Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Roddy-locks and the 3 Bears

A Fable About Going to the Cabin

One fine weekend, Roddy-locks decided to visit his cabin in the woods. It was a beautiful place on the edge of a sparkling lake, surrounded by trees and gorgeous scenery.




When Roddy-locks arrived at his cabin and was unpacking his stuff, he noticed something was not quite right. First, he noticed that his food was missing, and had been replaced by what looked like alien potatoes. "What happened to my food?" Roddy-locks wondered. "And who are these funny little alien spuds?"




Then he noticed that his cold beverages had been replaced by a lot of funny green bottles. "I don't recognize these," he said. "I wonder where they came from?"





Roddy-locks also remembered that he had left some towels laying around the cabin the last time he was there. He was starting to worry; what had happened to the towels?





Roddy-locks shook his head. Food, beverages, towels - he was becoming verrrrrry worried.

Puzzled, he sat down to watch some TV, but his satellite receiver was not giving him the channels he ordered. So he called Bell Express Vu and was put through to a very friendly person named Mike. Mike was able to help Roddy-locks, and was even able to identify that he was in Newfoundland.

"What are you doing in Newfoundland, Roddy-locks?" Mike asked.

"I am visiting my cabin in the woods," Roddy-locks explained.

"Be careful, Roddy-locks," Mike cautioned. "There might be big bad bears in the woods of Newfoundland!"

"Oh, I'll be careful!" replied Roddy-locks, although as he said that and hung up, he got frightfully nervous. "I'm really scared of bears, especially the big, bad west-coast kind of bears!"

After watching television for a while, Roddy-locks felt kind of tired and decided to take a nap. However, when he went to check on his bed he noticed it was all messy. "Someone has been sleeping in this bed!" Roddy-locks exclaimed.

He went to the second bedroom and noticed that the bed in there was also messed up. "Someone has been sleeping in this bed too!" Roddy-locks exclaimed.

He checked the third bedroom, and same thing: "Someone has been sleeping in this bed too!"

So Roddy-locks decided to sleep on the nice comfortable recliner in the living room. But when he got there, he found something sleeping in the recliner!




"Oh no!" thought Roddy-locks. "It's one of those big bad west coast bears! Whatever shall I do!" Being very careful not to wake the bear (who had a wicked temper when awoken too soon), Roddy-locks looked around for signs of other bears because they always travelled in packs of three. Suddenly the other two bears came out of nowhere, and the third bear woke up. "I'm doomed!" Roddy-locks thought.

But they were friendly bears and only wanted to share Roddy-locks' food, beverages and beds. They quickly became friends and told stories about the place where Roddy-locks worked. After some great food and a few very cold beverages they all fell off to sleep in the comfy warm cabin.

It wasn't difficult to get to sleep. One bear even spent the night in the comfy chair:



The next morning they all packed up and headed back to the west coast - because they were west coast bears. They tidied up their food and beverage bottles, and headed out on the road, looking forward to their next adventure.



The End.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

ED2710 - Introductory Blog

Hi Folks

Welcome to my blog! Perhaps the least-read blog in the history of blogging, it was created for one of the PSE courses (Educational Media) and I used it to post a blog about my dog eating a tube of blue oil paint on Thanksgiving weekend. The dog is still with us, almost a year later, which is a testament to our love for him and the strength of his insides.

But I digress... almost immediately...

The purpose of this initial blog is to introduce me, and my course topic area of interest. Accordingly, here I go:

Rod French, Program Developer (Business) with the School of Business & IT, College of the North Atlantic. I am a married father of a 14 year-old boy (man-child) who lives with his family in Kippens NL with our two dogs Keltie (a 7 year-old Bearded Collie with a host of mental issues), and Sherlock, the aforementioned paint-eating Old English Sheepdog of 19 months (yes, 19 months). In a subsequent blog I will post a picture or two.

