Be Fit With Biray

I enjoy evolving my personal yoga practice by gaining additional insights from other yoga instructors, thoughtful readings, and other intimate experiences. Usually on Sundays, I challenge my practice with a heated or yin/relax yoga class at local InnerVision Yoga studio. This morning was different. My energy was distracted and I couldn’t make it out of the house in time for class. So, being the techno-driven fitness geek that I am, I defaulted to my resources on the web – podcasts.

This morning I downloaded a free yoga podcast from aliveyoga.com – a site delivering recordings from actual yoga classes by world-renowned instructors. The yoga-cast was guided by Beryl Bender Birch, the founder and director of The Hard & the Soft Yoga Institute in East Hampton and Vermont and best-selling author Power Yoga. It was an hour and thirty-four minute intermediate class, primarily focused on flow.

Being that I’m a visual learner, it is difficult for me to grasp cues solely by listening. This was both challenging and frustrating during my practice. (Ironically, working through this challenge became the focus of my experience this morning.) Around 53 minutes, I strayed a bit from the format. I reconnected again at the end, during savasana or final relaxation/meditation.

Initially, I found the experience to be disorienting – I’m so reliant on having a visual guide. It is also a bit distracting to hear Birch talking to other participants – although it does give the feeling of a real-time class. I was hoping she’d bring more attention to her ‘podcast’ audience. But Birch definitely delivers a well-designed class. Now that I’m familiar with her cues and poses, I wouldn’t mind listening to this podcast a second or third time. However, I would not recommend this yoga-cast for those who are unfamiliar with yoga terminology – especially in Sanskrit form.

I will continue to explore various health-related podcasts and post my thoughts on the blog. I want to gain a better understanding of the value and limitations that come with delivering fitness and wellness classes through audio formats.

Namaste

The use of technology can be debatable when it comes to education – when is it appropriate to bring technology into the classroom, what kind of technology is effective in teaching, and how will it ultimately benefit student learning? These are some of the questions that are frequently appearing in today’s academic conversations. Check out Educause, a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

At Mesa Community College, I co-facilitate (with colleague Shelley Rodrigo) a sub-group within the Faculty Professional Learning Community (FPLC) specifically about new technologies in education (we call ourselves the “Jetsons”). A group of us (staff and faculty) gather regularly and discuss topics like podcasting, blogging, Second Life, wikis and other types of social media and explore how they apply to our own teachings.

I’m always interested in how these technologies apply to health and fitness education. Becuase I discuss a wide range of health-related topics in my classes, I feel it’s important that students have an opportunity to broadcast what they’ve learned with the public. This is valuable for two reasons: 1) the quality of work increases when students know their projects will be viewed by the public, 2) it is another way to increase health awareness in the our local and global community.

Technology allows people to easily create media messages and broadcast them online. So why not create more health-related messages? So, this semester I’ve been toying with the use of blogging, podcasting, and vodcasting in health and fitness education. Embedding these features within projects and assignments, I’m learning a lot about the effectiveness of this technology as my students discuss the pros/cons of their experiences in using them.

Podcasts: Every 2-3 weeks I give the students a challenge to create a podcast on an assigned question or topic. One week I asked them to interview people in the community about their barriers to exercise. The next day we listened to the podcasts and used these real-life scenarios to discuss ways to combat people’s resistance to physical activity. I found that Gabcast was the most convenient way for students to capture audio and publish the podcast simply by using their cellphones – no mics, computer audio programs, post-production edit, etc. (I’ve posted these student podcasts on the class blog.)

Vodcasting: With over 65,000 videos uploaded to YouTube a day, it’s evident that audio/video production is not as cumbersome as it used to be. Back in the day (when I went to school), asking students to create a multi-media presentation for class (unless it was a film/TV production course) was a challenge. I’ve found that this net-generation of students are less resistant to these kinds of opportunities. This semester each student is creating a health-related public service announcement (PSA). Using JumpCut to create their message, students can create an effective montage sequence coupled with music and informative text. They can share their work with friends, family, and the public (and get direct feedback)! (I’ve posted these PSA’s on the class blog.)

Blogging: I haven’t decided how to best integrate the use of blogs into my classes, yet. So far I have only offered assignments where students can follow certain health-related blogs and report feedback on them. Also, I’m keeping a public class blog and using it as the platform to share the students’ PSAs, podcast challenges, and research projects with the community.

I’m looking forward to exploring more of these technologies in hopes to find better ways to improve teaching and learning in health education.