obesity less than 10% and no states had prevalence equal to or greater than 15%.
- By 1999, no state had prevalence less than 10%, eighteen states had a prevalence of obesity between 20-24%, and no state had prevalence equal to or greater than 25%.
- In 2008, only one state (Colorado) had a prevalence of obesity less than 20%. Thirty-two states had a prevalence equal to or greater than 25%; six of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia ) had a prevalence of obesity equal to or greater than 30%.

In the meantime, varying interest groups and politicians have pointed the finger of blame at a number of items including portion sizes offered at restaurants, sugary school foods, the inclusion of trans fats, video games, school fitness programs or rather the lack of one, as well as other mitigating factors. Needless to say, there are plenty of people who can be blamed for this perplexing problem. However, in the final analysis blame will not change our situation. In the end, innovative solutions are needed to combat this problem. With this in mind I will share with you a couple of promising ideas.

1. Spark People is a Social Networking web site which shares inspiring diet stories with its users, offer tools to create sensible nutritional plans, a nutrition calculator for the purpose of calculating caloric intake, varying fitness tools, instructional videos, and other tools to track your progress.

2. iGoogle Calorie Calculator is a Google Gadget that lets you plan your meals according to your caloric needs and includes a database of more than 70,000 foods to choose from. Using calorie calculators is a convenient way of planning your daily nutritional needs and can be used to track and adjust consumption decisions.

3. Wii Fit- Traditionally, video games have been blamed for the increase in childhood obesity. This is largely due to the fact that video games can be addictive and subsequently involve a great deal of seat time- hence the term couch potato. Fortunately, Wii Fit differs in its approach as the participant is required to stand on a "balance platform" and perform a variety of exercise such as running, yoga, aerobics, and other rigorous activities. As a result, numerous studies have shown that this tool has helped participants lose weight and become more fit.

4. Dance, Dance Revolution requires the participant to conduct a variety of aerobic exercises. More importantly, a study in West Virginia demonstrated that Dance, Dance revolution helped overweight students become more physically active and lose on average 10-15 pounds. Additionally, other school districts have achieved similar results.

5. iPod Nano + Nike, or and iPod, or an iPod Shuffle- Whether you carry one of the newer or older iPod models this device can be used to exercise in numerous ways. The shuffle is a convenient way to enjoy a jog in the park. If you want to track your run, the Nano allows you to track the pace of your run and compete with other runners. Both the iPod and Nano model are excellent for the gym as you can watch your favorite television show or movie while using an elliptical or similar exercise machine for an extended period of time.

6. Garmin Sports Watch- If you are looking for a device that offers more tracking options to co-inside with your run then the Garmin Sports Watch will definitely meet your needs.

7. MapMyRun.com is a community web site for runners and joggers who want to stay healthy, lose weight or train more effectively. More importantly, Map My Run is also used to share varying jogging routes a runner created and tracks related statistics.

8. Calories Per Hour is a web site that allows users to calculate what their caloric needs are, use a BMI calculator, and calculate how many calories are burned conducting a variety of activities including walking, jogging, running, weight lifting, swimming, as well as other physical activities.

9. iPump is an iPod application that includes;

· A variety of workouts drawing from thousands of unique exercises and equipment such as barbell, exercise ball, dumbbells, kettle bells, BOSU, foam roller and more.

· The ability to search workouts by location (hotel, home, gym, etc.), goal (arms, abs, cardio, etc.) or keyword.

· An exercise database with incredible variety. My favorites - squat thrust to push up with a med ball and 180 swings with a kettle bell.

· Videos of each exercise.

· The ability to edit workouts or create your own

10. Exercise Pod Casts- There are many free pod casts available for download that offer quick tips and other useful hints. A good place to start your journey is with My Free Trainer. My Free Trainer offer pod casts both for men and women with Pod Casts for beginners, intermediate exercisers, and an advanced level. Additionally, it provides a calendar of classes. For example, Wednesday's class focuses on the legs and chest, while Monday's class focuses on Pull ups, Crunches, and using Dumbbells. There are many other free pod casts on the Internet which can easily be found in the iTunes store under the Pod Casts tab with the category Fitness and Workout.

Final Word- The following is a small list of possible methods to get your body moving. I happen to immensely enjoy jogging and weightlifting to music. I also enjoy watching television shows and movies while exercising on the elliptical. That being said, one does not need technology to exercise. It is simply another approach to exercising. If you enjoy playing volleyball, soccer, swimming, competing in half-marathons, or a run in the park, go for it, and don't forget to Keep on Moving.

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Game-Based Learning Site for Innovative Math Educators

Innovative math educators looking for engaging ideas to enhance teaching and learning should check out this newly launched, curriculum-based, online math game site for 11 – 16 year olds.

UK-based www.mangahigh.com features math games that go beyond mental arithmetic and help kids to enjoy practicing quadratic equations and trigonometry. The site has developed engaging math games that students enjoy playing while they learn complex math concepts by solving authentic, real-world problems.

The fun to play games are designed to make math challenging, yet playable in a gaming context. The games allow students to grasp and practice sophisticated math concepts in an entertaining way. The initial launch includes the following games which are available for free with limited features. An upgrade can be purchased.

1. Save Our Dumb Planet – protect Earth from meteors and other space hazards by using algebra skills to calculate accurate trajectories for a life-saving surface-to-space missile. Players use algebraic substitution, indices, coordinates and graph-plotting to plan their missile flight paths, leading them through linear, quadratic and, eventually, cubic equations.

2. Flower Power – grow and harvest valuable and exotic flowers to make your horticultural fortune. Players practice their knowledge of fractions, decimals and percentages with beautiful results.

3. Pyramid Panic – help a prematurely-entombed mummy escape from a pyramid by solving geometry puzzles to build a path across the burial chamber to the exit. Set in Ancient Egypt, players start with simple puzzles involving areas and lengths of rectangles, triangles and kites, through more complex applications of Pythagoras’ rule, to the ultimate challenge of solving problems involving trigonometry.

4. BIDMAS Blaster – Professor BIDMAS' roborators have run amok and need to be destroyed. In this fast-paced action game, players practice their skills with brackets, indices, division, multiplication, addition and subtraction.

5. Mangahigh’s most powerful game is Prodigi, a math learning engine that features thousands of math problems with worked solutions and hints that adapt to each student’s ability and learning speed. Students, teachers and parents can customize Prodigi by skipping items that have already been mastered in the classroom, or focusing on areas that need specific attention. If necessary, students can learn using Prodigi with a minimum of intervention from educators, as it guides the student through the math curriculum in a logical, pedagogic order.

“Math is frequently perceived as boring and irrelevant by students. Mangahigh aims to make math fun and engaging through the use of games and also to spark an interest that reaches beyond the curriculum,” said Dr. Marcus du Sautoy, Chairman of Mangahigh’s Board of Advisors, currently Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science. “Mangahigh will give students context and a deeper insight into math, as well as provide interesting facts that they can share with their friends,” he added. “Mangahigh aims to fuse online games and math. Having observed millions of players hone their game-playing skills at King.com, I realized that, if this same motivation and stimulation could be bought to mathematics education, it could be a game-changer,” added Toby Rowland, founder of Mangahigh, formerly the co-CEO and co-founder of King.com, one of the world’s largest casual games companies.

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Five Innovative Ideas for Celebrating Women’s History

March is a time when many school teachers celebrate women’s history. If you are among those who are taking some time to recognize accomplishments of women, here are some ideas that innovative educators can use to enhance teaching and learning around this topic.

Xtranormal

Have students research and select an historic woman they admire and make their own movies starring this woman in various possible settings such as 1) A meeting with President Obama 2) A discussion with classmates 3) A meeting with your school principal 4) A topic of your choosing.

Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and they believe everyone can make movies. Their revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill—typing. If your students can type something, they can turn it into a movie.

Remix America

Since the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, women have demanded their voices be heard in the social and political arenas. In celebration of Women’s History Month, Remix America will temporarily suspend the “This Day in History” featured video to highlight seminal moments in Women’s History. How better to celebrate these women than to provide students with original source material to study and discuss? Every day in March, visit the site for a new clip highlighting the speeches and essays of these rebels, these visionaries, these pioneering feminists.

Students can interact with all of these videos by using the online, free video editing tool to cut and remix these clips into Women’s History montages. Innovative educators can also visit the Remix America Blog to find featured content and commentary about why these source materials are important and relevant to today.

SMARTBoards

Interactive whiteboards are powerful tools to engage visual and auditory learners and accomplish the first rule of teaching - "First get their attention and then keep them engaged." To help to help celebrate Women’s History Month Tequiment has put together a collection of lessons, websites and a new question set for a Jeopardy-style Quiz Game. You can view these resources by visiting their blog where you will find the following resources: Women's Rights Quiz Set, Women's History - Colonial Women, Women of the Civil Rights Movements, Women's Suffrage of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Los Animales de la Granja.

