Daily Burn vs. Traineo, The Ultimate Battle

Daily Burn vs. Traineo

Daily Burn

Advantages

The Locker Room

A place you can call home, a one stop shop where you can put all of your workouts, nutrition etc into the database. It's so simple, right there for you, do not need to go searching the site, it's right in front of your nose.

iPhone App

Nowadays absolutely everyone is on-the-go, smart phone in hand, using technology to its fullest to make life simpler, why wouldn't Daily Burn be any different. With the iPhone application, Daily Burn allows users to update their progress from anywhere they can get Wi-Fi. Best of all there is a food scanner app that allows you to scan the barcode directly into your food log.

Workout Videos

Daily Burn has the best visual aids imaginable. For those fitness challenged individuals who are unaware of workouts or skills to help lose weight, Daily Burn has videos of users demonstrating the skill. What more can you ask for? For those workouts without a video, there is almost always a photo or a link to more information. It gives you no reason to get up and start working out.

Goals

Daily Burn keeps track of everything, the distance travelled, calories burned, push ups done, so you can set goals. If you want to run 100 miles in less than a month, Daily Burn can assist you in your dream. If you want to do 10,000 pushups in two months, boom, Daily Burn has your back. Tracking your own statistics can be tough and you will probably lose count, thus, Daily Burn is really helpful.

Disadvantages

Forums

Daily Burn forums, a place where users can interact, talk and help one another, as far as I am concerned does not exist. The Daily Burn community pages are extremely hard to find and seemingly dead. There is no chitter-chatter amongst users, sure makes it tough for people to achieve fitness.

All About Going Pro

Okay Daily Burn we get it you need money to thrive, but us users do not need to be reminded every two seconds of all the perks we can get when we go pro. Daily Burn sure does make it enticing to join the land of Daily Burn Pro, but they are very annoying about it. Can't I just log in my nutrition, sleep and workouts in peace?

Traineo

Advantages

Inclusion of the Wii

I have a Wii myself, and when I found out Traineo was smart enough to involve the Wii, I got a little excited. Wii in and of itself is a great tool alone, but along with Traineo now you can track calories burned amongst many other things. How can you not get pumped up about this?

Custom Logs

Traineo users can create their unique trackers of their custom data, whether it is inches, pounds, calories or so on. The custom logs generates a graph over time and helps you reach your goal.

Disadvantages

Activity Tracker

It does not even have push ups! Push Ups! Come on, give me a break, I'm sure about 80% of our country has at least done one push up in their lifetime, and you do not include push ups in your activity tracker? Give me something to work with, come on people!

Food Tracker

It does not let you enter individual foods just a section for calories and another for diet quality. Yes you can argue that is what is really important, but entering the individual foods is so much easier for everyone. So in general, I'd say Traineo's trackers are not up to par.

Conclusion

In the end, Daily Burn is definitely the way to go. You get more bang for your buck, you will definitely see results in no time. Traineo just does not stand up to Daily Burn.

Lesson Plan

Block Plan

Train-E-O!

My first impressions of Traineo were not the best. I was not happy with their program, it was hard to follow and not very effective. Simultaneously, I am using Daily Burn which is also an online exercise and nutrition program. I like Daily Burn a lot better because there are not nearly as much restrictions. With Daily Burn I can track my sleep, nutrition, workouts, distance travelled etc. without paying a dime. On the other hand Traineo asks for money before I can do anything. Traineo allows me to get tips on how to lose weight, be fit, be motivated and so on but nothing really helpful. I'm sure if I paid the fee Traineo would be a great tool for me and anyone, but I'd prefer Daily Burn otherwise.

