Innerspace Constructionism

Had a boat trip with UCSB Basic students and our candidates. The ITC gand is all over this after the Catalina trip and working with these students all month. They know them well.

The day was flawless and I re-affirmed my change of format of the ITC to constructivist socail learning. I could tell from the performance and student reactions that this worked well. I love working with Ed. He is efficient with large groups.

See the images as evidence by clicking here.

I doubt I will ever go back to role playing in an ITC again. I probably should write on this at somepoint for my CoP. Everyone has commented on how effective this method is.

Had a dive trip with Nitrox students from SBCC on Conception today. Aileen and Maile were DM and I did a surprise rescue scenario on Aileen who handled it well. Vis was 3' and diving was awful, bu the MT group worked well together to get the jobs done. The were diving Nitrox and doing underwater welding in between.

Up early to get to the point. Jim Lima (MMS and CoP member took the candidates down to clean off Nejat's plaque. Nejat has been gone ten years now.

He was a UCSB PHd candidate who suffered a shallow water blackout while freediving at Catlaina. In his memory we have established several scholarship foundations. He passed away after a freediving accident here at Catalina. His death became a catalyst for our CoP to focus on rescue diving and diving safety. His brother Kenan and Mom and Dad came by to be with us. It was good for the ITC candidates to see a fully functioning CoP and to begin to be a part of it. There is a lot more to all this than just diving and they are beginning to see it.

Jim and Nejat were friends and I thought it fitting that he take the students down to 30', locate the underwater plaque and clean it. They were honored.

The rest of the day was spent having candidates divemaster. We got a lot done this weekend. I thought it time for more social interaction, so Curt and I rented some golf carts and then took several candidates for an island tour and the we all met for lunch.

This was a great trip. You can find slides of it here. just click on slides of catalina to the right.

Happy Birthday Don.

Diving all day with candidates. Was in the water for three hours with candidates trying to get Rescues finished up. Maile and Curtis were unacceptable for Instructor quality and I think they were just looking at this as some sort of a checkoff skill. NOT.

I could tell they were nervous and I gave each time to try again. Clearly they did not make time to practice on their own as I suggested. I told them not to worry about it that we would re-evaluate next week in Santa Barbara. Erin took them out and worked with them for a while and that was good.

Ed and Erin then took the groups out to do checkout skills with the advanced students. They prepared for this all morning and after yesterday's lesson on control- they responded well.

Later that evening we had a BBQ with everyone at Bird Park. It was alot of fun.

Drove to Long Beach with Ed and met the ITC candidates at San Pedro. Saw Erin at the terminal nad she looks great. Phil and Anne Ezal were there and we had a nice time chatting and reaquainting folks. Arrived at the island around 1pm. We all got checked into the Hermosa hotel and then off to the point for diving. We got everyone familiar with the site and logistics and the candidates coordinated a deep dive (100') with the advanced students from UCSB. There were to dive the wreck of the Salvatierre. Ed, Erin and I all took a group to supervise. We used the "laissez faire" mode of observation. Curt had a bad cold and could not dive all weekend, but he stayed uptop and helped with the briefings and observation.

This was a transformational dive for the candidates as they finally could feel the reality and responsibility of conducting a deep openwater dive with just four students. Constructionist, real and relevant.

I had to step in on one of my two candidates on the descent as it got a bit out of control for my liking. A few students were too far separated and the candidates finally experienced that feeling when things just dont go as planned. They conducted the dive fine and debriefed their students well. I am not so sure that the UCSB advanced students enjoyed the dive as it was a long surface swim to the wreck.

Later that evening we conducted a night dive. I stayed topside to DM with Ed and Erin. All the candidates dove for fun and got some time to relax. I took them to Antonios for Pizza afterwards and Curt Erin and I chatted abouth our thoughts of the day and the candidate performance. Off to a good start.

Lompoc Record follow up article came out today. Worked more on the website. Burned Photo CDs and sent to Brian' mom and Dave at CHS.

Had Judy mail info and app to Ian at CHS.

E-mails returned from NOAA- concerns about Shearwater schedule and using ROVs in ocean too close to competition. I suggested earlier cruise next month. Several nice emails from Julie, Claire, Ali and Laura and I suggested they send Dave some messages to acknowledge his work. This has got to be a special time for him and I want to make sure he gets more contact from the commmunity.

Venoco is next in my sights.. Pondering how to approach them. Karen first? or straight to Rod?

I am going to talk to my father-in-law about this for advice.

I spoke to Dan about the need for some in SBCC admin to get off their dead asses with getting a dual high school enrollment going. Now is the time or it will never happen. With all the media coverage, you would think that someone from admin would at least get their ears perked up and thinking... NOT..

Note to admin: "Your efforts are necessary but insufficient.." Reflect on that quote, and tell me where you first heard it.

This does not translate into the "cash cow" that they are looking for. Nor do the rookie 'hope-I-win-the-lottery-administrators' know the past three year history of the dreams that Dave, Dan and I have had for a dual discipline high school ROV outreach program.

If Dr. Gayle Baker were here, it would be a done deal.

I am going to sit on this until the annual division meeting on 5/5. If nothing happens, ( and I fully expect a long list of reasons why a dual enrollment program CAN'T work from the educrats.. I WILL take action- and that usually involves me stepping over a pile of lazy bodies in administration..

Lompoc Record called me to interview as a follow up. I explained what I thought the next steps should be. They had already talked to Dave and Bob which is good. They are the driving force in this evolving CoP which Cabrillo and Dave and Bob have built.

I reflected a bit about this whole project from beginning until now and am seeing the changes taking place in me as a result of Dave, Bob and certainly the kids.

Dave has proven to be a Constructivist mentor for me. We have such stimulating conversations about education and I cant help but see how much we are alike in certain ways regarding our passions and determinations. I only wish I had taken the opportunity to become more involved with him when we met many years ago. I was pretty immature as far as an educator then.

I thought how great it would be to get some Pepperdine folks to the Aquarium before the end of the year, but this would be difficult. Dave is staying on as an advisor and I keep thinking about what I can do to honor this man's legacy. The motivating thing for me is that Greg and Bob are still going to be there and we can move forward next year.

This is how I have changed as a result of this ARP: I now know that I will stay involved with this High School for a long time. Not because of the ARP or ROVs or SBCC or Marine technology, but because Dave Long has connnected me to much of the theory I have been learning through Pepperdine through his legacy. Normally, I would have moved from project to project and look for closure. Closure will never come with this as it is a cycle.. as Lave and Wenger state in the literature. Dave is moving from the CoP, Greg is entering from the periperhy, Bob solidifies his place in the CHS CoP to move folks in- including me.


CoP, project based learning, scaffolding, mentoring.. etc. it is ALL AT CABRILLO HIGH SCHOOL!!

Note to cadremates: Open "the brick" and find me a theory that you don't think is taught at CHS. I will find it and show an example. ;-)

I guess I keep looking for a "larger CoP" when the real CoP has been right there at Constellion Road the whole damn time.

SB News Press ran a story on the Cabrillo win Spent the day gathereing information and catching up docuementation. I have so much data as a result of this I feeling a bit overwhelmed as to how to begin sorting through it.

On reflecting, I decided to take more actions as a result of what has happened to keep myself ontrack with the intent of Action Research. I will post those later. Spent most of today getting website updated so that folks can see what is happening. Sent Tariq an email to ask for him to convert his i-movie into a web format so I can put it on my site. I gave him the steps how to do it as he said he was not sure.

I sent an email to NOAA folks to inform them of the win. I also took action to get them re-involved and suggested they host a Shearwater cruise to thank the students. Their boat is best suited since it can hold all teams and their families. This will hopefully get the larger CoP interested again?

Note to self: connect with Tariq at SBCC multimedia program to fuel his interests.

Up early to check out of hotel and head over to Monterey Peninsula College after breakfast at Denny's. Chatted with a nice guy at the counter about what we were doing with CHS- he had heard about the competition since he was a local.

Arrived at the pool and was greeted by Jill who was quite busy. There were around 230 people there. Brian greeted me and presented me with an embroidered "Skunkworks" ROV hat. They had sweatshirts too and all the students had T shirts that said Cabrillo ROV Team. I felt very proud of all of them. They were a bit nervous and quite excited. I met several parents and had a nice visit with Brian's folks. Dave and Elaine were there as well as Bob and his wife. I met Sam's Dad and Matts parents.

Bob confided in me he was more nervous than the kids, but I could tell they were well prepared. I taped many of the other teams vehicles and saw one in particular that was very nicely done. Unfortunately for them, they had problems getting it to work.

A team was first to go and they were quite impressive in their set up as the MPC judges hawked over them. No glitches, no problems. They were prediving like professionals. They got their vehicle in and cautiously maneuvered into the reef. I heard a judge comment on how well the machine handled and how smooth Ian was at flying. Karina was the recorder with Ian while Sam and Ryan worked the deck. They quickly got the patch on and then a few minutes later found the bell and recorded the inscription on it with video. Two tasks completed and one to go. They put the hook in the manipulator to attach to the towfish but ran out of time before they got it connected. The towfish was too light on bottom and moved each time it was bumped. Another five minutes and they would have had it, but hey they set the pace for the whole event.



I videoed with interest the engineering review of the Skunkworks team. The evaluation was done by an engineer from MBARI and an a retired PE. All the parents were there and we were not allowed to talk. Questions were tough, and Brian answered most as the captain. They were impressive with their people skills and I think that comes from many hours in their time with Dave in the tourism class hosting tours at the Aquarium. Constructivist indeed.
I made a point to ask the engineers to tell the students about what they do so the students could draw connections for the future. This was a good part of the event.

I had lunch with both teams and A team was nervously clutching their first place lead with 40/60 points. After lunch, Becca and I checked out the poster displays in the auditorium where the kids had time to talk with more of the larger CoP.

Skunkworks was scheduled to run at 2:15. One team with an advanced design from Monterey had problems and actually fried their circuitry after hooking up their battery power backwards. Lots of smoke and disappointment and I felt bad for them, but that's life in the underwater world. Apparently they had no circuitry protection for this. A tough learning experience.

I went to the engineering review of A team. Tariq showed the MBARI engineer their i-movie video which he was impressed with except for the gangster rap music they selected. ;-) He was the designer of Tiburon ROV and I asked him if he knew Dale Graves which he did. Dale was the senior pilot for the Tiburon and we worked together for 10 years at IUC when I was in the field. A team review went well with Ian and company answering honestly and accurately about each question. At 2:10 I left to go get ready for Skunkworks run.

As I approached the pool I could hear screams and cheers and immediately got depressed as I figured another team had scored well on their run. As I rounded up the corner, I could see Bob and the parents scurrying around smiling. Bob saw me and came up to me and said "Don they did it!" they got all 3 tasks done in 12 mins!!" I quickly fired up my video and captured the team scrambling to demobe their set up to get the clock stopped. They were frantic and wild as they disconnected things and I quickly told them to relax before they broke something. Brian was ecstatic and the whole team had a look of disbelief. Other teams and coaches wandered nearby and congratulated them with tongue in cheek noting silently to themselves that they would have to equal or better the time and full completion to win.

Skunkworks was now in first, with team A in second. Only 4 teams left to go. Only the top two finishers get to go to the finals. Cabrillo was ontop. As the team was wrapping up I noticed one of the judges probe to see if they had an inline fuse in the system which was required by the rules. She obviously was looking for something that would disqualify Skunkworks, but Brian quickly showed her and put that issue to bed. That kind of stuff should be done before the run, not after. The parents picked up on this too. Maybe another team asked for it to be checked again. People hate to get beat don't they...

A team was congratulating Skunkworks and the excitement of this moment led me to reflect to the secrecy and competition between teams the last few weeks. This was now buried behind them as these group of amazing individuals felt such intense pride and accomplishment, regardless of the outcome.

I looked to the bleachers and saw that Dave and Elaine were sitting there at the top observing the whole thing. They never went down to get close to the action. I could see this was a time of reflection for this husband and wife team (Elaine is the CHS Office Senior Secretary) after 33 years in education prior to retirement at the end of this year. Bob told me this was their last "official" event with the kids. I though how bittersweet this must be for a man who had a dream of a high school aquarium, persisted, raised money and put 15 years of his life into making it a reality. As a wrestling coach he was now witnessing another kind of athletic event that had parallel significance. He was indeed leaving on top.

