The FitMet BMI calculator has been fixed. The CDC growth charts now appear as a PDF file that you can print. It is best to run the calculator from either the Firefox or Google Chrome web browsers.
FitMet is looking to improve on this simple calculator. Please feel free to leave a comment here if you have a suggestion.
Thanks to the participants at Project NorthReach who discovered the broken links.
It has been brought to our attention that the FitMet Body Bass Index Calculator is currently not working on the both Safari and Microsoft Explore web browsers. Currently, the calculator does work with Firefox. Also, the Centers for Disease Control links for the male and female BMI growth charts are broken as well. We will find the new links for the CDC Growth charts and fix both problems. FitMet apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused you in you classrooms.
Please check in periodically. We will let you know when these issues have been resolved.
This is a how to guide for creating a free Google Web-page for you classes or school.
By Matthew Bassett
1) Go to google.com
2) Sign-up for an account if you don’t already have an account (right side at the top)
3) Click on more (right side of the menu bar)
4) Click on sites
5) Click Create new sites
6) Type in the name of your site (Subject, your name, combinations of the two)
7) Type in a description of the site as needed
Sharing: Either specify everyone or people I share with. The site will only be visible to those you send invitations to if it is the people I share with.
9) Change the Theme: Find a site that shows a theme you enjoy.
10) Type in the code shown on the left side
11) Click Create Site
12) Sometimes the web site you created will have already been taken, look over the list that may appear and choose one or type in another idea.
13) The new screen that appears is the first part on your new web site.
14) Click Edit Page (top right side)
15) In the top box it says home. If you’d like to rename this just click and delete and then retype what you would like. This might be a place to say “Welcome to______”
16) Move down and type into the lower box what you want people to know when visiting your site. This may be a great place to say a little about you or just give a brief welcome message for visiting the web page.
17) When finished with your editing, click save.
18) To create a new page, click Create Page (top right)
19) Select the type of page you would like to add
a. Web Page: General Information that you want to add
b. Dash Board: A place to have four different gadgets to use on your web page
c. Announcements: A place to store announcements for your web page
d. File Cabinet: A place to store files from your computer (excel files, power point files, word files, .pdf documents, pictures).
e. List: Creating a web page that has a list of information
20) Type in the name of the new page
21) Select the level you would like to find the page in the navigation bar (left side of your page)
a. Top Level: Will be seen on the left side
b. Put Page Under: Will be visible under a specific topic (arrow to open the topic)
22) Click Create Page
23) The new page will open and you can start to enter text into the two boxes. The top box is the title. The lower box is the place to type in all of your information.
24) When finished entering text, click save (top right)
25) At the bottom of the web page you can find a button that says attachments. Click on attachments if you would like to add an attachment to your web page. A prompt will enter asking you to find the file you would like to add. When you find it click open. This will allow you to add in documents that you’ve created for your classes.
26) Sub pages, when creating pages you can add a sub page. Example, I would create a page for period #1, I might have a sub page on period 1, soccer. Inside of this soccer page I would list information about my soccer unit. I could attach files that I use to help my student’s learn about their soccer skills. To create a sub page you will have to click, “put page under _____.”
Think about the structure of your page before starting to develop. You will save a lot of time if you know how you would like it to look instead of working and realizing it is a very confusing web page. I have found that creating a web page based on my grade levels taught works the best. Under each grade level, I have created sub pages for each subject that I teach. My subjects are based on the California Physical Education Standards.
Adding a Calendar
1) Go to Google.com
2) Click more
3) Click Calendar
4) Create a new calendar for yourself. This calendar would be a great place for you to put important information for what your class schedule looks like, when items are due, when you are having assessments, etc.
5) You can add an event on your calendar by clicking on the date and the time of the event, and then drag the event time down to when it stops. Then type in the name of the event.
6) Go back to your google web site, start by creating a new web page
7) Click create page
Name the page, “Calendar”
9) Choose to place the page at the top level
10) Click Create Page
11) The new calendar page will appear
12) Type in any text in the lower area. This might be a place to make a comment about important dates, times, etc. for class will be found here.
13) To insert the calendar directly into the web page, click insert
14) Click calendar
15) Click the calendar you would like to see added (named by your user name for google).
16) Click Select
17) Look through the information on the new screen. Some of the information you might want to leave out. I have checked off the include title section (it has my email address listed). I also remove the show calendar name section.
18) Click save when finished. (The calendar box will disappear and take you back to the page itself)
19) Click save (upper right side)
Developing Microsoft Word Handouts
Handouts are things that have become very important in my class. My goal is to eventually have at least one handout for every standard that I teach. This is a very slow process but the quality of my teaching increases with each standard that I focus on. Here are some tips for making those handouts a little more stylish.
#1: Make a Title
There are two ways to make a title for your handout. First, change the font size and the font style. Word comes with a variety of choices but you can also purchase font programs that give you extra fonts. The second way to make a title is through word art. From the insert menu, click on picture, and then click on word art. Here a box will open that shows the word art gallery. Find one of the word art styles that you like. Just click on it and then click OK. Type in the text for the title. At this location, you can change the font style and also the font size. When you’re done you click OK. This is when the word art box opens in the word document. You can click on the corner of the box and drag to resize the box.
