At-risk Students the Solution

There are as many reasons a student in elementary, middle or high school might be labeled as “at-risk” as there are at-risk students. No one program or reform initiative can meet the needs of even a majority. As we work to reduce the number of actual dropouts and those who mentally disengage themselves from the learning process while heading toward graduation we are often frustrated.
A personalization of school – helping kids feel engaged and part of a community – can be a big factor in keeping them engaged in school. An engaged student comes to school more often. They have fewer incidences of negative behavior and they lead in ways that can transfer to success in the workplace and in life.

Our TEAM e3 program will not directly increase test scores or improve reading levels – but the combination of valuable work roles at school, increased physical activity during the school day and leadership have led to academic success time and time again. We look forward to hearing your questions and comments after you explre our TEAM e3 online summary. The full program manual can be yours, contact us now.

What School Wants to be a Millionaire?

This economic climate, the enormous budgetary challenges K-12 schools are facing and the worrisome state of PE and youth fitness may actually be the perfect storm for some cool solutions. There are a series of articles on examiner.com that lead to this week's story on "What School Wants to be a Millionaire."


Our hope is that you send in questions, comments and stories that might align with our creation of this ExerLearning Lab. Our goal: to share momentum and maybe even funds with you and your favorite school.

More here:

Health and PE: Kids Can Lead
With Kids, All Work Won't Work

We were thrilled to read the newest summary of peer-reviewed research on the relationship between physical activity and academic performance among children and adolescents created by Active Education from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation (RWJF). Their comprehensive summary yields the following insights:

• Many school systems have downsized or eliminated PE under the assumption that more classroom time will improve academic performance and increase standardized test scores. The available evidence from several controlled experimental studies in the United States, Canada,and Australia contradicts this view.
• All of these studies evaluated how additional instructional time for PE impacts academic performance, and clearly demonstrate that physical activity need not be sacrificed for academic excellence.
• In 2007, 287 fourth- and fifth-grade students in British Columbia were evaluated to determine if introducing daily classroom physical activity sessions affected their academic performance. Students in the intervention group participated in daily 10-minute classroom activity sessions in addition to having 80 minutes of PE per week. Despite increasing in-school physical activity time by approximately 50 minutes per week, students receiving the extra physical activity time had similar standardized test scores for mathematics, reading and language arts as did students in the control group.
• In 1999, researchers analyzed data from 759 fourth- and fifth-grade students in California and found that students’ scores on standardized achievement tests were not adversely affected by an intensive PE program that doubled or tripled PE time. On several test scores, students who spent more time in PE performed better than students in control groups.

We appreciate the dedication the RWJF consistently demonstrates in the quest to help our youth lead healthier, happier, more productive and satisfying lives.  Our goal is to take this research and provide easy to implament solutions for parents (http://www.footgaming.com/Family/Parents/ ) and teachers (http://www.footgaming.com/School/ ).

Service learning as an Exerlearning Bonus

We work hard to motivate students who are disengaged for a wide-variety of reasons.

1. Students below grade level in reading or math

2. Students disengaged in the learning process (skipping school, sleeping in class, acting out, ignoring assignments)

3. Struggling students who try hard without adequate success; frustrated, stressed out or angry

4. Students consistently absent, often one day out of every five days, or more

5. Students lacking leadership or confident social skills

6. Wiggly kids, kinesthetic learners, ADD/ADHD challenges

7. Bright students under-performing or zoning out?

8. Technology savvy and digitally connected students wanting "more" during the school day

9. Students who love to make games, play games - all the time.

If you said YES to one or more the above, TEAM E3 is the ideal tool to prepare those targeted students for successful learning, allowing you to do what you do best. TEAM e3 members lead and manage a wide variety of ExerLearning, Faculty Wellness, FootGaming and other programs customized to technology, fitness, health and curriculum learning goals.


TEAM e3 (Entrepreneurship, Exercise, Empowerment) is a powerful program.  Share this with your favorite teacher or principal now.

Online Learning Games for FootGaming

There is a wonderful array of great learning games available both for purchase or for free online play.  We'll discuss a few of them here. The addition of Footgaming to these games is important. We'll touch on the reasons as we showcase each game site:

Wonder Islands: Bright colors, easy to learn games and a variety of activities for the age 4-8 group await families at Wonder Islands. When a youngster plays these games with a FootPOWR instead of the conventional mouse controller each step on the controller is logged automatically.  Children love to see how many steps and miles they can accumulate.  Also, many of the games take some time to load and there is quite a bit of "watch and wait" time.  Children can "jog" on the center or two back corner squares on the FootPOWR during this time. It helps get the "wigglies" out, increases attention for time on the games and provides balance and cardio play conducive to good learning.

