The idea of PE Central originally began in the Fall of 1995 by Dr. George Graham and the doctoral students in Virginia Tech’s Health and Physical Education Program. Mark Manross, Todd Pennington, Eloise Elliott, Kim Oliver, Starla McCollum, Sarah Westfal, Cathrine Himberg, Natalie Doering, Jennifer Chomicky, and Sharon Whitlock were the original doctoral students in our Special Topics Class who framed the idea for PE Central. Reginald Kimball and Mike Burch were Masters students who also participated in PE Central’s development. The decision to make a website as opposed to publishing a book or an article was made because of its far-reaching potential to physical educators around the world. We also did several web searches for quality instructional physical education sites, and found very little that was directly designed for the K-12 physical educator.
After participating in several brainstorming sessions during this seminar it was decided that we would develop a Web site that would be available on the Internet. Primarily, we wanted a place for K-12 physical educators to visit that would provide them with information and resources to help them deliver developmentally and instructionally appropriate physical education to their students. Some ideas to include on the site were assessments, health and physical education lesson ideas, job announcements, links to the top sport and instructional sites on the Web, wellness tips, and instant activities that would change on a weekly basis.