#2: Insert a picture
Placing a picture into your handout makes it more visually appealing. What better way to talk about a motor skill than to have a picture of those motor skills? You can get a picture into the text from a digital picture you’ve taken on your camera, a scanned picture, or from the internet (by downloading the picture). All of these can be created by going to the insert menu and clicking on picture. If you have a picture on your computer already (digital picture of internet download) you can click on find file. Then you will be asked to locate the file you are looking for. If you want to look for a piece of clip art you would simply click on clip art from the picture menu.
After you insert the picture you can make lots of changes to the pictures. First, double click on the picture to highlight the picture. I find that the layout is one of the most important menu items. This is where I can tell the document how I want the picture to be used. Do I want the picture in front of the text? Do I want it in line with the text? Personally, I usually pick the tight function and it allows me to move the picture wherever I want. The picture menu allows me to change the color content of the picture. Since I typically print my handouts in black and white I change the color of the picture to either black and white or grayscale. I always check to see which way looks a little nicer.
After moving the picture to its intended location I can resize the picture. By clicking on the picture one time I will see little circles around the picture. I can click on any circle and resize the picture. The circles in the corner allow me to resize both height and width in proportion to each other. This is usually my top option. The green circle at the top allows me to rotate the picture on the page so that it isn’t vertical or horizontal but diagonal.
If you right click on the picture and click on the show picture toolbar you will find a lot of new tools to work on your pictures. Here you will find buttons to change the colors, change the contrast, change the brightness of the picture
, crop the picture, rotate the picture and place lines around the picture. The key is to keep making changes until the picture looks like you want it to.
#3: Create a table
Creating a table can be a great way to organize a lot of information for your students. Instead of writing in a paragraph format, you can divide the information into cells. From the table menu, click insert, and then click table. The table menu pops up for you to develop the table. Change the number of columns that you need by typing in the new number of columns. Remember, columns are the part of the table that goes up and down. Then change the number or rows, the part of the table that goes side to side. Click OK when you have finished inserting the correct number of rows and columns. The new table should appear in your word document.
To change the column (up and down) width, click on one of the vertical lines in the document. When your cursor changes from the arrow to a line with two different arrows (pointing away from each other), then you can click and drag the line to the desired location. You can make the table bigger or smaller or make one column bigger or smaller. If you have two columns that you want to make the same size, just highlight the columns by clicking your mouse and dragging the mouse across the affected columns. Then right click on the highlighted area before clicking on distribute columns evenly. If you find that you’ve forgotten a column or need to add a row, you can highlight either a row or column and right click. You will find the add column or add row button in the menu.
With a little work and practice you can be making some wonderful handouts for your students. I’ve used handouts for general information about motor skills, fitness skills, fitness concepts and peer evaluation forms. Adding in some style can help take a boring handout into a visually appealing handout. Be creative while working with your handouts. You can always sketch one out on a blank piece of paper before starting your word version. Remember, when you get into trouble and you’re not sure what you just did, control-V (undelete) is your friend! Until next time!
By Matthew Bassett
Part 4 of a 4 part series.
While teachers may find pedometers to be a valuable way to incorporate technology and to provide motivation, there are a few drawbacks. All of these should be considered before purchasing a class set and when developing lessons.
Despite these problems, I’ve found pedometers to be useful in my classes. You want to be able to keep your investment for a long time and having thought through these issues will help.
By Matthew Bassett
Part 3 of a 4 part series.
After students have learned to use pedometers there are a number of ways that you can integrate them into different subjects or concepts.
Perceived exertion. A pedometer can be used to work on perceived exertion, another physical education standard. A student can make comparisons to the number of steps taken to a perceived exertion chart. This chart was originally designed to work off of a person’s heart rate but a teacher can guide students to a moderate activity (through steps) and can help the student make a judgment on their location of the perceived exertion chart.
Multiplication. A teacher can use a simple math integration for every lesson while using the pedometers. A student who has learned their stride length can estimate how far they have traveled by multiplying the number of steps by their stride length. The result will be the approximate distance traveled. Having students figure out this simple multiplication problem can be a simple cross-curricular lesson.
Estimation. I have students run across the field and ask them to estimate how many steps they would take in order to travel that distance. They can also use some of their own knowledge of their stride length and field length to determine an answer. This involves using division to find their answer.
Graphing. Having students graph the information that you have written down through the the tracking of data is also a useful math lesson. After a few weeks of using pedometers, a class period can be devoted to graphing the data.
Compare and contrast. A Language arts integration can be to use the data to compare and/or contrast different types of activities. Any time that you can ask a student to write about what they have been doing helps to deepen their content knowledge in physical education and helps to integrate language arts as well.
These are just a few of the ideas I have used to integrate pedometers into physical education and other subjects as well. The sky is the limit and I encourage the reader to be as creative as possible in attempting to integrate pedometers into their lessons.
By Matthew Basset
Part 2 of a 4 part series.
After purchasing pedometers you should spend a lot of time learning how to use them yourself. After you’ve become familiar with this new piece of technology, you should think about teaching cues that will be necessary.
Here are some helpful hints to think about: