What technology do you use on a match day? I try to use as much as possible and it is great if you are trying to distract kids. A bit of a cop out on day 6 but I have a previous post on using technology on a match day which is still relevant now! Take a look at http://wp.me/p1giPk-1F
Please feel free to share you ideas and experiences of using technology on a match day below so we can all learn from each other.
Recently I was contacted by Sports Coach UK to do some research for them into 2 areas. The first being how coaches can use technology to improve their coaching, aimed mainly at grassroots coaching. The second was to look into methods of how coaches can share best practice online. Both pieces are really only an overview of what could really be looked into and I would have loved more time to write my articles however both appear to have been very well received very well. The links to the report are shown below. Feel free to comment and rate them on the Sports Coach UK website, all feedback is welcome!
Report 1: http://www.sportscoachuk.org/resource/technology-use-your-coaching
Report 2: http://www.sportscoachuk.org/resource/sharing-good-practice-coaching
It is great when you realise your true passion about a subject. I have been lucky to have some amazing and inspirational teachers and lecturers over the years. It makes a great difference to how much you love a subject, yet oddly my passion is something I have never been taught. Using social media and technology in sport was proved to be my passion today when sitting in a Dtlls lesson about information communication technology and being so excited about the topic I actually thought I was going to burst! It is weird how something that has never been taught to me has proven to be a great love of mine, and whilst one lecturer encouraged my love of it, it occurred to me that perhaps the things we teach ourselves are the things we are most interested in. I suppose this is good because if everyone became passionate about something someone else had already taught them, nothing new would ever be discovered!
I haven’t posted on here in so long as I have been very busy however I thought that I would get started again. The topic for today was thought of when I was planning my lesson for tomorrow. I have one of the best topics to teach… technology in sport. Now for those of you new to following me or to my blog you may be asking why is that so great? Those of you who have been here before will understand what a massive geek I am and how technology in sport is a passion of mine.
So I was writing up my lesson for tomorrow, deciding which areas to cover as I only have a certain amount of time to do it in and it took me back to when I was doing my DT A level. I had 2 projects which I based around my love of football, the first was a research project into the evolution of football boots. The project was very interesting and I learnt a lot about football boots and technology used to create products in general. The second was a practical project where I took a product and looked to improve it. My product was to improve the shin pads and then I linked up with a local company who creates seats for racing drivers out of kevlar (and obviously other products with this). At the time kevlar was amazing to me, it was light and tough at the same time. I took a piece into my DT group and challenged them to break it, nobody was successful despite the use of hammers drills and saws etc. I would like to point out that at this point in my life I was very lazy (yes ok so not much has changed!) but I do owe a lot to Tillett and in particular Steve Tillett who spent the time to show me around the buildings, advised me on my project and helped me to realise the potential there is for sports equipment. Looking at some of the new products and technology out there whilst researching for my lesson I have realised how quickly everything has moved on and how things such as d3o could now be used in so many pieces of sports equipment.
It also made me realise how technology can actually be used in sport and that nearly everything we now do in sport is reliant on technology at the top level. Whilst I tend to focus on a particular area it really is spectacular how sport has gone from training as hard and long as you can to ensuring that everything is looked at in detail and from a scientific perspective such as diet and heart rate etc. Nothing is left to chance, showing how science has such a large part to play in everything we do now. This could lead me on to another topic but I think I will save that for tomorrow.
I cannot wait to see what the future holds for technology in sport and I hope that I can play a small part in improving athletic performance at the top level through this technology.
I think that social media is becoming a part of every day life, especially for the younger generations. As coaches it is important to realise how social media can be used with the athlete to improve performance because that is what we are here for at the end of the day! Whilst there are hundreds of thousands of ways of using social media I believe that social media’s uses for coaches can be split into 4 key categories. Communication, Performance Analysis, Monitoring and Marketing. My aim will be to write about these in much more detail in the future however for now here is a short(ish) introduction.
Communication
Communication is a vital part of both the coaching process and the coach athlete relationship and the right type of communication can make the difference to an athlete’s performance. Obviously communication ranges from the coach giving information on dates of training and competitions to athletes through to ensuring their welfare. Both can be covered through social media. Whilst at a talk on social media in sport with Lance Wicks I picked up on the phrase “ambient social awareness” which means knowing what is going on with someone or something however it is generally in the background. In coaching terms this means knowing if your athlete is going out drinking regularly to finding out if they found a training session tough and are aching the next day. Whilst they won’t come and tell you this normally you are able to pick up on this and work with them in a slightly different way to improve their performance. It will also help you to realise when you can push your athletes and when they are likely to switch off to you. Sites like pitchero and teamer are also a good way of communicating competition and training times with your team or athletes.
Performance Analysis
This allows you and your athlete to discuss their performance at a competition or training session, videos placed on youtube or the club website can be very useful. This will take up less time within your training session so that the practical element of practicing the skills and techniques can be covered rather than talking about past performances.
Monitoring
This can link in with the “ambient social awareness” that i have already discussed however it can also consider the monitoring of training outside of your club. Most people now have smart phones which allow people to download apps such as run keeper or even something such as a pedometer. This will allow you to track your athlete’s runs and extra exercise. Online training logs can also be used to help keep track of this. This is especially important n your athletes as they may regularly be competing for schools and other sports clubs and you will not want your athlete to burn out or injure themselves by overtraining.
Marketing
As a coach the likelihood of you having the benefit of a marketing team is low unless you are working at a top level. You therefore will need to advertise your club’s successes and try to recruit new members. Advertising yourself as a coach is also a good idea. There are many platforms you can do this through from facebook to linkedin, it all depends on your requirements.
Whilst in turkey we went to the EJU’s championships, I was very impressed (being accredited helped)! As someone who doesn’t do judo I learnt a lot from the weekend, I think I now partly understand the main rules however I have also learnt how explosive the sport is. We put some of our students with different people working in the stadium to shadow them and it seems that there was a lot to be learnt.
The one thing that interests me the most was the use of video analysis for the referees. They used a system similar to performance analysts, they could tag when something happened for them to look at later, it could be replayed and more accurate decisions made. The tagged parts can then be used in a referees meeting in the evenings. This is definitely some other sports should be using!
I have also seen a few things in judo that need updating. The first, being my pet hate, is the warm ups, the players ran round the mat more than anyone in football, it was shocking! I seriously encourage any coaches of any sport to not only question if your training is relevant to the sport but also if the warm up is relevant!!! I did not see a judo player run across the mat once during a fight, if they did it would have been no more than 3 steps!!!!
Overall the championships were great fun, any excuse to watch live sport is a good one! Met many new people, got to wear my new favourite suit, new Anglia Ruskin university blouse and learnt about another sport, has to be a good weekend!
Ok so yesterday I forgot to press publish and so I thought I would post yesterday’s post today instead (yes I know it’s cheating but still!)
I have been told so many times that I am addicted to the internet and how I seem to spend most of my life on it. It’s true I think I am to social media, and it led me to think about what I do in my own time that isn’t internet related. First I thought about my ps3… it uses the internet, so how about my iphone… it uses the internet. So what do I do? It only really leaves a few things, cutting out anything that involves technology brings it down even more. In fact as I don’t really read much it only leaves my coaching (luckily it is one of the only things I like more than social media). Made me wonder if I could actually go a day without social media, or even a day without technology. I think it might be a topic for a future blog…
Day 4 – I will admit that this blog post wasn’t originally my idea. I took it from another blog I found and liked it as it fits in quite well recently! I was reading through some ideas and saw “My Mother is on Facebook”. This is quite relevant at the moment, my mother IS on facebook and I think looks at my profile the most. It’s good in a way because we can keep up on what each other is doing as I am often too busy to answer the phone, but it does have it’s down sides. Mum I know you are reading this so I would like to say you seriously need to stop commenting and liking nearly EVERY status I put on facebook. There is a reason why people don’t add their parents and I have found it. On my profile “wall” my Mum has probably commented the most… should you really add Mum’s on facebook? Maybe but certain ones (yes mother that’s you please and thank you) need to hold back their excitement of seeing a new status update and not comment EVERY time 🙂
p.s. Mum I love you please don’t hate me 🙂
I had an interesting chat to my students today on the topic of social media. Being sports students you wouldn’t expect them to be experts on social media but there was a large amount of knowledge. My students went on to discuss how they spend most of their life on facebook, how facebook is checked more often than their emails and any other social network and also how they wish lecturers could contact them through facebook.
“Why can’t lecturers add you on facebook? It’s not like you would be stalking us without our consent. In fact I think it would help me!”
One of my students said this and it just showed me how much a lot of students clearly trust their lecturers, and how they understand how they can control their friends, they see that they have an option to connect with people which was great! You always get the age old answer of “it’s to safeguard you and us” ok fair enough, I can see the reasoning behind that. Surely though if there was a way of connecting college life and facebook it would be beneficial to students?
Most colleges, schools and universities have a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment for those of you out of education) which is updated with information and work that students need. It can be a useful tool if used properly, but getting students to visit it regularly is difficult, especially when at home. But imagine if they could access it on something that they already check hundreds of times a day. Imagine if you didn’t have to wait for them to read their emails, if you could send it to them in a way that you are 99% sure they will see it within an hour. You could send messages to students about class cancellations, rerooming, deadline reminders and much more!!! Surely this would help students to be more organised, know what they are doing? How about if you could then make this link through to a discussion board, which can be accessed via mobile devices, with some discussion points on for students.
Imagine if students actually started to engage on their VLE through facebook and checked their VLE hundreds of times a day too! Wouldn’t that be great?! I have not come across anything yet that is quite as sophisticated or would link with our work. If anyone happens to know anything that can do this with moodle it would be great to find out.
Do you use social media with your students? What do they think of it and how successful is it?
#socialmedia #education #virtuallearningenvironment #vle #teaching #facebook
Chloe Brown 