I can see myself using Traineo to accomplish LS 1B, as long as the entry fee for all my students are within the budget. Traineo by itself will not help my students accomplish LS 1B, but if the school budget covers the costs it will be very helpful, I would not expect my students to want to spend their money on Traineo. In a perfect world it would be in the budget, and I'd use Traineo to allow my students to create a fitness program thats fit for their needs. I'm aware that Traineo is much better when the student is open to use TraineoPLUS, students will learn lessons of how to become physically educated people, enhance their muscular strength, endurace, flexibilty, balance and more. I know that with TraineoPLUS students can integrate the Nintendo Wii which is phenomenal. The Wii by itself is great tool but with Traineo I can only imagine how great it could be. I would love to see this used in classrooms, in the curriculum and a part of the NYS Regents Level Objectives.

Kevin Renzo Is Burning

I was pleasantly surprised with the Daily Burn program. I am currently using Daily Burn and Traineo, two great online exercise and nutrition trackers, personally I enjoyed using Daily Burn better. With no surprise there were restrictions with Daily Burn and Traineo, those restrictions can be lifted if I chose to pay a certain amount which I did not. However, Daily Burn, with the restrictions and all allowed me to do so much more than Traineo. Traineo was hard to follow, barely let me do anything without paying while Daily Burn allowed me to do so much! Daily Burn is a great program and tool for all people to use, along with their motivators, fitness plans and all, and if it were in my budget I would pay the fees and continue to use it. However, I will continue getting my exercise how I have been.



Along with Daily Burn, students can use Picasa. Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for digital photos and the best part is that it is free! Students will be able to take screen shots of their progress in Daily Burn and enables the student to show the teacher all the hard work they are doing. With the aid of Daily Burn, Picasa can be a great way of reporting progress towards the learning standard 1A. The screen shots can be feedback for the student and teacher and will show what areas the student needs help in. I have taken plenty of screen shots, it is simple, effective and very helpful. If you look above at the first picture, you can see that I was recording my sleep for the night and that I only received 2 hours of sleep that night. It was a rough night for me and my finals, I felt I had to share that in my blog. There is no reason why any Physical Educator cannot do the same.

Physical Education in the NYS Regents

Physical Education is a vital part of every students education, K-12, and therefore should be integrated into the Regents Level Objectives. All high school seniors in every district across the nation, after more than 17 years on our beautiful planet and for most students 12 years of Physical Education, should be proficient in Physical Education. For NYS Learning Standard, I would recommend that at least 75% of the Senior class should be competent in 6 skills, proficient in 3 skills and across 3 different categories. That might sound it is asking a lot but it really is not, as long as you have motivated and involved Physical Educators. Of course there are those students who are not as gifted athletically as everyone (environment, task, learner) but it is our job, as Physical Educators that we adapt and modify what we can to ensure the success of everyone.

When it comes to the NYS LS 1B, I feel that 90% of the Senior class should be competent in creating a Personal Fitness Plan. America is one of the most obese countries in the world, I would prefer a student who cannot score a lay up and can still create a Personal Fitness Plan over a student who cannot. Students will learn tricks to improve their muscular strength, endurance, flexibility and so on. These lessons are priceless and it is vital for it to be in the NYS Regents, information that they can learn and use for a lifetime.

Brain Gains

CBC news, home of Canada's latest World, Entertainment and Business news ran the story of Brain Gains. Brain Gains is a program that strived to get unruly students, students who have had extreme difficulty succeeding educationally, to do well in school. Taken place in City Park Collegiate Schools in Saskatoon Canada, students have went from school to school to finally arrive at Saskatoon, a place where they can finally feel comfortable and safe. The news piece was very interesting, especially from my point of view, I learned a lot after reading and viewing the story. I always knew exercise and physical activity for the body, soul and mind but I never knew the science behind it. With all of the endorphins, the hippocampus, brain cells expanding it really opens your eyes. I always knew Physical Education is important but now I know as a future physical educator I have a responsibility to my students. I was upset during the video when they took you into the physical education class and talked about how the students were not really moving and getting the exercise they need to stimulate their minds. Rather, the students got their exercise in the classroom, with treadmills and other machines. Personally, in my Physical Education I will make sure of it to see that most if not all of my students are getting the exercise they need to stimulate their minds and be successful in their other classes. When I was in high school, my Physical Education class was the same way as the one in the video, kids standing around, not participating and it really bothers me, there is no reason why it should be like that.

