In this episode of The PE Geek podcast I speak with Alison Leathwood, a passionate Canadian Physical Educator working in Vietnam. Throughout the episode we explore her journey to the International teaching sector & how she began to leverage technologies in her practice.
Links & resources mentioned in this episode;
- Follow Alison on Twitter
- Drones in PhysED
- Passport For Life
- Hapara, Yoga Studio, Fitness Blender
Press play to listen to the episode below or listen here. Alternatively, download a full episode transcript here
[spp-transcript]
Jarrod Robinson: [00:00:30] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The PE Geek podcast, and as always it’s an absolute pleasure to have you here. I’m joined today all the way from Vietnam by Alison Leathwood. How are you?
A Leathwood: I’m doing very well, thanks, Jarrod. How are you?
Jarrod Robinson: Not too bad. Now, you just told me that it’s like a professional development day at your school. What’s the school, how long have you been there, and why aren’t you in the PD day right now?
A Leathwood: Great questions. I work at Saigon South International School in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
[00:01:00] This is my fourth year, and it’s my very first international teaching post, and we’re doing a professional development day on project-based learning.
Jarrod Robinson: Perfect.
A Leathwood: And it was great, and I did have to step out just to do this, but I felt that it was an important opportunity to me. We get very little time during the day to be able to, during the work day and you’re always being called away, so I thought I’d take this opportunity. My colleague is there.
[00:01:30] He’s going to make sure that I’m caught up and onboard once I get back into the session.
Jarrod Robinson: Awesome. That’s good to know that you’re being a good diligent student with getting someone else to tell you what you miss while that you’re here.
A Leathwood: Yes.
Jarrod Robinson: But no, I really appreciate it. You mentioned Ho Chi Minh City, and I’ve actually been and visited your school, but how did that all come about? You weren’t born in Vietnam, like where did you grow up and how did you end up in Vietnam?
A Leathwood: [00:02:00] Well, I’m from Canada, so I’m from a very small community in British Columbia called Kaslo where there’s only 1,000 people.
Jarrod Robinson: Massive.
A Leathwood: [inaudible 00:02:09]. Massive, I know. It’s a thriving metropolis, but very beautiful. I’m very fortunate that I grew up in a small community because it definitely gave me certain values. I’d always had a dream to be a phys ed teacher; I always knew that’s what I wanted to do. My father was a physical education teacher and he really inspired me and motivated me to pursue the same career.
[00:02:30] He loved his job, he talked so highly of it, and it just really created this want for me to have the same type of life, and I really loved being active. I went to the University of Calgary, went right in, got my teaching degree, and I’d always had this desire to go overseas and to teach because I loved travelling.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: And I got a great job, an amazing job, in Calgary that I couldn’t refuse and I ended up working at a great school there for seven years.
[00:03:00] Finally, I got the guts, I would say, to start to pursue this dream. There was nothing wrong with my job back home. I really did love it. I was teaching sports medicine and physical education in high school to grade 10, 11, and 12th graders, but I really was, still in the back of my mind this desire to go overseas.
My father actually did. He had never wanted to do it, this was never his dream, it was always my dream, but he decided to retire in Canada from
[00:03:30] a long time being an educator, and he went overseas. He got a headmaster position in Turkey and that really motivated me. That I needed, because I’m a little competitive. I also needed to pursue said dream.
So, I went out and I went online through Search Associates, and got recruited, and asked to apply for a job in Vietnam, and I had never been to Asia. It was not on my radar, not something I ever was thinking I would consider, but when I talked with that headmaster, [Mark Siltsy 00:03:56], and the way he made the school sound, and when I started to learn
[00:04:00] more about Vietnam, and the school, and the community, and the opportunities I could have, it really just became a decision as to why not?
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: And I committed, and came over here, and it has been professionally and personally the best decision I have ever made.
Jarrod Robinson: Well, I mean you can’t complain, because I’ve seen a few of your photos floating around. I mean you get to go on some pretty cool trips with the students, and I think recently you were … Were you up north in Vietnam or were you … Did you go into country?
