App Smashing: Making an Idea a Reality

So often I get asked “What’s your favourite app for #PhysEd?” or “What one app do you use all the time with you students?”

A few years ago when I started iPhys-Ed.com as a place to talk about technology in physical education I probably would have responded with Ubersense or Coach’s Eye, however through my professional journey I have come to see that there is no ONE app that I use all the time or ONE favourite app that serves my students the best. Most of the time when I use any app it is to serve a very particular purpose and to make it easier for my students to achieve the knowledge, skills or understanding that they require.

Recently during our health related fitness unit, as some of my Grade 4 students were working on developing fitness circuits workouts I realised that actually quite a lot of the time we actually use more than one app to achieve our purpose. One of my colleagues calls it “App Smashing.”

App Smashing is the process of using multiple apps to create projects or complete tasks. Below I will attempt to give you an example of how I used App Smashing in my #PhysEd class.

My Grade 4 students are taking part in a unit of inquiry about The Human Body and how it’s systems are interrelated. At the beginning of the unit during my physical education time with the students I asked them “What do you want to know about what happens to your body when you exercise?”
The questions came rolling in; “Where does sweat come from when we are hot?" "Why do we get tired after we exercise?" "What happens when you don't stretch before you exercise?" "Why do we burn energy?"We agreed as a group to start inquiring together into the answers to these questions. As we did, further questions began to emerge; “How many calories does the average person burn?" "Do you need energy to sleep?" "What happens to my heart rate when I exercise?" "If you sweat too much will you get dehydrated?"As we began to inquire further into how exercise can affect our body some of the students decided that they would like to create their own fitness circuit workouts.

The first step of the process was to give the students a template to assist them in developing their fitness workout. As part of their circuit design process I wanted to also assess their knowledge of how different exercises affect different components of fitness so I added icons underneath each workout for them to circle and identify which component of fitness it was benefitting.

 

 

Smashing it Up!

 

The Product

 

So that's how I smashed two apps together to help me and my students to turn an idea into a reality. I would love to hear in the comments below if you have every used "app smashing" in your classes to turn your ideas into reality.

 

Nathan can be contacted on Twitter @PENathan or via email at nathan@iphys-ed.com