Common Craft Video Social Media in Plain English

Those clever people at Common Craft have done it again with another video this time explaining social media in plain English. You can now download all of their videos from the Common Craft Store.

Free mindmap tool

Here is a nifty little free mind mapping tool text 2 mindmap. Its really simple to use it takes a structured list of words or sentences, interprets it, and draws a mind map of them. You can drag the nodes around to alter the layout of the mind map and  you can alter the text size and colour and the colour of the lines. When you are happy you can download the mindmap as a jpeg.

Mountain Biking at Golspie High

Wim Chalmet at Golspie High School has been doing some great work introducing alternative activities in PE. I am really impressed with how he is taking mountain biking forward. The video below shows some of the highlights thus far.

Pastures New

Life has been hectic since I returned to Banchory Academy but I must admit it is great to be back at school. However I knew I would be wanting to seek out new challenges after my secondment with Learning and Teaching Scotland
Well I have got my wish as this week I was successful in gaining a Deputy Head post in Ellon Academy. Hopefully I will be able to take up the post at the beginning of the new school session.

Cycle Friendly Schools Award (Primary)

Cycling Scotland recently launched the Cycle Friendly schools award for primary schools. The aim of the new scheme is to encourage cycling as part of the whole school culture and contribute to increasing the number of children cycling to and at school.  The Award is part of a whole school approach to cycling which can contribute to health promoting school and Eco-School initiatives.  Additionally, the scheme links directly with cycle training that is offered at school in particular the Scottish Cycle Training Scheme and Cycling Scotland’s Ready Steady Bike and Go ByCycle programmes.

 

Fit For Girls Development manager post

Fit for Girls is a national programme aimed at encouraging schoolgirls aged 11-16 years to adopt more active lifestyles. The programme is funded through the Scottish Government and Sportscotland, in partnership with the Youth Sport Trust.

The programme requires a Development Manager who will take responsibility for leading the implementation of this programme in local authorities across Scotland.

For an application pack, please visit the website www.sportscotland.org.uk/jobs or telephone 0131 472 3333. Closing date for completed applications:  Monday 9 June 2008

 

Human Kinetics News letters

Human Kinetics UKPE April Newsletter contains some interesting articles and references to resources summary below

·  International Dance Day discount!

·  Help your pupils learn essential social skills through character-building activities

·  Achieve maximum fun and fitness in PE lessons with new physical education resource

·  Parents ‘too scared to let children play outside’

·  £5.5m plan to inspire new generation of Billy Elliots in schools

·  Obese children to die younger than parents

·  Labour’s 187 broken promises on playing field sales

·  Heart disease risk ‘increases for children who are inactive’

·  School-gate fast food ban urged

·  More children are watching junk-food adverts despite ban

There is also lots of lots of interesting reading and resources identified in the April FitNews the April Academic News the May FitNews and the May Academic News. Happy reading

Inspirational Sports Blog Kyle Shewfelt

I have been following the Blog of Kyle Shewfelt a Canadian Gymnast and I find it fantastically inspirational on all sorts of levels. Kyle is the current Olympic Floor exercise champion and he stared the blog in August  2007 to document his preparation for Beijing 2008. However in September he broke both his legs. The Blog is a wonderful account of the journey he has been on to get himself into contention for again for Beijing. The punishing training routines and the mental battles he has won to get his Olympic dream back on track make great reading and the videos he has posted show this phenomenal athletes abilities. This post and video from Kyle sum up exactly what I mean.

I have always really admired gymnasts the incredible limits they push their bodies to perform unbelievable skills. I truly hope Kyle makes it and if he does (even though I am Scottish) I will be rooting for him in Beijing.

 

Weezer Pork and Beans Video

I thought this was quite cool Weezer have just released their new single “pork and beans” and the video for it is an amalgamation of Youtube stars cameo appearances. How many do you recognise? I will give you 2 for starters Lauren Caitlin Upton (Junior Miss South Carolina), Judson Laipply (Evolution of Dance). You just never know where uploading a video on Youtube will take you pity most of our schools will not find out. 

The Weezer video coincides with the launch of a new Weezer channel on YouTube www.youtube.com/weezer its a prety good tune too listen and watch for yourself.

New PE videos on Teachers TV

In the first video Estelle Morris meets Sue Campbell, who has been given the task of completely reinvigorating British sport, to discuss the importance of sport to school children. http://www.teachers.tv/video/26185

The second video looks at how a primary school teacher has introduced Yoga into her teaching. http://www.teachers.tv/video/26328