Create a Social Network

Capitalize on your student's interest in social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook and Create a Social Network learning environment for your students. Innovative educators are coming up with all sorts of creative ideas to use social networks to engage students. How about creating a network with women historical characters? Students can take on the persona of a historical woman they admire, create their personal page for that character with questions you and your students agree upon, engage in discussions, join groups that character would be involved in engage in chats as the woman they have selected, upload videos (which can be rated and commented on), and publish blog posts. One of the most popular social network creation tools, Ning is allowing educators to create free educational social networks. For more ideas about using social networks in education visit Ning in Education. If you've never participated in a social network I invite you to get the experience of participating by joining The Innovative Educator Social Network. This will enable you to have a better idea of how you can incorporate a social network into your teaching and about the value of Social Networking for Innovative Educators.

Note: In some school districts Ning is blocked. Create your social network remotely and work with your administrator or technology specialist to unblock the site you have created in advance.

Voki

Have students select and research a woman they know that they admire and create a Voki that either shares, 1) how she has contributed positively to women in her life 2) why it is important to recognize women’s accomplishments 3) a topic of your choosing.

Voki enables students to express themselves on the web using a talking character.

Students can customize their Voki to look like and/or take on the identity of lots of other types of human and nonhuman characters. Vokis can speak with the student’s own voice which is added via microphone, upload, or phone. Students can also choose to insert text and have the Voki use a variety of existing voices with more than a dozen different male and female accents to choose from.

Once the student Voki’s are created they can be inserted into a class blog, wiki, website, and more. From there the school community can comment on and discuss one another’s work and keep the conversation going.

These are just some ideas to inspire innovative educators in their upcoming work with students in recognizing women’s contributions. I invite readers to share your thoughts, feedback, or experience implementing one these ideas or one of your own.

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23andMe Provides Authentic and Personalized Learning Opportunities in Genetics, DNA, Biology, Health, Geography.

I just responded to the Classroom 2.0 post Teaching DNA from a science teacher who shared, “I'm looking for a website available to students that can answer some of their questions about DNA. That will conceptualize DNA, and allow them to look through the material at their own pace. It can’t be too technical, and I would like it to help spur their interest in the subject.”

As a recent subscriber to 23andMe (whose tagline is, “Genetics Just Got Personal”), I had to chime in. I know that personally, I never retained much of anything I learned in science class because little of it was hands on, and wasn’t taught in a way that allowed me to see how it pertained to my life in a way I needed to care about.

As an adult, when I heard about 23andMe I became extremely excited at the potential to unlock the secrets of my own DNA. As an innovative educator I also reflected on what a powerful learning tool this could be for students interested in this field. Of course there are cost and legal factors that are obvious barriers, but innovative educators don’t let things let things like that stop them.

For those not in the know, 23andMe was selected as Time magazine's "Invention of the Year” and was recently featured on Oprah. It allows you to access and unlock the information contained within your DNA. This means that you will be able to learn about your medical proclivities as well as your true genetic ancestry.

So, how can this be used in the classroom? Even without sending in your DNA for sampling 23andMe puts a lot of the study of genetics and ancestry into context in a way that is more interesting and compelling then what I ever learned in school. The website provides a collection of educational materials to guide educators and learners on a personal journey of genetic discovery. Here are some of the great learning resources 23andMe offers to enable visitors to discover the world of genetics.

A great place to start with students would be with the Variations section which highlights stories of famous people and how their genes affected them. This can be tied to an activity where students reflect on how they think their genes may have shaped who they are or will become. Here is a peak into what that part of the site contains.

Variations

Our genes help shape us from the moment of conception, but they are far from the only determinant of who we are. 23andMe's Variations series explores the human experience through personal stories of the ways genetics touches our lives.

Are Warren and Jimmy Buffett related?

Speed Gene: Fact or fiction?

Drive: The story of Muggsy Bogues, 5'3" NBA star

The Royal Disease

Once you’ve peaked students interest, it’s time to get down to some details about genetics. The site has an area called Genetics 101 which features a variety of easy to understand animated videos. Here is what you will find there.

Genetics 101

Part 1: What Are Genes?

Find out about the basics of cells, chromosomes, and the genes contained in your DNA.

Part 2: What are SNPs?

Learn about the variations in human DNA called SNPs, and how they can be used to understand relationships between people.

Part 3: Where do your genes come from?

Find out how chromosomes and genes are passed down from parent to child.

Part 4: What is phenotype?

Discover how your observable traits, or phenotypes, are the result of interactions between your genes and environment.

The site also has a connection to history and geography. This is a great resource for teachers focusing on history, social studies, ancestry, or geography. Here is what you will find.

Human Prehistory 101

These videos follow the path of our human history from the birth of our species in Africa to the present day.

Human Prehistory: Prologue

Find out how our human story begins, nearly 200,000 years ago in Africa.