My area of interest is business studies, mainly marketing and human resources. My undergrad degree is in Business Admin (major in Marketing) from Acadia (1990), and I received my MBA from MUN in 1992 (Marketing and HR). I am not the typical "business nerd" - I don't follow the stock markets, I couldn't explain to my son what the DOW Jones was, and I could care less about the Business section of the Globe and Mail. However, I am a bit of social demography geek - I have read malcolm Gladwell's four books twice each, and "Outliers" is one of my favourite all-time books.

I worked in community economic development for about 15 of my 16 years of my career, prior to coming to the College in 2009. Earlier this year I developed a new course for our Marketing diploma programs -  EP2150 Entrepreneurship - which has not yet been offered at the College, but will be starting in January. This course will be the focus of my COS.

Enough for now. More to come!

Rod

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Mechanics of Throwing a Baseball Accurately


Welcome to ‘The Mechanics of Throwing a Baseball Accurately’. Your facilitators are Rod French and John Hanratty. We have taken the “Throwing” module from the Level I National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) baseball coaching certification program and used our experience and expertise to adapt it to the online learning environment.

Our lesson consists simply of the following:
1.     Online multimedia instruction, theory and guidance for practicing the skill
2.     Online evaluation of the learner’s comprehension of the theory
3.     Follow-up: in person evaluation of the learner’s ability to demonstrate the skill physically

Being a psychomotor skill, the evaluation cannot be done completely online. So we are piggybacking our online lesson and evaluation with a hypothetical “in person” evaluation and certification (which is offered in real life by Baseball Canada).

By using the links found in this blog you will be able to obtain information on this session and access to the ED3801 homepage and discussion forum. If you have any questions, concerns or comments please e-mail us directly.

Whether you are new to baseball or have been playing the game for years, we trust you will find this lesson helpful. Good luck and enjoy the session.


John Hanratty                                                                Rod French


********************************************************************************


INTRODUCTION


Baseball is a game of numerous precise skills, honed and practiced for hours and hours over years of a lifetime from an early age. Many of these skills are quite complex – Hall of Fame outfielder Ted Williams famously stated that hitting a baseball was the most difficult skill in all of sports, noting “Baseball is the only field of endeavour where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer.” But few if any skills are as simple, or as important, as being able to accurately throw a baseball.

How NOT to Throw a Baseball:


Throwing a baseball is the primary essential skill in the game of baseball. Action cannot start without the pitcher putting the ball in play by throwing it toward home plate. Once put in play, fielders usually (but not always) have to throw the ball to get the batter or other runners out, and to at least get the ball back to the pitcher. Without being able to throw the ball accurately, neither pitchers nor fielders (including the catcher) will ever be able to get anyone out, and an inning (or game) could go on forever in theory.
In the video, think about why the style of throw might not necessarily be the optimal style of throwing:

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/178290/866706

****************************************************************

LESSON OBJECTIVES

Roberto Clemente
Pittsburgh Pirates' Hall of Famer and 12-time Gold Glove winner

The purpose of this lesson is to provide the basic mechanics behind accurately throwing a baseball. Through a combination of graphics, video, and practical application, you will be shown and given the opportunity to practice how to throw a baseball in much the same way as a six year-old first learns how to throw. The objectives of the lesson are listed on the slide above.

******************************************


Ozzie Smith
St. Louis Cardinals' Hall of Famer and 13-time Gold Glove winner

'You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.’ Jim Bouton, Ball Four 1970
Throwing a baseball properly starts with the proper grip. Major league pitchers make millions of dollars by perfecting pitches that can drop, dart, curve, float, slide, and seem like they are going faster or slower than they really are. All of these pitches do what they do because of the grip the pitcher puts on the ball. While there are many ways to grip a baseball, there is one way to grip it to get it to go as straight as possible – the non-pitching type of throw – which is the type of throw we are most concerned with.


THE GRIP



There are five essential components to the proper grip: 
a) The baseball should be gripped across the seams so that all four seams are aligned.
b) The forefinger and middle finger are one finger-width apart, and across the seams;
c) The thumb is underneath and between the two fingers providing support
d) There should be a slight space between the palm and ball – enough to fit a finger between – with the remaining fingers bent slightly to the side and relaxed.
e) The ball should be gripped like an egg, firmly but softly; don’t crush the shell!



Practice:
Grip Drill: While standing, toss a ball in the air to yourself and catch it with your throwing hand. Practice finding the correct grip as quickly as possible before simulating a throw.

ARM ACTION and BODY MOTION

Once we have the proper grip, we move on to the throwing motion itself, and the combination of arm and body action.





1. Facing your target, place the ball in the glove face down and chest high; feet should be shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent


2. Pivot your throwing hand foot perpendicular to your target. At this point, rotate the glove hand shoulder and hip so that the body is perpendicular to the target, showing part of the glove side and back to the target - this is also known as “closing the door”.




3. The glove foot (foot on the same side of the body as the glove) steps toward the target, the big toe pointed directly at the target. The hands break in a downward, circular motion, with the throwing arm dropping down in a circular motion past the hip with the ball facing the ground.




4. The throwing arm continues to rotate down, past the hip, around and up above the head. The arm rotates in the direction of the target, remaining bent at the elbow with the ball now facing toward second base (away from the target). The ball arrives at its highest point as the glove foot (stride foot) makes contact with the ground.



5. The glove should be extended in the direction of the target with the thumb pointing towards the ground. The glove hand will be drawn back into an area between the chest and waist as the ball is thrown towards its target.



6. As the hips rotate towards the target, the throwing arm rotates bringing the ball to the release point. The elbow should remain above the shoulder with the fingers behind the ball as the arm moves forward. Front foot has landed on the ball of the foot.

7. The throwing arm leads the wrist and fingers; the ball is released slightly above and in front of the head; this motion is known as “fully overhead” or “12 to 6” (corresponding to the numbers on a clock), the most mechanically sound throwing motion which puts the least amount of strain on the throwing arm.




8. After releasing the ball, a full follow through and arm extension will maximize distance and accuracy; bend the back and "throw the shoulder" at the target for full extension. The throwing hand should extend towards the target and fully complete its arc. The back foot should rotate and raise off the ground prior to coming to rest in line with the front foot.


When all of the steps come together properly, the end result should be a smooth, natural motion which results in the baseball arriving accurately at its destination.
In the video (link below), the instructor shows one method of breaking down the mechanics of throwing properly – he starts in the middle of the skill, then adds in the first steps later. The method of instruction and reinforcement is slightly different; however, the mechanics are all the same, and it covers all the same steps.
Accuracy is developed by practicing the mechanics and by paying attention to detail; the more you practice, the more ingrained the mechanics become, so that the skill of throwing becomes second nature.
There are many ways to practice the mechanics of throwing, and dozens of drills from which to choose, as in the previous video. The most common way to practice throwing is to play catch with a partner and have your partner (or a third party, such as a coach) critique or offer suggestions on your motion.
Find a partner and “soft-toss” to each other (throwing at approximately 50% of full power), starting from approximately 10-15 feet apart; gradually moving further apart until you are 30-40 feet from each other, still soft tossing. Make your motion very deliberate and exaggerated – check your grip, rotate your body, point your toe at your target, swing your arm in a big circle down and back and up through, step toward your target and follow through.
Another way that makes it a bit more fun for younger kids is the “2-1 Game”; this can be done after the more deliberate “soft-toss” drill mentioned above.
2-1 Game: Pick a target on your partner (i.e. the chest and face area). Award one point for every ball thrown accurately at the chest and two points for a successful throw to the face area. The first player to 21 points “wins”.
***************************************

EVALUATION


Evaluation will take place in two phases.
The practical evaluation will occur sometime after this lesson; it will be in-person and involve a demonstration of the student’s ability to throw an actual baseball under the stated conditions, in the context of a Level One coaching clinic of the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP). Each learner will make 5 throws and have at least three ‘hit’ the partner in the target or chest area.

The theoretical evaluation will occur online, through a multiple choice test. Please review the following questions and post your answers in an e-mail to the discussion forum.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

  1. The ability to throw a baseball accurately to a teammate is:
  1. Desirable but less important than the ability to run or catch
  2. Essential for success in baseball
  3. Effective for impressing any spectators
  4. Difficult when you are facing into the sun

  1. How you hold a baseball:
  1. Is a matter of individual preference
  2. Is the first thing to learn in order to throw accurately
  3. Is similar to how you hold a football
  4. Is only important for the pitcher

  1. To throw a baseball accurately, you should:
  1. Squeeze the ball as hard as you can
  2. Let it roll around your palm as loosely as possible
  3. Hold the ball like an egg, firmly but softly
  4. Grab it with your fingertips only

  1. When you start to get ready to throw the ball, the front of your body should:
  1. Face your target straight-on
  2. Face down toward the ground
  3. Be side-on or perpendicular to the target
  4. Face completely away from the target

  1. As you complete the throwing motion, your “glove foot” should be pointed:
  1. Up at the sky
  2. At your glove
  3. At your good luck charm
  4. At the target

  1. In throwing parlance, “opening the door” refers to:
  1. Turning your hips to face the target
  2. Opening your mouth as you throw the ball
  3. Giving your teammate a chance to catch the ball
  4. Bending your knees to provide more leverage

******************************************

CONCLUSION

Yogi Berra
Hall of Fame New York Yankees catcher,
and 8-time World Champion


The objectives of this lesson were as follows:
After viewing the blog, video clips, and Power Point presentation on throwing mechanics, the learner will be able to:
1)     throw a baseball unaided to a partner or target 30 feet away with 60% accuracy (practical component); and
2)     identify essential techniques and components for teaching others how to throw a baseball accurately (theoretical).
We have provided you with the theory and some basic skills to enable you to meet these objectives. However, like many major leaguers, the degree of success you have with these skills will depend on you and how much you practice. Remember to make it fun and enjoy yourself; after all, “there’s no crying in baseball”.


Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra is known as much for his colorful sayings as for his considerable baseball accomplishments. This saying highlights the cerebral nature of baseball – the pace of a baseball game leaves lots of opportunity for players to think about their next action, or to allow their last action to play upon their mind. Baseball requires the physical ability to execute the skill, but it also requires the knowledge necessary to accomplish the skills – and the knowledge to correct mechanical mistakes for the next opportunity.
Ironically throwing can certainly be described as ninety percent mental and fifty percent physical. Mastering the various stages of the throwing skill - the grip, closing and opening the door, weight transfer, follow through - involves knowing the intricacies of the throwing mechanics, and practice, practice practice!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Cookie Monster comes for Thanksgiving

8:30 a.m. Thanksgiving Sunday morning.

Our 75 pound Old English Sheepdog puppy (yes, puppy) Sherlock starts to yip. Time to get up and let him out.

What's this in the middle of the living room floor?




A chewed up tub of green oil paint surrounded by paw prints? But Sherlock is in the sun porch (his bedroom that he shares with his Beardie sister Keltie). Or is he?

What's this in the kitchen....


The tubes of paint that were bought in Halifax last week. Oh no.... this is not going to be good (you can see the paws in the background)....

So, he's almost eight months old, very much a puppy, loves to chew, full of life, full of fun...

Full of paint.

It seems as if he's learned how to open the porch's sliding door, got into a bag full of oil paints, and selected green as his late night snack. He then stopped for a drink in the bathroom, and proceeded to check in on my son and his two buddies sleeping on couches in the basement (paw prints down the stairs and across the carpet). My son woke up - after Sherlock licked him and his buddies, and climbed on the leather couch - and led him back to the porch, where I found him at 8:35.



Hmmmmmm..... how to clean an oil-painted sheepdog......

After my wife and I cleaned the house and made breakfast for our son and his buddies, I tried hot water, soap, Varsol and the garden hose. No luck. So, it was off to the tub, with the same implements (minus the hose).



Lather, rinse, repeat, drain the tub, trim some hair, mix in some Varsol, repeat, lather rinse, repeat.... pause for sore back..... All we could do was laugh, that and scrub, scrub, scrub.  For almost two hours the bathroom resembled something hit by a green-and-hairy cyclone.