The program was able to take students who have almost never succeeded in school, students who could barely read and write at grades 8 or 9, students who act out, curse at their instructors and completely flipped the table. The program took the students 180 degrees from disobedient kids to learners. I was not surprised because that is the beauty of exercise and activity, it is stimulating, exciting and allows for people to excel in other realms. The program is very similar to our NYS Standards because goals were set for the students. The students were expected to produce results and they did, and it is the same for Physical Education and it's standards.

BDNF is a protein known as Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, it helps to support the survival of existing neurons and encourage the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses. BDNF is active in the hippocampus, cortex and basal forebrain which are all areas vital to learning, memory and higher thinking. Physical Education is supposed to stimulate the BDNF and as a result students should be able to exceed in the classroom. BDNF is activated through exercise and activity, thus proving the importance of Physical Education in the classroom. There are two books that outline the benefits of exercise and learning, Sparks by John Ratey and The Kinesthetic Classroom by Traci Lengel and Mike Kuczala.

A Look Back at Second Semester at St. Mary's

Coming back to St. Mary's this fall was one of my best decisions of the semester. The best part of the experience was the different lens that was on the 'camera' so to speak. Going to St. Mary's as a Lab Assistant rather than student I was able to look at the experience completely differently. Within my group was three rising Physical Educators, Jon, Daniel and Nicole. I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed working with them. They looked at me for guidance and assistance, I never thought people would look to me for help like they did. Then it hit me; this is exactly what I want, to help students in the area of Physical Education. Now yes, Jon, Dan and Nicole were not necessarily my students but it is as close as I can get. The four of us kept good communication with each other, I gave them advice based on the previous knowledge I had from 201 in the Spring. I hope I made an impact on them and helped make an enjoyable experience. If I can find the time I would love to be an Assistant in 201 again or even 255. Below is a picture of myself during an intense, and I mean intense game of checkers, it ended in a tie, referee called it on account of time, but it was one for the ages. Working with children always reminds me how much I miss being young, well younger.

Homework 1, A Long Overdue Blog

What is meant by the idea that teaching is a goal-oriented activity?

For a goal-directed coordination of instructional activities and teaching methods, firstly we can define goals for education in terms of the ideas and skills we want students to learn. Next we must design activities and teaching methods that will provide opportunities for experience with these ideas and skills, and help students learn more from their experiences. Lastly, these goals must fall within the nation, state and local standards. Without any of this there is no sense of direction and fairly will surely ensue.

Why is the process that teachers choose to use to teach content important?

The decision process instructors choose is so important because it helps them identify and meet their goals and objectives. There are a variety of processes you can choose from and there is a method for everyone. Instructors need to be prepared to teach their students in a variety of realms and it is vital that they have a process. Also, there are multiple processes teachers can choose from to teach content, if one way work well, that's good, but teachers can change it every now and then to keep students interested.

Why is the movement-task student response unit of analysis so important in physical education?

Movement-task student response unit of analysis is so important in physical education because it allows the teacher to asses the students, give feedback and it also allows the students to develop their motor skills. Physical Educators have to keep their students moving as much as they can, physical education is a vital part of every school and in order for it to thrive, movement-task student response should be optimal.

Circuit Training: What a Workout!

This past monday, the 29th of November I continued my peer teaching in EDU 255 in Lab D. I was given Circuit Training to teach and at first I was a bit skeptical, anyone who knows me will almost never see me in the gym working out and if you took one look at me you'd probably agree. In addition, the class had to incorporate a form of technology into our lesson. Technology is a key piece of every classroom and is vital for myself and my peers to be comfortable with it.

When I sat down to write my lesson plan I was determined to make Circuit Training fun for everyone. Circuit Training is a form of high intensity aerobics and resistance training designed to be easy to follow and targets fat loss, muscle building and heart fitness. The best part of Circuit Training is how easy it is, anyone, anywhere can perform a full circuit with little to no equipment. However, Circuit Training is an intense workout that will have you sweating and gasping for breathe if performed properly. Therefore I really wanted to make this fun for everyone.

