Online Physical Education

Online physical education is an example of when technology is used as a substitute to teach rather than an instrument to help physical educators.  Like I said in my previous blog, the minimum activity time for each class period is 51% of the time.  Other standards have it at around 200 minutes a week.  With most online physical education courses, there is no way of ensuring that the students are meeting this standard.  Students are behind a computer screen and even if there is a program built in where students can log their physical activity, only the student knows just how much physical activity they partake in.  Also, my guess is that students that choose to take online physical activity are less likely to be students who are interested in exercising, and therefore less likely to truthfully meet the standards.  Simply put, there is a lack of accountability for students being active in online physical education courses.  

As future physical educators, we may encounter curriculums that offer online physical education.  It is going to be essential that we look at the goal of physical education as a whole, which is to be fit for life.  Are there ways that online physical education can achieve this?  The jury is still out on that, mainly because it is a relatively new idea and there isn’t substantial research done on the subject.  If I was asked to teach an online physical education class for a K-6 class, I would emphatically decline and voice my opinion on the matter.  K-6 students need motor skill practice to build their overall skill and self efficacy.  There is no way that K-6 students would benefit from online physical education.  The only way I can see online physical education being remotely useful, would be in a high school class where the focus is on educating students on the benefits of physical activity and exercise.  At the high school level, students need to be prepared to find ways to exercise and stay active beyond P.E. class and school sports.  However, all of this can be done effectively in a traditional P.E. class anyway.  Hopefully with more research, administrators will see the downfall of online physical education and we can work on helping children get more active rather than less active.