For the older kids - we love Whyville.  There are endless science and learning games, the ability to chat and work as teams - and they all work seamlessly with the FootPOWR.  Playnormous - is all about healthy food choices and awareness wrapped in very cool games.

We think that Interactive Inc could enhance its already top-quality simulations and solutions with the addition of FootPOWR peripheral use. The same might be true for LudoCraft.  We'd welcome conversations with either of these top-quality design teams.

For those of you with the skills to develop your own games (and please, consider adding the FootPOWR to them) - explore the software at Thinking Worlds.

Please add your comments and more about online learning game links.

High-tech Kids Lead Healthy Learning- with free tech tools

Healthy eating meets the gaming world. The British Columbia Dairy Foundation (BCDF) along with Registered Dietitians have launched a new video game to teach students in grades six to eight about Canada’s Food Guide and how to make healthy meal choices.


Titanium Chef is an interactive, web-based role playing game (http://www.titaniumchef.ca/) that teaches students how to classify foods into the four foods groups and determine appropriate serving sizes. What's cool is that it works seamlessly with the FootPOWR - a computer peripheral that adds activity to "mouse" input.
“The idea for Titanium Chef came from research and our own observations that show students today respond positively to interactive learning,” said Kenton Delisle, a lead nutrition educator with BCDF, in a release.

Another free online site that provides a whole quiver of fun and educational "healthy food choices" games is Playnormous.  (http://www.footgaming.com/.docs/pg/10777 ) The entire family will enjoy the great game play - and everyone is sure to discover something new. Send your students home with these links to extend the healthy learning into leisure time.

Our digital kids can help create health and fitness resources on their own - and add valuable resources to your curriculum. You don't need to understand how to use the technology first. Let your students lead and mentor you. And yes - all these tools are online and FREE!
• Scratch - (http://scratch.mit.edu/) an easy to learn programming language for ages 8 and up. Programming is simply one of the best learning experiences for students. It builds logic, higher order thinking skills, and really, it's just plain fun! When the games have a health or fitness theme everyone wins.
• Prezi - (http://prezi.com/) tired of boring old one-slide-at-a-time slideshows? Try zooming instead. If some of your students have "done PowerPoint" - let them try Prezi. It might make you dizzy, but the kids should pick it up pretty quickly
• Zamar - (http://www.zamzar.com/) easy online file conversion. Not only does Zamzar convert document and graphic file formats, but also movie formats. It even can save YouTube and other online movies to files for use at a later date.

Let us see what your students create. Send us the link or share your story in the comments section

Exerlearning Hits College

We've been working hard to share the research behind the use of video games and Exerlearning for years. Our target has been the grade 3-12 student. Looks like ExerLearning has leaped into college at NYU.
We'd love to meet Professor Gary Marcus and sit in on his class "Guitar Heroes (and Heroines): Music, Video Games and the Nature of Human Cognition."
In a recent article in "Video games are an understudied area," said Marcus, a psychology professor. "People dismiss them unfairly, but 'Guitar Hero' is a good tool for teaching and I'm interested in the nature of learning."
The course will tackle the finer points of video games and human cognition and it already has a waiting list. Why not? Understanding games, their connection to activity and their impact on cognition, mood, reducing stress, focus and productivity are probably some of the most important experiences a university students can gain.
Now here's a course I'd like to take via distance learning - "Can Exercise Change Your Brain?"
Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki is also debuting an undergrad science course that can save students the cost of a gym membership.
In her new class, "Can Exercise Change Your Brain?" Suzuki leads students in an hourlong high-impact aerobics class every session. The sweaty students then sit through a lecture on how exercise enhances cognitive performance.
"I got the idea at Equinox Gym," Suzuki said. "I took this kickboxing and dance class that made me feel great. I thought if I could make my students feel like that after my class, I'd be the best teacher in the world!"
Suzuki already has a doctoral degree, but she got certified at her gym as a group fitness instructor to prep for her new course.
This is one of the most exciting articles I've read in a long time. If anyone reading this has a connection to either Wendy Suzuki or Gary Marcus please forward this blog or have them contact me. I'd love to learn more about their work and invite them to be a guest for an ExerLearning interview.