Never in our wildest dreams would we hard predicted both teams could win, but the potential of it happening was one hour away. We sat in the bleachers and chatted about how proud we were. Brian bought everyone a soda. Soon it was down to two teams to go as others could not maneuver their machines toward completion. The Monterey team got their vehicle repaired and was allowed to dive even though they were disqualified. They really wanted to try to beat Skunkworks just to show them up (even though it would not count) but never did.

The last two teams finally had the clock expired on them, but no announcement was made of winners. We were told to wait in the awards auditorium where the announcement would be made. I told the parents that the winners were selected based on combined scores from the engineering review and the pool performances and they were tallying. The Explorer class awards were made by Jill. The kids and families nervously awaited the results and then 3rd place was announced. They then gave the Team sportsmanship award which was selected by the teams themselves( they had to vote for teams other than themselves) CHS A team won the Sportmanship award and they both shared the "Harry Bohm" Innovation award. This was fantastic.

Then came the announcements for second and A team was announced. They left up and cheered- high fives. The final award was made to Skunkworks which was equally as enthusiastic.

They did it.

I stepped outside after snapping some photos and left the kids to be with their parents. They asked me to be in the photo, but I declined. This was about them as a school and their own CoP they have built. (besides I wanted to shoot photos for my ARP...)

I stepped outside to call the Santa Barbara News Press weekend editor. (Anna had emailed me to tell them the results if "something good happened..") Spoke to Michael Todd at length and I could hear him typing as I filled him in on the good news.

I called the Lompoc Record and left a message. I also called KCOY TV in Santa Maria since they covered the story this week. News editor thanked me and wanted details. He said they would run it at 6 and 11 as a follow up. I felt good that our community cared- but the reason they cared was because they WON. Doubtful folks would be interested in any other results.

After saying goodbye I began the long drive back home. Reflecting in the car, I thought of the ARP and what my next steps should be. I just wanted to tell people. I called my colleague Dan and told him of the good news. He was with some of our students (in the bar...) after the Sea Festival event in Santa Barbara and I could hear the cheers in the background after he told our Marine Tech students of their younger counterparts' success. I called one of my mentees-Tristan (CHS and SBCC Alum) to tell him of the news. Tristan helped the teams several times over the last few months. He was excited as I was. Hard to believe. Called Carol and the kids to share as well on the way back.

I arrived about 9:30.

What a day.

A long day today. We made the front page of the morning paper with a great story by Anna Davison and a full color photo of the students and their ROV's. The article was titled "Student Battle of the BOTS".

Evaluated openwater rescues by several ITC candidates and had assistance from John H who graduated a year ago. He still feels a connection and this gave Jake and Aileen a chance to be exposed to the larger diving instructional CoP. John works at Santa Barbara Aquatics. It took a few attempts to get the rescues to Instructor quality and I could feel the sense of frustration and weariness in Jake and Aileen, but they persisted. Aileen was tired and on her second attempt she completed a demonstration quality rescue. She is only 5'7 and carried 6'0 175 lb Jake on her back through the surf zone unassisted. This was significant to both of us since she was indeed tired from the prior attempts. John then demonstrated speed and finness to them as he performed a rescue on Jake. Yes John, you still got it man...

After that I showered pulled the college boat out of the water out and then held ITC class for two hours. We talked about how the candiates were feeling and held an open counseling session. It went well. Reviewed the NAUI/ASHI first aid components and then I began the long trek to Monterey from Santa Barbara.

Arrived a little after 8pm and checked into a hotel. Worked on ITC paperwork to midnight.

Dropped off a CD with photos to the Santa Barbara News Press for their story. Anna informed me later in the day that they would run an article on Friday announcing the team's trip to Monterey. I'm excited about the attention that the students and school will finally receive. She later e-mailed me to tell me they had decided to send a photographer to CHS to get photos unbeknownst to her. This tells me that they feel the story is of interest.

