Active Gaming in Physical Education: Sharing an Experience

Today I had an interesting email conversation with a young woman working to complete her undergraduate degree. She has a passion for implementing active gaming in physical education; however, the University she attends does not offer such a degree. This was her email:

"I found you through the PE Central site, and knowing that someone was
expanding on this is what got me excited in contacting you.

My mother...teaches Physical Education for K-5 along
with APE, and it is a part of her curriculum. Currently she uses the
Playstation 2 and Wii, with games that use the student's body to
control the outcome. Those games include, DDR games, Eyetoy games,
Happy Feet, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Wii Outdoor adventure, Just
Dance and many others. Over the years this has acquired many
televisions, gaming systems, projectors and is set up in an arcade
setting, giving the children options in which game they want to play.
She has also acquired controllers that can adapt the games to any
student. Each Physical Education Standard has been applied to the use
of these Active Games in her curriculum.

My mother is more then willing to share, lesson plans, photos, or any
thoughts on how this works in her class room. The both of us have
presented this at the OAHPERD conference and The Council for
Children's Expanded Physical Education (CCEPE) conference for six
years now. This is pretty much what sparked my thoughts into how to
make this into its own degree...I want to help integrate Active gaming technology
into Physical Education..."

I found this email worth sharing for several reasons. First, this young woman's mother is implementing active gaming as a "tool" and aligning the activities with the Physical Education Standards. This is exactly what we are wanting physical education teachers to do when using active gaming. Next, her mother is an experienced teacher and is passionately sharing or willing to share more information about how active gaming is used in the physical education classroom. Her past presentations (6 years) at conferences as well as expression to share with us lesson plans, photos, and thoughts on the PE Central active gaming website demonstrates a physical education teacher that truly desires to help other educators implement these activities appropriately in their classroom. Additionally, this young girl does not necessarily want to teach; she just wants to help others implement these activities in physical education. She was truly searching for a way to have an active gaming degree developed. Furthermore, the PE Central Website initiated this conversation and “connection”. I hope others will understand the value and impact sharing on this website has on promoting quality physical education.

I do hope her mother shares ideas with us so we can learn from others using active gaming in their physical education classrooms. I also wish this young woman the very best on her journey to assist others with active gaming in the physical education classroom. I was simply intrigued!