A Leathwood: [00:04:30] Yes, I was up north.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: We have a programme called Week Without Walls, and it’s a programme at the school that starts within our fifth grade and goes all the way through to our 10th grade, where we take the students on experiences that take them out of the classroom, and we leave Ho Chi Minh City and we go somewhere. Now, our middle school and the fifth graders, they go very close sort of within their region; they don’t travel too far away. But with our 9th and 10th graders
[00:05:00] it’s usually been common practise that we will fly somewhere and usually out of country.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: My previous years we went to Indonesia, and we went to a resort on an island called Bintan Island, but then we decided with our 9th grade programme we really wanted to look more about dedicated service because that’s one of our core values here, and how we could help out local people within Vietnam. We found a great company called ETR who does trips and programmes where you can go into communities and you can try and make a difference.
Jarrod Robinson: [00:05:30] The cool thing about it is that it’s sort of this whole real world thing mixed into education, and you get the benefit being an educator to see some of these things as well, and … I mean that’s quite common for international schools to have these sort of programmes that work in the real countries, and the real places, and have a real impact. Do you see commonly that people get over into these international schools and then they don’t ever leave them because of these sort of [00:06:00] opportunities to do a bit more?
A Leathwood: I would say definitely.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: That was something that was communicated to me as I … I came in with a group of teachers, I think there was 23 of us, of new teachers, which is quite common in international schools; there is a lot of turnover. I’m not saying that as a bad thing that people are leaving schools because they don’t want to be there, people are leaving …
Jarrod Robinson: They go to other international schools.
A Leathwood: Exactly.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: They’re going to other international schools. They’re getting other experiences for their families or for themselves.
[00:06:30] But when I came in and I met the core group of teachers that I would be working with, there were some of us that were brand new to international teaching, and those that we would call maybe veterans, that this was their third of fourth posting, they basically just told us flat out you’re never going home.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: Which you feel a little bit like what, you don’t know me, like I will do what I want to do. I had always thought this would be maybe a two-year, three-year maximum gig and then I probably would go back to Canada.
[00:07:00] Now that I have been in this experience, I could see it would be very difficult to transition back into working in Canada, and that is because of experiences like Week Without Walls.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: It’s also because of experiences that you just … When you work in an international school and there is a bit more of money involved, or a pool of money, there’s stuff that you’re able to do. I mean we’re going to talk a lot about technology and that was something that I never even really considered or looked at putting into my practise,
[00:07:30] at least in the phys ed world. In sports medicine I was using a bit more tech, but when we look at PE, that was not something that was done. I worked in a programme that was very rigid in how it was delivered because it had been the same for 30 years, and when I came here and you realise there’s so much diversity. There’s so many different ways that you can teach.
We don’t teach volleyball just as volleyball anymore. I didn’t know about teaching games for understanding, like it just
[00:08:00] opens you up to a whole different world, and because you’ve got a bit of money to back it up, you’re able to get resources, you’re able to have an Apple TV, or get a laptop cart, and … I don’t know, I just know that for me personally, and I think a lot of teachers have the same experience, you really blossom in this environment, and you’re allowed to change your curriculum and do whatever you think is best for your students and your community.
We use the standards out of the states, but we also have recognised that the Ontario
[00:08:30] curriculum in terms of health has an amazing new curriculum and we’re able to phase that in as well.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: So, we can mix and match and take components from the best curriculums in the world, and bring them here and deliver it to our student body. I think that’s something that when you’re at home you’re more stuck to these are our standards, province or statewide, this is what you’re supposed to do, and you can’t have as much flexibility.
Jarrod Robinson: Breeds that rigidity. Are you working for Search
[00:09:00] Associates right now, because I think you’ve made a pretty good case for … A pretty good case for-
A Leathwood: For them?
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah, for international school teaching. It’s a common thing that I hear. A lot of people that I’ve worked with are the same story; when they get overseas and they find it difficult to look at how they can ever go back to their home countries, and it’s because of the opportunities, and the fact that they can teach, and have an impact, and I think that’s really cool.
So, somewhere along that line and that journey from Canada to
[00:09:30] Vietnam, you’re picked up the use of technology in your practise in phys ed. Do you know how that came about or what was sort of the seed that sparked it?
A Leathwood: Well, it was you, Jarrod, obviously.
Jarrod Robinson: Oh, the workshop? That must have been about 2014 now I guess.
A Leathwood: Yeah.
Jarrod Robinson: A few years ago.
A Leathwood: It was in my first year here.
