Innerspace Constructionism

Returned from San Francisco today. Received an e-mail from Laura at the Marine Sanctuary telling us that there is only one teacher signed up for the workshop and that Cabrillo High has not responded.

This puts the workshop in jeopardy for 1/10-11. I was concerned about this from the start- teacher motivation..

I will wait to see what others from NOAA and MATE have to say before I do anything.

Jim Hall from MATE sent me an MOU between SBCC and MATE. NOAA has been working on one as well.

Posted the ARP Plan link in NG last night. I am happy with the formatting so that I can add to it and revise as it progresses. The effort early on at building the website is paying off.

Had a conference call with NOAA CINMS, Jill from the MATE center and Allie from UC Santa Barbara. We discussed the finances for the workshop and finalized plans to bring Harry Bohm to present to the teachers the simplified MATE ROV kits for the students to use.

I committed $1000.00 funding from SBCC that we raised to help fund the local school participation. Claire prepared a spreadshet and e-mailed later.

It was a good discussion bring the various facets of the CoP together. The main concern I have is getting local teachers to attend and getting them motivated to form teams for participating in the events and competition. National competition was confirmed by Jill and Allie to be at UCSB in June.

Worked on organizing the resounce and bibliographies into the website. Created sepatate navigation for the review of resources. I think I will post the link in NG as it has some organization to it.

Heard from Pat Lahey today on IM- he is finished with the Deep Rover work for a while it seems. It was good to catch up with him after our marathon dash to get the subs finished this summer. I never even got a chance to say goodbye before they headed to Florida. He will be a good resource for me on this. I am going to try to hook up with him in Orlando in January for dinner. I hope the Pepperdine folks make some free time. Free time is important as I'm finding out this year.

Lots of DW work..

Robby reminded me that today is Pearl Harbor day. Take some time to remember what the greatest generation did for the world beginning with that day...

Kind of brings you down to earth- in the hustle and bustle of all this technology and digital stuff.

Gotta run. The kids are on me about getting a Christmas Tree. They nixed our idea for an artifical tree this year. Even my spew about saving the rain forest, air quality, money, hassle etc. did not work.

But im still gonna put a digital timer on the lights..

Someday I will be able to control it from this laptop like Negroponte predicted years ago. MS Tree Programmer... MS Coffe Pot controller, TV programmer, sprinkler system. Come on Bill, get us integrated. Its your destiny.

Imagine that..

Spent the early morning searching web resources and refining the resources webpage. Organized the ARP binder withsome more tabs. It felt good to clear the table of all the paper and get it more organized.

I am going to work toward a paperless ARP. Wonder if its possible?...

Getting information from the internet is like taking a drink of water from a firehose..

Spent the afternoon on the timeline drawing it in fireworks. Teaching myself again.. bricolaging..

My goal was to get it on one page for easy viewing. I get the feeling the timeline will no doubt be dynamic, as this is real life.

Ok Paul, I'm starting to get used to Blogging... ;-)

I can see the foundation for this project a bit more clearer now. I just have to be prepared for the certain changes and adjustments that no doubt will be coming.

I feel like reading now to get away from this damn computer.. I hope the rest of the cadre is not stressing too much this weekend. Off to check NG for any fires.

Spent the early morning distributing the NOAA CIMNS flyer that I received from Claire at the Sanctuary via PDF. I also got a list from Pat Canning of local High School administrators. E-mailed Judy and asked if she could FAX to all on the list. The timeframe is tight and I hope we can get some local teachers to step up.

I keep thinking of the NCLB thing and the daunting effect that must have for new initiatives for teachers. Cadre members have indicated that its a real downer. Coupled with the holidays, I just hope that the timing is right. Teachers have a lot on their plates to begin with. But I know there is are future Dave Long types out there..

I e-mailed Tim Pearson at Marymount to see if he may be interested. Ryan Gunhold sure would have been. I keep thinking of the social learning talents and energy that he brought to my kids' school.

And now hes gone.

Ok. back to the ARP Plan. Found Randy Hollenkamp's plan (cadre 5) to be useful. Thanks for the artifacts bud.. He has some resources on mentoring and of course Etienne's site that I will utilize for sure. I also learned about scaffolding from his ARP. The teacher models the strategy or task then shifts responsibility to the student. Reminds me of what we do in training divers.

Randy's organizational style is clean. I like it.

Paul it will be ftp'd before Tuesday...