It was tough to make my lesson fun, especially considering my peers are not to thrilled to be working out so intensely and sweating when I am sure they would rather relax. After much contemplation, I decided to incorporate fun activities at each station that I hoped my peers would enjoy doing. For example, at one station I had my peers run on a 'treadmill', so to speak. A treadmill was not within my budget therefore I modified it a little bit. Rather than have my peers run on a treadmill, I had them do the 'Running Man.' Those not familiar with the Running Man, it is a dance move that was popular in the 1980s. Also, if my peers were not happy with the Running Man, I allowed them to perform a different dance, if they so wished.

For my lesson, I had seven stations set up in one half of the gym that included the treadmill, burpees, planks, jump ropes, step ups, dumbbells and sit-ups. I had modifications at each station if the workout was too intense for anyone. For example, if sit-ups were too strenuous my peers could have done crunches instead. After all of this, I felt that I made my lesson plan as fun as possible.

At the beginning of the lesson I had my peers record their resting heart rates in order to compare them to their heart rates after the workout. After brief viewing of the numbers recorded you can tell instantly once everyone starts working out. Viewing the chart, I can tell those who are working out intensely and those who are not. Heart rate monitors are a great way to see the intensity of my students, those who are and are not working hard. Some students were exhausted after the Circuit Training and their heart rates are so high that they needed to stop in order to get some rest. As seen below, Mark was out of breathe and needed to take a break, which just goes to show how intense the workout really is.

Technology like the heart rate monitors should be and are an integral part of every Physical Education class. Very easy to set up there should be no reason why it is not a part of the curriculum in Physical Education. After becoming familiar with it I feel very confident to do so again in the future.To the left you can see the heart rates of the class. The heart rates are linked to a program on a computer, each heart rate is assigned a number and therefore each student can see their own heart rate.

Going into my lesson I was very confident with my lesson, I had rehearsed what I was going to say and I think everything went well. I had activity progressions laid out and I was ready to go! Of course nothing ever goes according to plan, nonetheless, I feel like I did a good job. On paper however, when I developed the content, I got the impression I did not do a great job with the cues and tasks. Also, looking at my C-9 form almost all of the realms were covered, but not cues. I had a hard time with the cues because there we just so many! With seven stations the cues were countless. Looking back at it now I should have just had universal cues for each station and went along with that. It was a great learning experience though and I am glad I had this opportunity and look forward to the next time I can teach. In addition, I set up a 12 day block plan that can be very helpful in the future as a physical educator.

My feedback was really well, the best it has been. I was able to give feedback to more than 50% of the class and help them with the cues and tasks. As seen in this picture I was helping Jeremy and Greg with the 'treadmill' or Running Man. I was very pleased with my feedback because prior to Lab D it has not been up to par. I made a point of it to give feedback and will do the same with all future teaching experiences. And I feel I used my time wisely as you can see in this Time Coding Form.

Dr. Yang always has tricks up his sleeves, and during my lab D I had to deal with some unruly students. Under orders from Dr. Yang, my classmates Ben, Laura, Nicole and Anthony were told to make it very hard for me to teach. In every classroom there is always one or more students who give the teacher a hard time and it is to be expected. Thus, I understand why Dr. Yang does so during Lab D and I'm grateful for the learning experience. When my classmates began to get out of hand I handled the situation pretty well but I certainly could have done a better job. I should have broken the trouble-makers up to eliminate the problem immediately to avoid it from the start. This picture will show the trouble they gave me, and I say trouble but it was pretty funny and I enjoyed the challenge.

As I mentioned previously, I was very nervous to teach Circuit Training, but all in all I think I passed with flying colors. I had a lot of fun and I hope my classmates did as well. Below are the videos of my teaching and links to all my documents.

Lesson Plan

Activity Progressions 1 & 2

Content Development

Block Plan

Feedback Analysis

Time Coding Form