Last year I built an exciting and innovative website for schools that focused on helping to inspire student & teacher physical activity. The website, Active Globe has grown to serve thousands of users ranging from individuals who want to improve their fitness, to entire schools looking to add a new dimension to their programs. With this in mind I’m excited to announce version 2.0 has just launched and its now even more attractive to schools everywhere.
So what does Active Globe actually do? Well quite simply it allows you to turn your students Physical Activity into a real world travel experience, that takes them around the globe to achieve their fitness goals. See it in action below;
1. Cross Curricular Links – The potential to use Active Globe as the central piece in a wider curriculum has been enormous. Given that Active Globe allows users to plot their activity goals on real world maps, this enables the deep integration of geography, history and other social studies, mathematics, sciences, english and many more. Here’s a few ways teachers are using.
- Geography – As students and the class are moving between two destinations, they focus in and learn about the places they’re visiting. A number of teachers are using this as a virtual field trip or better yet as a prelude to an actual class field trip.
- History – Learning about a famous place or historical event? Why not have your class run, walk, swim or cycle their way collectively to that location. Better yet have them retrace the steps of a historical figure or famous explorer.
- Mathematics – Given Active Globe deals in distances students are immediately exposed to different measurement units, percentages and much more. I know of a number of savy teachers in the United States whom are having students practice their skills by calculating their step lengths, lap totals and overall distance. Sure Active Globe does this automatically for you, however what an opportunity to engage students in real world application.
- Writing – Have students write stories and reflective accounts of their journey between their distance based goals. Pair up with another school and have your students exercise there way to meet them, while simultaneously sending letters or emails.
- Technology – Have students keep a personal blog about their journey, including screenshots of their progress and pictures of them getting active. Invite their parents to follow along and comment on the journey. You could also have students record a screencast using a tool such as Snagit.
- Physical Education – Use Active Globe as a vehicle to explore the importance of physical activity in our daily lives. Your PE or Sport Classes could be where the action occurs, with the students then using their others classes to record their activity and update their avatar along the map.
2. The Gamification of Physical Activity – Active Globe heavily utilises Gamification, which is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts, to engage users in solving problems whilst increasing the users’ self motivation. This has proven to be a seriously powerful motivator across the schools that Active Globe has been featured in. With teachers reporting that students are working hard to increase their achievements, which in turn means being more active. A couple of examples highlighting embedded game theory in Active Globe include;
- The fact that when you or your students participate in Active Globe you join other schools all over the world that are working to increase their students’ fitness. This means that students can track their progress and compare their school and own ranking to other schools throughout the world. This adds yet another fun and competitive element to the program that will motivate your students even more. Your class also works together to complete an agreed class goal, while individual students also work to complete their own distance based goals.
- Active Globe also rewards your students Physical Activity automatically with badges and certificates that become more difficult as their fitness grows. Students and Teachers are automatically sent the certificates when they are achieved, so they can simply print them out and present them.
3. Its Dead Simple – Given that Active Globe was built from the ground up by a teacher, it includes all of the features that a school and busy teachers would need to ensure that getting your school started with Active Globe is as easy as 1,2,3. We’ve also built a collection of video tutorials and resources to take you through the process step-by-step. Need help? Simply email us and we’ll get you setup.
4. Affordable – Active Globe is also extremely affordable for schools of all sizes and budgets. For $99 per year, you get access to an unlimited number of students who all get to have their own personal goals, and contribute to the overall school goals. Considering the enormous potential it has to impact so many areas of the school, its an absolute no brainer to get started RIGHT now.
You can also contact us to arrange an invoice for your school or institution.
