Recording achievement in sport

Recording achievement in one form or another has been practised for many years and in particular it has been a key part of training and development in sports. At its simplest level runners find it helpful to make a note of their times over specified distances. Now, however, technology is providing opportunities for much more sophisticated ways of recording performance and for individuals to manage and link their records to other activities beyond sport.

Xoolon is a revolutionary online sports community designed to increase school children’s health and fitness and improve sporting prowess. It is particularly concerned with the increasing problem of obesity amongst children and young adults. Xoolon was founded in 2005 to provide an easy-to-use, open and flexible platform for everyone to get the most out of sport. Initially this unique approach to health and fitness was focused on schoolchildren with the aim of creating a new generation of young people with the desire and awareness to establish physical well-being and activity as a habit for life. Now though, the intention is also to expand the Xoolon community into areas not traditionally associated with sport, for example cardiac rehabilitation programmes where peoples’ lifestyles need to change radically to improve their quality of life; achieved by physical exercise and a sense of community.

The Xoolon concept is to build web-based community portals for schools, sports clubs, and sports communities and expand it to create areas of sporting excellence on a regional, national and international level. By linking together people, organisations and schools with a commitment to building sporting skills we can realise the sporting ambitions of young people around the world. It has been extremely successful in a number of regions around the UK in stimulating an excitement around sports and healthy activities in schools and local clubs by creating a simple to use, fun and accurate way of recording physical and mental abilities.

Pupils can enter their own fitness profile to include height, weight, participation level and the sports that they play - this will extend to diet for health related fitness programmes. The profiles are not static; pupils can add their results online on an on-going basis and can identify where they’ve improved or which areas they wish to focus on improving. A sports psychology or ‘mental toughness’ test is completed by pupils and mentors and identifies mental strengths and weaknesses, areas of development and to which sports or positions (e.g. attacker or goal keeper) young people are best suited.

Users enjoy entering their sporting results on their own Xoolog or personal section of the portal. They find it highly motivating to view their statistics graphically and can aim to beat their own personal bests as well as measure themselves against school and national results. They are able to print off a certificate from the website showing which sports (from athletics to lacrosse, rugby, tennis and water skiing) are their ‘top three’, providing a useful confidence boost for those unsure of their sporting abilities. Research shows that students learn best when they are appropriately recognised for their efforts. In 2010, Xoolon became Planet Xoolon with a view to expanding the potential of the community into areas not traditionally associated with sport.

Planet Xoolon uses a variety of mechanisms to encourage and reward students to strive for great performance. These include:
Performance Certificates

• The Planet Xoolon Points System (XPS)
• Hall of Fame - Top Students
• Hall of Fame - Top Classes
• Xoolonite of the Week

Critical to Planet Xoolon’s appeal is that it operates fully within the technology platforms which are second nature to this age group. IT-savvy youths access the sophisticated Xoolometers to record their progress across a number of performance criteria, either via PC – potentially during school IT lessons – or through mobile phones. (www.xoolon.mobi). It evaluates users’ key mental and physical strengths and identifies those sports most suited to each individual.

The Xoolon model works for all youngsters – beginners, gifted & talented, fit and unfit - inspiring them to greater levels of participation through the use of the Xoolometer. As well as helping to reverse the upsurge in teen obesity partly caused by lack of exercise, Xoolon delivers all of the positive personal development and social inclusion benefits which an involvement in sport brings.

To this end the Xoolon has also been made a valuable aid for teachers. The software complements the national schools' curriculum and is compatible with all school management framework systems. It supports sports and head teachers with time-saving performance assessment and reporting tools and helps to identify both highly talented youngsters as well as those who are under-performing. The portal also offers the PE department its own customisable online space to access ability assessment, communication tools, bulletin space, advice on health and educational resources and a comprehensive database of local clubs and facilities.

All users have personal access to their individual records throughout their lives. Within schools records are self-maintained and mentored by teachers within each school. There are over 130,000 registered users and nearly 300 schools signed up (a mixture of Secondary and Primary schools as well as sports colleges in the UK, Canada and Malawi). Different levels of membership are available dependent upon the level of investment that communities and families are prepared to commit to their lifelong learning. Xoolon offers significant value for money as an investment in the future education and well-being of young people. A recent development is an iApp (iPhone and iPod Touch) which provides a taster for members of the main platform. A PRO version is under development and there is also accessed live URL via mobile phones on www.xoolon.mobi. Planet Xoolon is designed to give every child in the country the opportunity to get involved in sport and with the London 2012 Olympics less than 2 years away it will create a long-term legacy for physical activity while helping the next generation to stay healthy and active. The portal offers an intuitive, blended approach of online assessment tools which for each registered user offers:

An assessment tool for students, identifying key physical and mental strengths and sporting preferences.

• Monitors improvement over time.
• Clear results for school OFSTED requirements and achieving Healthy school status.
• Flexible development tools used to integrate into existing schools best practice.
• Home access for all.
• Live inter- school competitions.
• Xoolon Games curriculum activities.

PE departments are not generally known for their pioneering use of ICT but Wandsworth CLC and its feeder primaries are at the forefront of a revolutionary sports, fitness and health initiative. The school is going to use Xoolon software to form a virtual learning environment Sport and Fitness module. The schools will collect data on Years 6 to 11 and for the first stage of the programme is using the results in-depth with Year 6/7 as an intrinsic part of the sport curriculum using mobile and desktop technologies.

With almost daily news coverage of the rise in childhood health problems and ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling for “two million more active people by 2012’ , Xoolon provides youngsters with the inspiration and impetus to turn lethargy into liveliness and fat into fit, through an active involvement in sport.




 Planet Xoolon: Xoolog



Physical Xoolometer



Mental Xoolometer radar chart.

Xoolon values everybody's fitness and we mean everybody. The new Xoolon App built for the iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPod Touch enables runners, cyclists and walkers to track their fitness activities and share with friends in a very simple and easy manner.

The new app enables youngsters to easily set up their own Xoolon games, record, submit and compare results and share them along with their thoughts via Facebook, Twitter and E- mail. It will also allow the quick and easy submission of scores after school or a training session so that an accurate and up to date record of sporting progress is maintained.

Our experience in schools shows that young people are very keen to use this technology. Within minutes of letting them loose they are uploading results and comparing with friends - with the competitive spirit very much in evidence! Even those who would not normally be 'sporty' get sucked in by the excitement which is generated, and want to have a go themselves. This demonstrates to us that phones and computers can, within the right context, be very valuable educational and motivational tools. They are not just the unwelcome distraction which they are often viewed as. Sometimes the kids just need to be freed to have a go!

By intertwining sport and technology, we believe more kids will become engaged in sport and take Planet Xoolon to a new level - we certainly think that this is the way forward with plans to launch on other platforms soon, including Android, Nokia, Blackberry and Windows Mobile.

Recording achievement in sport thrives within communities which share and compete amongst each other. Perhaps such practice is not easily transferable to other sectors but much of what Planet Xoolon is developing is surely relevant to the wider world of recording achievement.