Will Digital Technology Turn Campus Health into a 'Nightmare'?
Jun 18, 2015 08:01
CST Updated
08:01
The development of technology has indeed brought many benefits to humanity, which is beyond doubt. However, whether technological progress also brings certain concerns—such as presenting enticing opportunities for the education sector while simultaneously raising a series of philosophical, pedagogical, and even ethical issues—remains a question worth considering.
Michael Gard, an Associate Professor at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at The University of Queensland, has joined forces with academic institutions in Canberra, Melbourne, and Illinois to launch a three-year research initiative focused primarily on the digitalization of physical education and school health.
“For example, most health-related technologies we are familiar with today include a feature that requires students to calculate the calories they burn during exercise. But on closer reflection, is this what we want students to be doing in school?”
Is it really necessary to send children to school for three or four years, merely to watch them use digital technology?
“Then, one must constantly monitor a large volume of health information concerning children.”
You may wonder, where does this vast amount of digital technology come from?
“You need to realize that the market profits from the digitalization of campus health and physical education are enormous. Therefore, large healthcare companies have undoubtedly been eagerly marketing various health and fitness equipment to schools.”
Moreover, one noteworthy aspect of this study is its potential implications for the employment prospects of physical education teachers.
Gard said, “You will find that it is no longer teachers but computer screens that guide students’ exercises or monitor their physical fitness in school gyms.”
“And similar situations are occurring in physical education classes at American schools.”
“If a physical education teacher can be trained within a few months, their labor will inevitably be very cheap.”
“Consider another extreme scenario: if a physical education teacher’s performance bonus were determined by the number of pounds of fat lost by their students, this issue would become a matter of ethics. What is concerning is that some states in the United States are already showing such intentions.”
This study will also investigate how schools use digital technologies to measure students’ physical indicators, such as body mass index (BMI), and track the disposition of the collected data.
In Australia as well, some schools and teachers have long leveraged digitalization in health and physical education. How effective has the implementation been? Gard stated that he would engage in dialogue with them as soon as possible.
In China, although there are currently no comparable cases of applying digital technologies to physical education, such applications are quite common in theoretical coursework. Whether this trend will ultimately give rise to a “nightmare” warrants in-depth investigation.
Compiled by: Zhou Changling Editor-in-Charge: Mo Renying
Michael Gard, an Associate Professor at the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences at The University of Queensland, has joined forces with academic institutions in Canberra, Melbourne, and Illinois to launch a three-year research initiative focused primarily on the digitalization of physical education and school health.
Gard stated, “We can either harness the power of digital technology to help students expand their thinking and enrich their lives with more choices, or we can leverage this power to monitor their every move and dictate how they should live.”
“For example, most health-related technologies we are familiar with today include a feature that requires students to calculate the calories they burn during exercise. But on closer reflection, is this what we want students to be doing in school?”
Is it really necessary to send children to school for three or four years, merely to watch them use digital technology?
“Then, one must constantly monitor a large volume of health information concerning children.”
You may wonder, where does this vast amount of digital technology come from?
“You need to realize that the market profits from the digitalization of campus health and physical education are enormous. Therefore, large healthcare companies have undoubtedly been eagerly marketing various health and fitness equipment to schools.”
Moreover, one noteworthy aspect of this study is its potential implications for the employment prospects of physical education teachers.
Gard said, “You will find that it is no longer teachers but computer screens that guide students’ exercises or monitor their physical fitness in school gyms.”
“And similar situations are occurring in physical education classes at American schools.”
“If a physical education teacher can be trained within a few months, their labor will inevitably be very cheap.”
“Consider another extreme scenario: if a physical education teacher’s performance bonus were determined by the number of pounds of fat lost by their students, this issue would become a matter of ethics. What is concerning is that some states in the United States are already showing such intentions.”
This study will also investigate how schools use digital technologies to measure students’ physical indicators, such as body mass index (BMI), and track the disposition of the collected data.
In Australia as well, some schools and teachers have long leveraged digitalization in health and physical education. How effective has the implementation been? Gard stated that he would engage in dialogue with them as soon as possible.
In China, although there are currently no comparable cases of applying digital technologies to physical education, such applications are quite common in theoretical coursework. Whether this trend will ultimately give rise to a “nightmare” warrants in-depth investigation.
Compiled by: Zhou Changling Editor-in-Charge: Mo Renying