By 2:30, six hours after discovery, we had our own version of Cookie Monster:


I think I know how Jim Henson must have felt. I wonder how he came up with Big Bird?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Emerging Technologies

"Horizon Report 2010; K-12 edition"

Johnson, L.F., Levine, A., Smith, R.S., and Smith, S. (2010). 2010 Horizon Report; K-12 edition. Austin TX.: The New Media Consortium. http://www.nmc.org/publications/2010-horizon-k12-report

From the link to the Technology and Learning magazine (www.techlearning.com/) I found a link to the 2010 Horizon Report (K-12 edition) published by the Horizon Project of the New Media Consortium (http://www.nmc.org/horizon).  Since 2002 the Horizon Project has published annual reports which profile six emerging technologies that will have a significant impact on K-12 education in the next 1-5 years. Each year, the NMC chooses two technologies in each of three timeframes - less than one year to adoption; two to three years; and four to five years - and they provide an overview of the technologies, current uses, and other possible applications.

From the 2010 report I have chosen three of the technologies; Collaborative Environments, Game-based Learning, and Mobiles.

1) Collaborative Environments are defined by the NMC as "complete, off-the-shelf packages or collections of do-it-yourself tools, depending on the level of comfort of the teachers and support personnel and the needs of the students using the systems" (Horizon Report 2010, p. 13). Collaborative environments can include wikis, Google Docs, or group and class blogs.

The creation of a class blog would be the most likely means by which I would incorporate this technology into my teaching. Learning how to create a blog (like I have had to do for this assignment) is a practical way of using the technology, and also an excellent means of sharing information and knowledge - and feedback - with my classmates. In teaching business courses that include case analyses, a group could use a blog to brainstorm ideas for SWOT analysis and possible solutions / recommendations for the business case.

Collaborative environments allow students to work from anywhere, thus enabling participation from shut-ins, disabled students, or students who may be sick or infirm. Students can work across geographic or cultural boundaries and tap into perspectives from people with different experiences and expertise. Students using collaborative environments also develop teamwork skills and work creatively in an efficient manner.

Possible drawbacks may include reluctance to share ideas and information due to lack of trust, or perhaps fear of the "unknown". Also, when corresponding across countries or cultures, language and cultural differences may impose barriers.

Two interesting examples of the use of Collaborative Environments are:

a) Kites Around the World (http://globalkites.wikispaces.com/an international project for students to exchange ideas and information about kite design, how to build different kites, videos of themselves flying their kites, and collaborate on creating descriptions of how kites are made and flown in their country;

b) Solar Navigations Wiki (http://solar6voyages.wikispaces.com/ A site launched by Duke University Libraries as a mentoring program for Durham Public Schools to help them implement and use technology in the classroom, using a wiki to facilitate student collaboration between classes to create jointly-authored reports on the solar system.

2) Game-based Learning

As the father of a 13-year-old, I was intrigued by Game-based Learning because of the prevalence of video games and gaming technology in our home. Game-based Learning can range from "simple paper-and-pencil games like word searches all the way up to complex, massively multiplayer online (MMO) and role-playing games" (Horizon Report 2010, p. 17). Educational games can be broadly grouped into three categories: games that are not digital; games that are digital, but that are not collaborative; and collaborative digital games. Digital games can include those designed for gaming consoles, such as the Nintendo Wii, and on-line games such as World of Warcraft.

MMO games designed for learning, entertainment, or training, such as World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, and others, bring many players together to work on activities that require collaborative problem-solving (the popular television show The Big Bang Theory regularly features its main characters engaged in different types of these games). Subject mastery is generally emphasized over complex problem-solving. These skill-building games and small group games that foster discussion and teambuilding are not difficult to fit into the curriculum; and kids will often willingly play them much longer than they would otherwise study the material in question (Horizon Report 2010, p. 18). The Report refers to research that shows that "young people continue to play games as adults...the average age of a video gamer in the United States in 2009 was 35 years", and second, "a game-player today is as likely to have children as to be a child" (Horizon Report, p. 17).

