Tahuna

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Intermediate    09  

Question
• Can Digital-Technology (Camera) feedback be used in a
practical, effective manner to enhance physical skills
(Swimming)?
• Can the data from this project be applied elsewhere in the
curriculum?

Aim
To encourage students to utilize digital technology
(Camera) to develop personal goals that are;
• Achievable,
• Can easily be measured,
• Are meeting real learning needs in physical
education (Swimming).
Methodology
Over the course of a fortnight seven students were filmed, individually,
at Moana Pool swimming approximately 15 meters. They were filmed
on two separate occasions, two weeks apart.
The students were selected based on a simple criteria namely they
had been identified as having a poor skill set in relation to; floating in
water, using the freestyle stroke and indicating a lack of confidence in
their ability to swim, e.g. “I can’t swim”, “…our family doesn’t go
swimming…”
Swimsation staff were notified that this was a research project and
that instructions re swimming technique were to continue as per
normal.
After the first filming each student then watched the video of
themselves and was encouraged, with guidance from the teacher, to
identify strengths and weaknesses in their performance. They were then
asked to establish some technique-based goals that they could apply in
the next swimming session. Each student watched the initial video of
themselves 4-5 times and during the viewing process developed 3-4
goals.
At the second filming they were initially reminded of their goals and
were then filmed as they attempted to put these into practice. The next
day they watched the second filming and were asked to comment on;
a) How successful they thought they’d been in relation to realizing
their goals.
b) Specifically, what they felt had improved and what they would be
working on next time.
c) Had it been worthwhile
d) Would they do it again
e) Finally they were given a P.M.I. chart called ‘I Can Swim’ and
asked to complete this concerning how they felt about the use of a
camera to identify their swimming skills.
Resources

Laptop, Sony Cybershot Camera (We used the video

component on the Camera).
5 minutes filming during a swim class up at Moana Pool on
two separate dates (September 9th and 23rd).

Feedback

The reaction from the students after the first trial was
overwhelmingly positive. They thought it was funny to see
themselves in the pool, could come up with several suggestions
concerning what they could do to improve their skills and had
some novel suggestions of their own (“…it’s because of the
goggles.) Each student took the opportunity seriously and was
eager to let us know what they were doing, right or wrong.
After the second trial all but one of the students* was able to
critique their performance in relation to their goals. This
meant that they were able to identify which goals were being
achieved to a greater or lesser degree and they were eager to
point out what they were going to work on next time.
From the videos it was readily apparent that there had been
an increase in skill sets and those students had been able to
incorporate their individual goals into their own swimming
lesson. Importantly they enjoyed the process and indicated
thoughts like, “I’m going to do it (The Goal) up at the pool
tonight.”
*(One of the students has a medical condition that significantly
affects his mental processes. He nevertheless was able to
identify what he could work on but struggled to then make a
connection between his improved skill-set and video-goal
setting. There were significant gains and he could talk about
these changes but not the actual link!)
Conclusion
In conclusion it is fair to say that,
• Digital technology feedback and goal setting is a very
useful tool that can be used to support students skill set
development and the process can be as simple as the
teacher wishes to make it.

Next Step/Reflection
To develop more specific data results it would have been useful
to;
• Have a control group.
• Have a wider data base re-numbers and times filmed.
• Selecting a variety of Physical Education areas and
assessing how useful this programme would be is where
we will be heading with our next step in the knowledge
that it is easy to do, easy to change and can have a strong
input from the students.
• Have the students run the programme using a
questionnaire/response template.

Finally, this was an extremely easy research project to

conduct with genuine uncertainty about how effective this
process would be for the students. We are confident that it is
likely to lead to an early follow up within the health and
physical activity classes at Tahuna.

Thanks
A big thank you to the staff at Moana Pool and to those
involved in the setup and administering of this active research
opportunity, Mike Jenkinson, Terry Hokianga, Grant Phillips,
Keith Hutton and last, but certainly not least, the Students of
Tahuna.