Accelerometers have long been a pipe dream in schools given there high price tags and use of speciality equipment. This is a problem for PE teachers in Victoria when it comes to teaching and meeting the following curriculum outcome.
” an understanding of subjective and objective methods of assessing physical activity and sedentary behaviour, including recall surveys or diaries, pedometry, accelerometry and observational tools, in relation to the National Physical Activity Guidelines”
In a subject that is heavily practical based, it meant that students never really get to explore accelerometry unless they visited a university . This ultimately meant that students rarely get the chance to experience the benefits of measuring Physical Activity with this device.
The great thing about advancements in mobile technology is that accelerometers in schools are now a complete reality. Check out the video demonstration below;
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6TbBegJack]
Heres how it works
- Download and install the free iPod touch/iPhone application called ‘Context Logger’
- Run the application and complete physical activity etc
- Send the accelerometer record to your computer via the applications internal upload system
Once the accelerometer record is on your computer;
- Run ‘Context Logger Analyzer 1.0’ shown in the video demonstration above
- Open the accelerometer record
- Run playback of data/Graph data etc
You can even take it the next step by filming the physical activity that you are recording with the ‘context logger’ application and syncing this to the data, allowing for an intense analysis of movement.This tool would also be an excellent addition to any science or physics classes
If you are interested in receiving an email when the software and student worksheets are ready for delivery, then register your interest on the online form here and you will receive a discount price of $30.