Jarrod Robinson: OK, yeah.
A Leathwood: I think you came in January of my first year, but definitely where it really … I mean that was big for me to have
[00:10:00] a workshop dedicated specifically to improving my practise with technology and just learning more about applications.
Jarrod Robinson: Sure.
A Leathwood: But when I came to Vietnam and I met my partner-teacher, Chris Sylvester, he’s also been a huge … He has really pushed me because he had been international, this was his third posting, but 11 years previous working in an international community where … He worked in phys ed departments where he was the only one, and he really had
[00:10:30] to collaborate a lot with himself, and how he can change and really make things still engaging for his kids.
He had been exposed to
[TAC 00:10:38], and he had been exposed … He knew … Like I, honestly, I had no idea who you were when I first came here to Vietnam. Then sort of Chris started to share with me who
[inaudible 00:10:47] were and what else was sort of out there. He made me get a Twitter account, like he really kind of pushed me to start to look into this tech. Then really from there that’s when it all started to get to happen.
[00:11:00] One of the first things we did together is we wrote a proposal to our school to be given iPads.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: For the middle and high school teachers. It seems something that is simple, but it’s really helped. It’s been a huge revolution for me just to actually have something in my hands where I can film the kids, or show them something, or just be able to take my attendance. Everything is digital here; you have to do everything digitally.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: And as a PE teacher, bringing a laptop into a gym,
[00:11:30] that’s just not feasible, like you need something that’s easier that you can handle, and so that was kind of the first thing we got were the iPads. Then that really allowed us to start to be a little bit more open to what we could do.
Jarrod Robinson: Awesome. I definitely find that’s how it begins too, like a lot of the time we see things that make someone’s job more easy, and that might be attendance, and so on, and they start in that ballgame and get familiar. Then all of a sudden later on you’re doing stuff with drones, and I mean I …
A Leathwood: Yes.
Jarrod Robinson: [00:12:00] I used your example on Twitter, like throughout our workshop since I saw it, because I think it’s a tremendous way of showing and celebrating the stuff that’s happening at your school. Do you mind sharing what you did with drones, because I mean I think some people might hear “drones” and think how could that ever have any sort of play in a PE space? What did you guys do?
A Leathwood: Well, so the situation you’re talking about with drones, that was actually not a … It wasn’t a physical education component.
Jarrod Robinson: Sure, yeah.
A Leathwood: [00:12:30] But it was definitely a starting point, and after we did that activity, Chris and I brought drones into our PE class. But what we did, another initiative that Chris and I have spearheaded here, is we created a house leagues programme within our high school.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: And so our students … Very like Harry Potter-esque. We have four houses. We are dragons here, so we have four different dragons, and our kids compete in all different types of competitions through the year, they earn points. It’s become a huge community,
[00:13:00] just community building, and it’s been really, really valuable for our school. In our second year of this programme we decided that we wanted the kids to come together, and collaborate, and come up with an image that would represent their house.
Jarrod Robinson: Awesome.
A Leathwood: And we worked with our tech. One of our media developers who, they have a drone. We don’t have one in PE yet. We’re working on that, but we had them come in and they
[00:13:30] took images from above, aerial shots, of our students in their house representation, whatever it may be. Then we’ve made these poster boards, and they’re on the wall, and as teams are in the lead, we move them depending on where they’re ranked on this stairwell in our high school building.
Jarrod Robinson: Awesome.
A Leathwood: From there then Chris and I decided we wanted to try and use it in PE, because we’ve definitely through Twitter
[00:14:00] noticed other groups that had been using it, or other PE teachers, and so Chris did a rugby unit. I was doing a invasion games unit, and we used the drone to take footage that we then put into a Google form, and students were able to login to this form as we shared it with them, watch the aerial footage of themselves, and be able to answer certain questions on their understanding about the tactics and the participation that they were given.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah, epic.
A Leathwood: And I will say, it was a
[00:14:30] good intention, but we had … Because we weren’t running the drone, we ended up with situations where it was too high and the children looked like tiny little ants.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: It’s been a-
Jarrod Robinson: We always learn. Everything’s a learning path.
A Leathwood: Everything.
Jarrod Robinson: Isn’t it?
A Leathwood: It is.
