Hello friends!
This past year I feel like my eyes have been opened to so many different perspectives and experiences, and it really made me feel uncomfortable at first. I had never really been around such a diverse group of people that I never even considered about how that could affect me as a teacher. My students won’t all be like me, and I need to be able to adapt. The discussion in class was really beautiful; hearing everybody’s stories and perspective and seeing how it affected others in the class was heartwarming!
I’m also really glad that I can talk about virtual reality (VR) for this reflection, because recently I have been talking about using it for Special Education PHE classes. I think that the use of VR could be really beneficial for any PHE class in order to even the playing field; allowing students to imitate games/actions while still interacting with game rules, they can still be active, but in a safe controlled environment. I also think that the excitement around VR could contribute to the motivation to participate, and hopefully students gravitate towards a ‘video game-like’ class.
I got really interested in this idea after working with a special education class while doing my practicum at a high school in Kelowna (not because they had VR there). It was really amazing to work with this class, I thought that I was going to have to change how I was and be more careful, but every single student was just excited to be there. It was really cool to participate in sports with them and get their perspective of a lot of things and that’s when I started to think about the VR theory; they kept wanting to play wii sports the whole time.
But it got me thinking about how tired and out of breath I used to get during Just Dance on the wii, and how that was such great exercise and I didn’t even know it. I probably did that for an hour at a time and I don’t think I could do that now. But it really goes to show how video games could find a way into the PHE classrooms for improving accessibility, motivation and engagement.
That’s it for now!
until next time,
xoxo
FYI I really don’t like zoom classes, I don’t think I was very present during class. But, I do understand that many students prefer and thrive off of it.