Abstract:

In the school setting, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) refers to students bringing their mobile devices into classrooms in support of traditional teaching practices. For years now, European school systems has fully adopted the approach BYOD; in recent months, due to the pandemic experience, it has become an important learning strategy to promote the active participation of students during the distance learning process. The severe and sudden CoViD19 (Corona Virus Diseases) restrictions that took over the school organization, have made distance learning difficult; this was perceived as a problem, particularly for the teaching of mainly laboratory setting disciplines, such as physical education, in which the educational moment is strongly linked to the mediated body experience. Physical education teachers had to review their teaching approach but, at the same time, they had the opportunity to fully experience the benefits that technology support can offer to this discipline.

By means of a quasi-experimental approach, the present preliminary study analyzed data from PAQ-C (Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children) self-administrated test of 100 junior high school Italian students, pre- and post- a 2-week (1h - 2 time a week) distance lessons with a BYOD approach consisting of augmented reality sport games using freely downloadable applications on any smartphone. The PAQ-C were administered and collected by physical education teachers, specifically trained, during the curricular lessons; no identity data was treated and there was no direct contact with students or the school.

After a check on the normal distribution of the variables, a parametric statistical analysis model (t-test) was used. From a statistical perspective, our preliminary results showed a significant improvement in physical activity levels between pre-BYOD (1,74±0,28) and post-BYOD (2,96±0,47) with a p value 0,011, also by analyzing the individual sub-items of the PAQ-C; from a health perspective, the teachers feedback referred a more active and renewed enthusiasm in student participation, that further enriched the motor competence moving the students in a great interest for a "suitable" use of smartphones (digital competence) and for a "different" interaction model with classmates (citizenship competence).This latter data can also be found in the answers of the Item 10 of PAQ-C, where in pre-BYOD 45% reported a response that led to a perception of disease or poor health condition (e.g. headache, back pain, etc.). In post-BYOD, the percentage was reduced to 23%. It might seems an indication of the support of the emotion in the organization of the movement, especially at this age (11-13 years), when the movement is also an expression and representation of the embodied self.

The pandemic has brought out all the fragilities of the Italian school system, but at the same time it has triggered moments of reflection and review of educational action where technology and digital devices can (and must) lead us towards a more sustainable system organization in a long term vision.

In a condition of distance learning, the BYOD method using smartphone applications for playing augmented reality sport games, could therefore be considered a useful teaching strategy for physical education and also an opportunity for promoting health behavior. These preliminary data could be the beginning for further research on how motor and sports activity could be mediated by (and in) technology.

Keywords:

CoViD19, distance learning, didactic, physical education, BYOD, health.