Innerspace Constructionism

Dan and Ryan joined the ROV blog. Jill sent word she got an e-mail from a SBHS Mom wants her son to get involved in the MATE competition. She pointed him to us. I hope Bill or Helen can clue him in about the need for a team to do this.

If not I think we can hook him up with Cabrillo hopefully.

James agreed to be my critical friend for the ARP. He is working on is Phd and took time off from that to attend Marine Tech. He is an amazing guy with a big background in education and research. At the start of the semester he loaned me one of his texts on Action research. I gave him my website URL to poke around in so he gets a feel of what I am trying to do. The data collection phase (now) is really where I'm going to need Paul's advice on what past cadres have done.

This week has been a blur trying to juggle SBCC new semester and then running the Assistant Instructor Course Jan16-18. It all went well but I am abit tired. The AI class was one of the best I've done for diving leadership. I applied alot of the constructivist theory in the course . The Saturday session was all about leaving it to them to organize pool and beach sesssions.

Sunday they did 3-5 min lectures and we finished with a great session on the NAUI exam. I had them break into teams which I selected so that newbies and "oldtimers" could learn from each other. They discussed questions and I directed them to use the resources available to them. There were 3 groups and they often sent reps to link with ohter groups on info they needed. Only on a few occasions did I see them turn to "the text" for answers. They discussed at length and Curt and I stayed out of it.

I documented with video for ARP. I had them grade themselves and then use a matrix to discuss and reference answers. Lots of debate. I never gave them a right or wrong. Just opinions and more questions. Im trying to answer a question with a question ala Sue.. Love that technique.

So I'm feeling more like a constructivist educator today upon reflecting on this.

Starting to get members to join in and post on the BLOG I set up. So this is good.

I sent a second request out for the survey data to Jill and Allie. I am concerned about the KM aspects of this with these partners. We talked much about information hoarding in 664, and I sense that this may become an issue.

Yesterday I responded to a request from Jill to Julie for media copies. I e-mailed the Quicktime movie I made of the media coverage and e-mailed it.

Laura from CINMS is needing photos for a manager's ppt. I will work on that now. I asked her to share it for my research.

Spent a few hours this AM inviting local participants into the ROV Blog. Below is what I wrote: (site is http://www.rovs.blogspot.com)

Don Barthelmess wrote:
Hi Folks. I set up this web log (called a blog) for each of you to post thoughts on the workshop and what is happening afterward. Please take a minute or two and post something frequently as it relates to education and the MTI ROV building. This is kind of like a "dear diary" but online. This will be a great resource for all of us to check on progress and stay connected as a community.

Thanks.- Don Barthelmess

Set up a Yahoo group listserve for the Cabrillo team and CoP this morning.

It is called marinetech@yahoogroups.com.

I invited all the workshop participants.

This should facilitate support for the team.

The News press ran a photo essay on the project today. I'm pretty excited that the media and community can see value in what we are doing. I updated my pepperdine site with the link.

This is about the students and getting them access into the CoP and we did it! Feeling pretty darn tired this evening and overwhelmed with all the loose ends to pull together. But its a good kinda tired.

Like Gayle Baker used to say: "We are drowning in chocolate..."

We worked in the classroom for a while. I videoed and documented all weekend. Had nice conversations with Bob Ranard from Cabrillo. He is an alum of there and is an amazing person. He volunteers with the school and aquarium and is a very knowledgeable diver and an electrician by trade. This will be useful to the students in the ROV work.

We went on the Sheatwater from 11-130. Amber, Ryan and Tristan worked with the teachers and students to show them the Hyball set up and offshore ops.

Vis was horrible but we still got useful images from the ROV. I recorded for data.

SB News Press was out with us and he shot extensively. This was of great interest to Frank a very nice guy.

In the PM the teams were getting visibly tired, due to the intensity, but it all came to a climax as the ROV were tested for the first time in SBCC's dive tanks. You could hear the squeals and screams from each crew as their ROVs dove to the bottom of the tanks to retreive the little plastic balls that Harry and Jill bought for an exercise.
I especially liked Wendy and Michelle from Cabrillo. They were into this. I introduced Amber to them and Wendy wants her to speak to the students (mentioned stipend too..) I shared our personal motto we had with Amber and Megan this year: "Girls kick ass!!" they made a neat little graphic display of that on their ROV... I will share in my ARP I'M sure.

It worked and was fun. This learning experience was great for the teachers and students. I filmed the ROVs from our Hyball in our tanks. Should be useful footage for report.

Indeed, the best learning takes place through CoPs in a social atmosphere...

We kicked off at 7:30 and the workshop went very well. Harry did an excellent job in the presentation. I think we could have scaled down some of the presentations sooner and got to the hands on things sooner but it was all good.

2 teachers Bill and Helen from SB High were there. I hope we can inspire them to get others involved from their school.

Cabrillo High had 3 teachers and a district volunteer (alumni of Cabrillo) who is part of CoP. TwoCabrillo MTI students Ryan and Eric. 3 recent SBCC graduates, Jeff K from Divecon(SBCC 1995.) came, Mike R. (SBCC alum.) (SBCC grad as well.)

Diedre and Jill from MATE, Julie, Laura and Claire from NOAA- Ali, and Scott from UC Santa Barbara MSI- Myself, Dan and Mike R (SBCC alum)

KEYT News came by and shot students flying the Hyball in the tank. They did lots of interviews but only aired a blurb on the evening news. I am just so happy they took an interest in what we were doing. I just wish that SBCC admin would be interested, but this is education- not head count and committees- plus its a weekend ( only vocational faculty work for free on weekends)... 5 minutes to stop in and say hello would have gone a long way for some- from anyone.

Copied the footage onto DV and posted it on my ARP site.

Tommorrow we finish the ROVs and go offshore to fly the Hyball and LBV that Jill brought down.

A diverse and great group of people are here this weekend.

Recalled a wise motto today for the CoP concept: "Education is too important to be left to the educators.."

I love that..

Arrived at 9 am to meet Harry and Jill. There was a ton of stuff to set up in the classroom. Harry did an amazing job at preparation of the kits. He did a lot of work in advance.

Worked until 5pm getting the facility ready. All of the power in the facility was off over the break and all the computers unplugged for the power work that was done over the holiday.

Got all of my syllabi done for January 19th. I am feeling the pile-up of juggling so many things at once start again. The next two weeks will be non-stop. Time management and prioritization will be critical.

But I've been through this before...

Send e-mail to Claire re: media involvement. She is going to put NOAA's media person on the task. This will be good exposure for the project and serve as a great form of data and documentation for the event. I will call Kay at SBCC to get her involved.

Several more e-mails this week from Jill, Claire et al. We have received responses from 8 teachers so the workshop is taking shape nicely. We now have a total of 6 from Cabrillo High and tow from Santa Barbara. Latest is Bill from SB High, Marine Biology teacher 12th grade.

I gave a presentation to them last year on Marine technology.

Sent e-mails to student mentors to remind them of the workshop.