Met with Laura today at the Marine Sanctuary office. We had a conference call with Julie in Ventura. It went well as I explained my plans to use this project for Action Research . I like working with people that can focus and get stuff done. I was a refreshing change from City College.

There is lots to be done in a short period of time. Jill at MATE confirmed the national competition to be held at UCSB in June. We discussed bringing Harry Bohm down here to Santa Barbara from Canada to train the teachers. They need to raise 2k additional to fund his time and travel.

I comitted to getting $1000.00 additional funds from SBCC (non-district revenue of course that I helped raise and establish accounts for). Its the right thing to do for the local community. NOAAs hands are tied as Congress has their funding status tied up. I do want SBCC to get MATE sponsorship status so it serves the college advertising.

I spoke at length with Laura and Julie about the benefits of this project. I wanted to get their take.

Laura explained NOAAs efforts at integrating marine science curriculum into the schools. They need to expose students and teachers to other careers and tools.

Julie explained that its also a resource issue. We need to study the ocean beyond the depths of SCUBA today routinely. She is right and in reflecting now, I can remember when only Cousteau could do any kind of underwater research when we were kids. We could only dream as kids. This project is going to not only allow them to experience the tools, but construct them.

Now the technology can being delivered in the form of kits for the learning process to begin for deep sea exploration.

We discussed the use of this as a "hook" for learning- something other than the fabled "Marine Biologist" that is perpetuated in classrooms. This is inquiry-based learning according to Julie.

There are gaps. We discussed GWB's No "Child Left Behind", and the impact it is having on teacher plans, testing and classic learning. (Note to self: call Bush tommorow and discuss this with him..)

Teacher are challenged with time and budget constraints. Another challenge is finding a group of teachers that have the motivation to see this through. Dave Long is involved from Cabrillo High in Lompoc, so I know we will have a leader and inspiration there. We need to clone that guy for Santa Barbara Schools.

So we are looking for 10 teachers locally to maybe make 5 teams. I will provide access to 5-7 mentors graduates and professionals. Julie wants this to be sustainable over time and maybe have some of the mentors attend the summer institute that MATE has for the teachers.

Spent the day today trying to educate myself about the MATE ROV Competition.

E-mailed back and forth with Videoray, the LCROV manufacturers on their $50.00 ROV camera. Essentially is an off the shelf radioshack unit that is potted in a mayonaise jar. It works and is cheap. Getting a feel for the concepts of off the shelf items that the kids have to build and use. Hell, I had to do a little of this when we were in a pinch offshore. I remember using "bakerlock" to pot the mantis umbilical so we could dive after an all night retermination. It overpulled to 3500 pounds and was good for a 1600 foot jump. A bit nerve-wracking when you have to be INSIDE the vehicle though.. ahh to be young and fearless again..

I slowly became convinced that this can be a good constructivist learning experience and therefore it will be a sound ARP for the Pepperdine OMAET. I felt much better about it after finding the Canadian kids magazine YES http://www.yesmag.bc.ca/ROV/index.html where there is a good sampling of the kids blogging on their experience. there are photos too.

I dug out an old copy of Harry Bohm's book I bought in 1997. I never had any use for it up until now. It is well written for high school age kids and he keeps the concepts simple and understandable. Great graphics. I look forward to meeting him to get his input for the ARP.

Received the following e-mail from Jill at the MATE center which demonstrates the fit on contructivism for the ARP. It is encouraging. I e-mailed her back and agreed to be a judge for the national event.

Hi Don,

I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving!

Thanks for the suggestion - our newsletter's managing editor gave Jeff a
call and they scheduled a phone interview for next Tuesday, when he gets
back from offshore work. We appreciate it!

Yes, the national ROV competition is (tentatively) scheduled to take
place at UCSB June 25, 26, and 27. I hope to have this confirmed by the
end of this week. It would be great to have you involved with the
event! Perhaps you could even be a judge. At the very least, it will
be a great opportunity for you to see what these competitions are all
about, and to promote and highlight your program!

The ROV competition program is a good example of the constructivism
approach to learning - the students certainly build upon their knowledge
and skill base as they make their way through the design and building
process, learning what they need to in order to produce the final,
hopefully successful, ROV. In that sense, it is also a great example of
outcomes-based, project-based learning; the real world is
product-driven, and so is this competition. We do have both objective
(surveys) and subjective (interviews) information on how the program has
impacted the students.

It seems that I'll be seeing you in early January for the teacher
support workshop that CINMS has planned! It will be nice to have some
SB area teachers involved in the program.

Take care,

Jill