Ed Tech Fitness

Feel Better, Teach Better

Fitness tracker

A Good Deal on a Great Fitness Watch

By

Six months ago I decided that I wanted to get a smartwatch / fitness watch. I had previously used a Fitbit Charge for counting steps and heart rate (not accurately) and a Casio Pathfinder for basic information about altitude, barometric pressure, and location while skiing and hiking. But I wanted to get something that combined all of those features into one package.

After extensive research, I purchased a Garmin Instinct and I love it! You can read about my entire selection process here and what I learned in the first month of wearing it here.

As is almost always the case when I purchase something electronic, the price of the Garmin Instinct is now significantly less than what I paid for it in January. The Garmin Instinct is now available as low as $246 on Amazon depending upon the color you select. The baby poop yellow version is $246 and all non-poop colors are $249 or roughly $70 less than I paid six months ago. Also, there are more colors available now than six months ago.

If you’re in the market for a new fitness watch that isn’t bulky and doesn’t look like every other smartwatch worn by every soccer mom on the block, the Garmin Instinct is a great choice. (Sorry soccer moms, I love you, but I don’t want to look like you).

Create a Group Fitness Tracker With Google Forms & Sheets

By

Like many of you I wear a fitness watch that keeps track of my steps, flights of stairs, heart rate, and all kinds of other data about my daily physical activities. That’s all well and good for individual users. But what if you wanted to create a fitness or physical activity goal for a group of colleagues or for a group of students? Then you’re going to need a way to collect and tally data in an efficient way. Google Forms & Sheets could be the solution you’re looking for.

As is demonstrated in my video below, you can create a Google Form to have people enter their steps for the day or their minutes spent exercising during the day. Then in the corresponding Google Sheet you can use a pivot table to have the data quickly tallied for you.

By the way, if you’re in the market for a fitness watch, I have been quite happy with the Garmin Instinct that I purchased in January. (It’s now listed on Amazon at $10 cheaper than when I bought it). Here’s my detailed review of the Garmin Instinct.

Blending Technology Into Outdoor Lessons

By

Last week I spoke at the MACUL Conference in Detroit, Michigan. One of the talks that I gave was titled 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons. You can view the slides here, but they’re not worth much without my explanation of the key points. Those are outlined below.

Geocaching

Geocaching is an activity in which you use your mobile phone or a handheld GPS device to find hidden caches. You can find lists of caches in your area by logging into Geocaching.org and exploring the interactive map.

Digital Mapping

In digital mapping students can use Google’s My Maps, Google’s VR Tour Creator, ESRI, or Scribble Maps to create maps. All of those platforms will let students incorporate their own images and videos of interesting things they’ve found outside.

Students can also use Google’s My Maps to plan safe running and biking routes.

Augmented Reality

Pokemon Go was the first popular, mainstream use of augmented reality in outdoor settings. With tools like Metaverse you and your students can create own educational augmented reality applications to use outside. I recently used Metaverse to create an Amazing Race game and a couple of years ago I used it to create a history mystery game.

Recording Observations

Project Noah is a program that I have been promoting for years. It’s a community-powered project (with some backing from National Geographic) in which users submit pictures and written observations of nature in their neighborhoods. There is a classroom version of Project Noah that provides projects for classrooms to complete together.

Activity Tracking

Does your class have a fitness goal? Perhaps a goal for a cumulative time spent playing outside in a week? Using Google Form along with a pivot table in Google Sheets is an easy way to track progress toward that goal. And starting in June you could use the Moki activity tracker to keep track of steps. Unlike activity trackers made for the general public, Moki doesn’t use Bluetooth or GPS tracking.

I’ll be talking about all of these ideas in much more detail in next week’s Practical Ed Tech webinar, 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons.

Moki – An Activity Tracker Made for Schools

By

Today at the BETT Show I stumbled upon a start-up company called Moki. Moki is producing a fitness tracker that is designed for student use. At first glance you might think that it is just a colorful Fitbit, but it’s quite different from a Fitbit and similar fitness tracker bands. There are some key differences in the technology between Moki and Fitbit. But the biggest difference between Moki and Fitbit is in data collection and data use.

The Technology of Moki

Moki looks like a kids version of Fitbit or Garmin activity tracker because of the band design, but that’s about where the similarities end. Moki doesn’t use Bluetooth to sync data between the wrist band and a computer or phone. Instead of Bluetooth Moki uses a wireless data transfer like that found in popular contactless payment systems like is found in some gift cards and in Oyster cards.

At the beginning of the day students tap their Moki bands against a data reader that is connected to your computer. Then at the end of the day students tap the reader again to sync their day’s data to your computer. As a teacher you can see all of the day’s data in one screen. Over time you can see weekly and monthly data reports too.

Data Privacy in Moki

As a product designed for school Moki has made data privacy its first concern. To that end the Moki bands only record movement and not heartbeats or any other data that is typically collected in activity trackers and smart watches made for adults.

Data that you collect via Moki is stored on your computer, not on Moki’s platform. The only data that Moki does collect is anonymized information about the number of students you have and generalized patterns. In other words Moki doesn’t know which student is which and what they do individually. You’re the only one who has access to individualized data and that is done through your computer.

Uses for Moki

The obvious use for Moki is simple tracking toward collective class goals like 100,000 steps in a day. You can also create small groups within your class to create group goals.

A use for Moki that I didn’t think of, but was shared with me by one of Moki’s founders, is to use the data collected through Moki to optimize room change schedules between classes in day. By optimizing those schedules schools are able to help students get in a little bit more activity in a day.

Where to Get Moki?

I asked about general availability of Moki. Unfortunately, it’s only available through Moki itself right now as it is still in a beta period. They are signing-up schools for participation right now. If you’re interested in trying Moki in your school, get in touch with them.

%d bloggers like this: