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Reviewed Site: Swim-teach.com

Site Content Area: Aquatics, specifically learn-to-swim content

Introduction:

As most of you probably know, I live on Maui which gives me the opportunity to teach a lot of swimming lessons from babies to preschoolers to school-aged children to teens to adults.   So with this in mind I am in a constant search mode for learn-to-swim lesson plans, games, activities, and stroke technique ideas.   This has been a real challenge as there just isn’t any site I have found that really offers all the components I want and without charging a fee, or at least until I came across this site.  Although it is not exactly what I would want in a site, it does a good job demonstrating basic stroke techniques and offering other resources to help the average person to the educator.

Site Requirements/Access:

This site is written in basic HTML coding with a little JavaScript.  There are tables within the pages and is image rich.  With the site written in this manner you will need to have your preferences set to allow images and don’t forget to enable JavaScript and Active X.  If you cannot see the main content or it is not formatted correctly, check your settings to ensure you are allowing tables, if that does not resolve this, update your browser to the newest version.  Newer browsers have the capability of reading standard coding and tables, but older browsers usually have problems with tables.

Overview:

The Swim-Teach.com site focuses on basic stroke techniques for the four common strokes, and adds in a few extras such as swim workouts, books, eBooks, and a newsletter.  Most of these extras are free however if you want the full version you will need to purchase them.  They do have a RSS feed with several options to subscribe to the site.

Navigation:

The navigation is on the left-hand side of the page with a rollover image change.  It is a standard click on the text image and go to the page type navigation.  No fancy bells and whistles here so you should have no problem navigating the site.  Newsletters, Why Swim?, People Swimming, How to Swim, Swimming Books, Strokes, Stroke eBooks, Equipment, Swim Workouts, and Swim Teachers are the main links.

The Look:

Although the site does have a current copyright date, the coding and look makes me wonder if this site wasn’t written many, many years ago.  It is set-up with a top banner, side navigation, main content in the middle, and footer.  The surrounding colors emulate water with the background in plain white.  The top banner looks more like a placeholder but you’ll know you are on the site!  The Home page has a lot of information, almost overwhelming, but it is mainly links to other places within the site so no worries if you skip over this page.  I don’t dig on the advertising but it is not really that obtrusive, so just ignore it.  The text is written in an easy-on-the-eyes font.

Features of the Site:

The first link is to their free newsletter.  They ask you for an email address and your first name.  They do make the promise to keep it secure and only send you their newsletter and offers from them.  If you’re interested in the newsletter but not necessarily the offers, use a hotmail or gmail account set up for this purpose.  I have not received a newsletter from them so cannot divulge if it is worth the subscription.

The next in line is Why Swim?  This page has minimal information but several links with information about the benefits of swimming, improvements in health, fitness-related information, and safety tips.  All quick reads, but nothing we don’t already know.

People Swimming is an odd page; one-paragraph descriptions about the four basic strokes and what swimmers typically do incorrectly.  I suppose the brief information could be useful especially if you are a newer instructor who needs a quick remedy for one of your student’s errors.

This brings us to the How to Swim page.  This page is designed for beginning swimmers with content as basic as how to enter the pool.  The buoyancy page is actually pretty good, making the content easy to understand without all the scientific mumbo-jumbo.  The piece on getting your face wet and submerging your face has practical tips for those needing to deal this kind of fear.  The next two are regarding how to stand up from a floating position, which comes with images.

Swimming Books is their page about their books and how to purchase them.  Then skipping down to the Equipment link/page, which contains images, brief descriptions of swim-related equipment, and a link to more detailed descriptions.

Now getting to the pages that I was really happy to find; the stroke technique pages-includes Front Crawl, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Butterfly.  Each of these pages has thumbnail images at the top that link to the following: body position, legs, arms, breathing, and timing.  Under these are a few small paragraphs with brief descriptions.  When clicking on one of the thumbnail images you will find yourself looking at a further description for that specific area of the stroke along with images.  The cool thing is the little gray box that links you to the eBook for that stroke.  When you click on the gray box you land on a page for the "to purchase" eBook with an image and description, however if you scroll down a tad, there is a link to the free sample.  Go ahead and click on that link, which takes you to the Free eBooks  You find the stroke you are interested in receiving; click on the link; complete their form with your name and email address; enter the security code; hit submit; then check your email account.  They are quite fast with processing your request for the free eBook.  Within the email will be a link to download the eBook.  I did this and found the free eBook to be decent in content.  I did not purchase one of their eBooks so cannot testify to the content, breadth, or details contained in these books.

Conclusion:

This is a good place to get started when beginning to teach swimming or for a quick review of the basics.  It definitely has potential to be an awesome resource and I’m hoping they expand to include games, activities, songs, tips, and more detailed information.  It would also be great to see some lesson plans included on the site.  I hope this is a good jump start for your swimming curriculum.  I am challenging you to find at least one excellent aquatics website and submit the URL to us for review.  As always, happy surfing!