Game-based Learning lends itself well to business education. On-line games can be developed (and may already exist) where individuals or groups of students can challenge each other in simulations or business analyses. Business case competitions at CNA have already incorporated a "virtual" team from the Distributed Learning campus. I would use the case competition example in my own teaching - have a "virtual" team or teams analyze a case and present their recommendations to a panel of business executives, and be graded on the results.

There are several benefits to using Game-based Learning in the classroom. Early studies of consumer games helped to identify the aspects of games that make them especially engaging and appealing to players of various ages and of both genders, such as the feeling of working toward a goal; the possibility of attaining spectacular successes; the ability to problem-solve, collaborate with others, and socialize; and an interesting story line. Also, games may be a natural way to reach young people today, and a great deal more is now known about how to develop good games both for entertainment and for education (Horizon Report, p. 17).

Possible challenges may include lack of understanding of the rules of the game; hesitance or inability to cooperate with the other team members; and frustration with the lack of results or success.

Also of note:

a) Media Literacy. The World of Warcraft (WoW) in School Project (http://wowinschool.pbworks.) engages at-risk students at Suffern Middle School in New York and Cape Fear Middle School in North Carolina in an afterschool program that teaches skills in communication, digital literacy, online safety, mathematics, and leadership through game play.

b) World Languages. Students at Keysborough Primary School in Victoria, Australia, used the 3D-world authoring tool Kahootz to produce a series of treasure hunt games demonstrating their understanding of giving and asking for directions in French. Students wrote their own dialogues in French and recorded them in their own voices.

3) Mobiles

We all have one; as the Horizon Report notes, the mobile market has more than 4 billion subscribers; more than two-thirds of them live in developing countries. Increasingly, "the Internet is accessed from mobile devices using a cellular network that extends significantly beyond even the electric grid. Mobiles represent an untapped resource for reaching students and for bridging the gap between the learning that happens in school and the learning that happens out in the world" (Horizon Report, p. 22).

Examples of Mobiles include cell phones, smart phones, tablets and the iPad. Mobiles are "increasingly the gateway not only for common tools and communications, but also for information of all kinds, training materials, income generating work, and more" (Horizon Report 2010, p. 22).  People all over world use their cell phones for a variety of information needs, as they are often far cheaper, more accessible and easier to use than their desktop or laptop. The cell phone provides more than enough functionality to serve as the primary computing device.

I have very limited (no) ability to use mobile technology; my cell phone provides more than enough challenge for me. However, there are examples of teachers who use Twitter (for example) to ask for student feedback or input on an in-class reading assignment. Some teachers even use social networking for quizzes. Some will send a group of students on a field trip, and then text or post the assignment instructions on a social networking site or to the students' cell phone.

The advantages of this technology are numerous. Availability and accessibility are almost unlimited in today's environment. Mobiles are the technology of today's generations - the Horizon Report notes that "The age at which students in the developed world acquire their first mobile device is dropping, and by secondary school, nearly every student has one" (Horizon Report 2010, p.23). Storage capacity is tremendous, and the tools can capture massive amounts of visuals and data.

The challenges are policies (school, board) that deny access and use of the technology and tools within the school. Accessibility may still be an issue in some limited spots. Affordability is also a challenge for many individuals. And knowledge of how to use the applications - perhaps more applicable to "age-challenged" persons - may still be limited.

Of particular interest, I found the following examples:

a) Poll Anywhere (http://www.pollanywhere.com), turns mobiles into personal response systems, enabling teachers to quiz students, assess their understanding before, during, and after a lesson, and reveal patterns of thinking in the classroom.

b) Geography. At Clementi Town Secondary School in Singapore, mobiles support student field studies in geography. Upon arrival at the field site, instructions appear on the mobiles, and students work collaboratively to carry out experiments, take notes, analyze and synthesize data, and submit their results.

c) International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ The mission of the ICDL Foundation is to support the world’s children in becoming effective members of the global community by making the best in children’s literature available online free of charge. They have two iPhone apps for reading and creating books which are available
for free in the iTunes App Store.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Rod French