Dennis Carter, (06/10/2008), Technology Bring's "new PE" to Schools
eSchool News: Retrieved from:
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2008/06/10/technology-brings-new-p-e-to-schools/

This article, written in 2008, does a good job showing what the "new PE" was and where it was heading to. Showing that "gym class" was being booted out and that "physical education" was on it's way in and was not stopping for anybody.
In the article it points out just a few of the ways technology was making it's way into the physical education classroom. Heart rate monitors for each student, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), and the Wii Fit were ways that technology was not only helping physical educators but they were also opening physical education and making it fun for a whole new group of kids. Having students who normally do not play sports and do not participate in PE start participating because in their eyes they were playing a video game is a great success. They are getting a workout without even really knowing it, and they were having fun doing it.
Along with this new technology comes a small problem though, funding all this new expensive equipment. Because of this many new grants have been made available from various places to help school districts get the new technology. New things such as heart rate monitors also came with all of the necessary software for teachers and students to be able to track their progress. which in turn is a great tool for assessment. These heart rate monitors also opened the door for the ability to show kids how after a period of time their target heart rate would be harder to achieve because of the fact that they were building their cardiovascular endurance.
Technology like heart rate monitors, pedometers, and interactive video games are wonderful tools to have. Today's technology with heart rate monitors can actually send information via Bluetooth to the teachers computer and they can project it onto a screen to show real-time results. Or you can just download it and have a record of how hard the students were working.
The only problem I have with all of this wonderful stuff is the same as most other teachers, the cost. Working in one of the poorest schools in a district that does not have much money anyway means that I have zero access to this great technology. With cheap heart rate monitor sets costing around $450-$500 for only 12 and class sizes usually around 25-30 in elementary PE that is around $1,200 just for heart rate monitors. My yearly budget over the last three years has been right around $340 per year. Not going to happen. I won't even start on how much a DDR class pack would cost.
My hope is that eventually my district will see the benefits of this kind of technology  and buy it for the elementary level schools, even if it is a DDR that travels throughout the entire district. I also hope to find a grant that I can apply for and purchase some things that will greatly benefit my students.