Jarrod Robinson: And I think even just the fact that you tell that story. Initially the tech started as a way of making things efficient and effective for you, and you got some value there, and then that … The drone example in the beginning was like how you can celebrate learning, and
[00:15:00] create community, and then it flows into a different area again. I tend to see that what you might start out with as the idea eventually rolls into something completely different, and everything compounds, and you learn stuff from one situation and you apply it to the next.
If you look at all of the stuff that you’ve been doing with like tech and so on, I feel like it’s merging towards what you guys are doing now with your students and their homework. What’s that programme that you’re currently having them
[00:15:30] involved in?
A Leathwood Like I said, this is our fourth year.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: So, in our third year, Chris and I decided we wanted to come up with a way … I mean as a physical educator your biggest goal should be to build healthy habits with your kids.
Jarrod Robinson: Yes.
A Leathwood: You want to inspire them to find some form of physical activity they’re going to get excited about, they’re going to love, they’re going to engage in it, they’re going to do it for life. We all know that that should be our purpose as a PE teacher.
[00:16:00] We looked at that and thought how could we … We’re obviously trying to do that as much as we can in class, but how can we really get the kids to actually do it at home?
I think working in international schools, in cultures, especially in Asia where being physically active isn’t a priority. Academics are the number one priority. There’s even cultural situations where it is not appropriate for you to have muscle,
[00:16:30] like if you have muscle tone, that can be looked at as being ugly, so how can we change these sort of cultural norms? How can we get kids to still see the value in it even though they’ve been kind of told that it’s not valuable, or that they’re supposed to just be going to their academies and they’re supposed to just be looking at academics.
We decided to tie those two together and we have created essentially what is PE homework. However,
[00:17:00] we’ve been mindful and thoughtful about how we’ve done that. Our campaign is called Energise Your Life and it’s … We created that name out of, last year we used Passport for Life out of Canada, a programme where students, they do questionnaires to look at their active participation, and their engagement in their community, what they do like about phys ed, it has nutrition questions, just these really great questionnaires that have been developed.
Then on top of that, you do
[00:17:30] some fitness monitoring, but things like throwing and catching, balancing, you do do some agility stuff, but it’s not your basic you just do pushups, and sit-ups, and you run the Beep Test.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: And so a little bit more actual fundamental movement skills and physical literally type-based.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: And then from that information the kids received a passport, and from that we did goal setting, and we had the kids look at areas that they wanted to improve on, we did a lot of reflection around it.
[00:18:00] Then we created a digital journal for the students.
Jarrod Robinson: Perfect.
A Leathwood: And we used Google. We have the Google platform, we use that a lot here, and we have a programme called Hapara, which is a very easy way to share documents with your students. So, all of my students have a PE folder that I have access to, so I can open it up and I can share documents with the kids, and through the Hapara database I can just go in and I can look instantly at what my kids are doing and how they’re updating it.
[00:18:30] Every week our students are required to do two physical activity-based activities outside of class time, that’s the really important key, and it needs to be at a minimum for 20 minutes. So, things that the kids can do, they can come in at our lunchtime is open, they can play basketball, a lot of our kids play ping-pong after school, we have a fitness centre, they can go into the fitness centre. Any kid that’s playing on a sports team. Right now we’ve got swimmers, we’ve got badminton players, and we have volleyball players.
[00:19:00] They’re getting their physical activity and they have to log in this journal. They have to provide evidence through either a video, through a contact information for a personal trainer or a coach, they have to put a photo, most of them use photos, and then they link it back to the goal that they are trying to improve by doing this physical activity.
It’s really, it’s been fantastic. Last year, like I said, was our first year, and I had many kids who decided to start doing a martial arts, like aikido,
[00:19:30] or Muay Thai, kids that took up dance lessons, that were doing yoga. Through our fitness unit we also use a lot of tech and a lot of apps, like Yoga Studio’s workout trainer, and when I showed kids those types of apps, they downloaded them on their phones, and that was things they were starting to do for Energise Your Life.
Jarrod Robinson: That’s awesome.
A Leathwood: We always try and make connections with what we do in our class to what you can do. We had an instructor that came in recently and did mindfulness, and she did mindfulness and
[00:20:00] yoga with the students. She has a studio and we keep sharing with kids any time that she’s got a programme that she’s offering and promoting it as ways to energise your life. It’s actually become … It’s become a term, like when I see kids in the community when I’m out running and I pass them, we say like, “Oh, you’re energising.”