Part 1: Out of (eastern) Africa (coming soon)

Learn how humans traveled out of Africa for the first time.

There are also Genetics Guides on the site. These guides are a useful resource about some basic concepts that come up around ancestry and genetics. They serve as a valuable reference for people who are new to the study of genetics and ancestry. The guides include: Key Words About Genetics and Key Words About Ancestry.

I should be getting my 23andMe results soon and I am very excited about what I might learn. I think I’m most interested in the nature vs. nurture personality traits, but also, possible medical issues. I’ll be sure to post on what I find along the way.

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Ideas for Active Viewing by Students While Watching the Inauguration

I’ve posted a variety of Inauguration lessons and ideas for innovative educators to use with their students, but what about on the actual day of the Inauguration? Innovative educators know that when Inauguration day comes you don’t want to have your students passively watching this historic event. Active, engaged, focused viewing is the key. To that end, I’ve come up with a few ideas to ensure we are engaging students and stimulating their minds with active viewing activities. Here they are.

Student Reporters

Put together a post-inaugural newspaper, or blog at your school with reports from students. Work with students, groups, or classes, to determine various angles to cover i.e. the weather, the children, the balls, the fashion. Have them do research in advance and while they are watching the inauguration have them take notes for their stories. Following the inauguration have students discuss their pieces and publish their work.

Resource: Writing: Newspaper Articles

Call to Service

Barack Obama has launched a national organizing effort on the eve of their Inauguration to engage Americans in service. This national day of service will fall on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 19, 2009 and, unlike past calls to service, President-elect Obama is calling on all Americans to do more than just offer a single day of service to their cities, towns and neighborhoods. He is asking all of us to make an ongoing commitment to our communities. When watching the inauguration, have your students think, “What is one thing that the president speaks about on which you think you can have an impact? How might you accomplish this?”

Resource: http://usaservice.org - This website is designed to help Americans make their commitments to service, build communities, find opportunities to serve and share their results. These can be events that engage people in direct service, or bring people together to determine how they can commit to becoming more engaged citizens.

Four-Column Chart

Use this four column chart for a more open viewing experience. Prior to watching the event share this chart with your students. At the top of each column have students brainstorm unique headings for what they’ll be looking for when they view the event i.e. favorite quotes, people I recognize, what surprised me, what am I excited about, what people are wearing, etc. Once students are viewing the inauguration have them fill in their charts. Following the event have students discuss what they found and write an overview of their findings from the one column they found most interesting. For educators in technology-rich schools, consider posting this on a blog or wiki.

Resource: You can download a Four-Column Chart here.

Timeline of Events

As students are watching the event have them record the timeline of events. What occurred and when? What is the significance of each? On the top of the chart they can write the event. Underneath they can summarize their reflection on the event. Prior to the Inauguration you can have students practice this activity by doing this watching another Inaugural speech. After the event you can have students compare and contrast the timelines and note the significance of differences and similiarities.

Resources: You can download a Time Line Chart here or a Time-Order Chart here.

HotChalk is providing 25 FREE high-quality video clips on U.S. inaugural addresses. Check them out here.

Text Reporter

You can Text HISTORY to 56333 for the Latest Inauguration Info. As part the Presidential Inauguration Committee’s commitment to hosting the most open and accessible inauguration in history, they are offering a variety of resources via SMS text message to keep people in the know about inaugural activities. Assign a student or student groups to follow the inauguration and keep their school up-to-date using text messaging.

Resources: Text HISTORY to 56333 today or sign up for text message updates on our website. Also, be sure to take a look at the following options, for more about event updates, scheduling changes, preparation tips, weather reports, DC transportation, and President-elect Obama’s Renew America Together initiative.

• Text SCHDL to 56333 for latest updates and breaking announcements and any schedule changes.

• Text TIPS to 56333 for information on how to prepare for Inauguration

Estimate the Cost

How much do you think the Inauguration costs? There are salaries to secure the president, sanitation, food, general security, inaugural ball. Think of ongoing costs verses costs for this event.

Resource: Do a Google search for “Presidential Inauguration Cost.”

KWL Chart

Have students identify what they know, what they want to know and what they have learned about the Inauguration and President Obama.

Resource: You can download a KWL Chart here.

Thought Provoking Questions

The presidential inaugural committee produced the following questions to have students reflect on when watching the inauguration.

· "What vision does President Obama have for public education?"

· "What does he say divides us as a country and how does he want to unify and strengthen America?"

· "How will President Obama make our country more secure?"

· "What does President Obama ask Americans to do to help strengthen the country?"

You may want to have chart paper or sentence strips posted around the room with this questions. Students can have post its where they record the answers and place them on the walls with their reflections.

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