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: Or I see kids out and they’re playing ping-pong, and they’re, “Oh, hi Mrs. Leathwood. I’m energising,” like it’s just become this culture.
Jarrod Robinson: That’s awesome.
A Leathwood: And I think we’re going to continue to build it.
[00:20:30] This year we added a new initiative where we said, “What’s in your community?” And the kids had to go out first … Before we started the Energise Your Life they had to actually look at around their community. Do they have a swimming pool in their building? Do they have a fitness centre? Is there a park close by that they could play in? Is there a gym where, how much would it actually cost to get a membership? Are there a rock climbing wall, or whatever they would be interested in they had to actually go and find it, they had to look at their schedule, when would they utilise it, how much does it cost,
[00:21:00] and they just gathered information for themselves about where they could be active.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah, I mean it’s like you’re actually empowering them to make these same decisions when they leave school, and the use of the tech is a way to actually create some evidence around the stuff that they’re doing and some accountability, but then some of those tools that you’ve mentioned are like, I think they’re tremendous, because the whole yoga studio, for example, they can do that in their lounge room.
A Leathwood: Yeah.
Jarrod Robinson: [00:21:30] Sort of like reducing barriers, and I think that’s awesome. Yeah, I mean it sounds like that’s just going to go from strength to strength each year.
A Leathwood: Yeah, I hope so, and actually through this project-based learning workshop that we are doing, that’s what Chris and I were starting to talk about is how can we make this look a little bit more like a project-based learning activity that’s a two-year programme? Because in 11th grade our students, they then … I mean phys ed, I think most people find this, in 11 and 12 it’s an option, it’s something that they can choose, and
[00:22:00] you’re losing the majority of your children.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: So, I mean it’s not … It’s something that we are still trying to promote and do with our 11th and 12th graders, but we need to lay the foundation with our 9th and 10th graders. That’s where we really need to get them to buy in to this, and buy in to this programme, and expose them to applications. They’re on their devices all the time, how can we get them to use them in a way where they can be physically active?
Websites like Fitness Blender as well. Using YouTube, we use YouTube a tonne with different
[00:22:30] videos, and different experiences, and as much as we can we just want to give them the most access to all different types of things to try and find something that they want to do.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: Another thing we love to use is in our dance unit mainly, but my kids have also taken it and they’re using it a lot in their Energise Your Life, is Just Dance Now.
Jarrod Robinson: How much fun.
A Leathwood: Which, it’s like a- exactly, so much fun, and a video game, and on our iPad I have downloaded the app, and I have the VIP access. Our kids bring their
[00:23:00] cellphones into the gym and we start it as a warmup always in our dance unit. You have the ability to do individual all the way up to quadruple dances where you can get kids in lines of four, and they have to dance together, and it’s awesome, and it’s great, and the kids really get engaged, and then they start doing it at home.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: And they’re taking screenshots of their leaderboard, and where they’re at, and they’re doing it in groups, and it’s just a way to get them all together. Yeah, it’s a great app. Obviously,
[00:23:30] internet though. We have a lot of internet issues. I mean tech is always great, but we do have a lot of dropped internet and issues with our Apple TV in our gym.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: But that’s something you just learn to roll with.
Jarrod Robinson: You have to learn to roll with those things.
A Leathwood: Yeah.
Jarrod Robinson: But I love the premise of what that delivers and using technology as a way to lay the foundations, but also capture, and instil some autonomy into what the students do in their personal life I think
[00:24:00] is a stellar example. So, beyond this, what’s next? Is there anything sort of in the pipeline? I know that you’ve got a session coming up at the APPEC conference shortly. That’s not about tech, but I mean, or is there some way that that’s got technology involved in it too?
A Leathwood: Yes, I’m doing a presentation on dance, something that I absolutely just love, and I am not a dancer. Most PE teachers can say they aren’t dancers, and I know dance is one of those-
Jarrod Robinson: That’s me.
A Leathwood: [00:24:30] Yeah. One of those topics that people are either terrified of or they just go for it. I was lucky that I worked, in Canada, that I was working with teachers that did a lot of social dance, and I know that there’s a lot of talk with is social dance still appropriate, and should we do it? Myself and Chris had made a really amazing dance programme, We Feel Here, that is a lot of just being playful at first, and playing things like dance tag.
The Just Dance Now is a big thing that we bring in
[00:25:00] where we do use the tech. So, I’ll be showing some of that stuff, and also how you can use QR codes in dance, especially in things like social dance to bring in professionals, how you can do that, like I’ll just be sharing out basically my units, and playing lots of different games, but mainly the big tech component to that will be looking at Just Dance Now, and then more about game-based stuff, and then more about online
[00:25:30] these are the resources that you can use.
Teaching Dance for Understanding really helps me a lot with this unit, and they have dances that have already been developed that you can learn, teach your kids, and we have our kids learn these dances, and then they go and they teach elementary students these dances, and we’ve attempted, they haven’t been mainly successful, but flash mobs at the end of kind of every year.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah.
A Leathwood: So, I’m going to be creating my own dance, which will again be online
[00:26:00] that teachers can access, that they can go out and teach to their students, and my challenge to them will be teach this dance to your students, take a video of it, tweet it, tag me in it, tag our school in it, and let’s see how many different places we can get all doing this dance together.
Jarrod Robinson: The ripple. The ripple spread out.
A Leathwood: Yeah.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah, awesome. I mean I love that Teaching Dance for Understanding philosophy. We have a session in ConnectedPE from Melanie and we have Tracy Lockwood who’s also …
A Leathwood: Yeah.
Jarrod Robinson: She’s from Canada.
[00:26:30] She’s coming to ConnectedPE next month to run a session on Teaching Dance for Understanding as well. I think that philosophy makes a tonne of sense for PE teachers that are like me typically, like I don’t even know where to begin, and I think that’s a nice on-ramp for success.
A Leathwood: Absolutely. And I think, and those ladies, I really want to do their sessions, like I would love to take their programmes, but living in Vietnam has made it a little bit difficult for me to be able to attend
[00:27:00] their professional development, but I’m looking to see at ways that I could, because they’ve been a huge influence for me at looking at dance in a completely different way, and adding in a lot more of the fun component in how you can get kids to not feel so self-conscious, and how you can really create that positive environment within your dance unit.
It’s just amazing. We love our dance unit. We have our kids … We have this one social dance per year that we really focus
[00:27:30] on, and our 9th and 10th graders are together. Last year we did jive, the year before that was salsa. We have the kids learn a bunch of the basic steps and then they use the iPads. We have an app called iDance, which is really great; it has lots of basic steps in it. That’s for individual footwork.
Then we have QR codes and the kids, again, through their iPads they scan and they have to teach themselves new moves, and come up with another original move, and they use the professionals, I would say, to help them.
[00:28:00] Then they create a dance routine and we have this massive dance off.
Jarrod Robinson: So cool.
A Leathwood: A huge competition. They’ve got numbers on them and they have a dance off. We get winners from every block. Then on the very last day of school, we have a dance competition in front of our entire high school.
Jarrod Robinson: So cool.
A Leathwood: All the top winners from our block. Then this past year we actually had the kids vote live for our top two, so we used a Google form, and the form became live right before the dance was finished. The kids were able to pull
[00:28:30] out their cellphones, scan the QR code or put in the website, and then they were able to judge and actually pick the winner of our 2017 jive competition, so it was pretty sweet.
Jarrod Robinson: That’s so epic.
A Leathwood: Yeah.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah, I mean there’s so many incredible things that you guys are doing as a team, and individually, and I like that tech is part of it, but it’s sort of the underlying current that makes all of the real things happen I think more effectively. It’s not about the technology,
[00:29:00] but it’s there and it’s sort of assisting you and the students in bringing about some incredible results, so well done. Thank you for stopping by and sharing it, and best of luck on the upcoming session at APPEC.
A Leathwood: Thank you and best of luck at ConnectedPE. I have to try and get myself over to that conference as well.
Jarrod Robinson: Yes, so many conferences and so little time, eh?
A Leathwood: Exactly.
Jarrod Robinson: Yeah. Thank you again and I look forward to speaking soon.
A Leathwood: All right, thanks Jarrod.
Jarrod Robinson: [00:29:30] See ya.
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