Off to UCSB again to work with the ITC candidates in training basic SCUBA with Curt. We did not finish until after 1130pm and then we stopped for a late dinner and a few drinks with Curt and John who assisted us in the pool. I am pleased with the enthusiasm and performance of the ITC candidates and the fact that I have created a means for them to gain relevant experience in their training with a real basic class and actual students.

It is working well.

What a day!!

When I got to the Aquarium the place was a buzz. Anna Davison from News Press was there. I have worked with her in the past and she's good. Covers Science and Environment. The students were all dressed in their Aquarium tee shirts and were busy explaining their machines. I finally got to see the Skunkworks machine that Brian had been working on at home and it looked great. His Dad Mike was there and I told him how proud I was of Brian.

I made it a point to tell the reporters that the real story behind this is Bob Ranard the Cabrillo mentor. They both talked to him at length. I spoke with Vicki about the work I was doing with Pepperdine and made it a point to try to weave in a little constructivist theory into the story as well. "edubabble" I playfully call it... ;-)

You could feel the excitement and enthusiasm with the kids as they were interviewed about their thoughts of the progress. There was so much going on I almost forgot to get my electronic ARP vacuum- i.e. video unit out to document some of the happening.

Anna did not have a photographer, so I agree to shoot with my D-100 and e-mail her some when I got back to town.

Dave told me that KCOY-TV was on their way and would be there at 1:30.

At 1:30 we shifted out to the pool to test the machines before final pack for Friday's trip to Monterey. KCOY interviewed me about the project as well as Bob and Brian from Skunkworks.

Interesting note here for the ARP- I was introduced to Brian's 10 year old brother- Matthew. He has been on the "periphery" of this whole thing observing his brother and friends build an ROV. So he decided to build his own!! Him and his Dad built a very small version of an ROV and he had it with him to show me!! I got my video out and was just speechless as this bright young 5th grader proceeded to tell me how he made his ROV using old motors his brother had- he explained each step. Then he threw it in the water and demonstrated it to me picking up rings off the pool!

How cool is this..?

Legitimate Peripheral Participation... as a result of this project..

KCOY aired a nice story at 6pm announcing that Cabrillo was going to the regionals. So my action paid off big- 2 newspaper stories in the county and one television story. That will get people talking... maybe.

Got phone calls from Vikki at the Lompoc Record and e-mails from the City Desk editor of SB News Press that they would be at the media day on Weds. Talked to Dave and they are excited.


Action yields some success..

Time for Action:

Wrote a press release to send out to announce to the community about Cabrillo's ROV teams entering the Regional ROV Competition on Saturday. I called Dave and told him I wanted to schedule a media day during my Wednesday visit at 11am. He agreed it was a good idea. I faxed, e-mailed and called people. It only took me a few hours.

I called the Lompoc Record. CHS has had a history of no coverage from the paper. I also contacted the Santa Maria Times, Santa Barbara News Press, KEYT- TV who covered the January workshop and KCOY TV in Santa Maria. I even sent releases up to KSBY-TV in San Luis Obispo.

I told my colleagues at SBCC, the college Public Information Officer, I invited colleagues to attend as well to drum up support. I e-mailed all of the NOAA folks who helped sponsor the workshop with us.

Everyone is too busy to attend... I also invited everyone to come to Monterey on Saturday with me as well. No takers.. too busy, as I expected.

The CoP does not get involved unless there is something in it for them.. Grant money, potential employees, potential jobs, media exposure, looking good infront of clients or peers, recruiting students etc.

This is a significant observation and I talked about it with my colleague Dan. We both agreed. I am going to discuss this finding with James my Critical friend.

Mostly, the CoP is going to support education when it is either part of their job, helps their job or is relevant to what they are doing. Why would someone want to sacrifice their time otherwise? Altruism? Not.. I don't say this lightly. It is a fact of this ARP that I have learned- and it is not entirely unexpected. I agreed to participate in this project because I am passionate about marine technology and the ocean, but I also saw it as a relevant way to complete my action research. So there has to be a connection. My mentees lack of participation in this (with one exception of T) also confirms this. T had a connection- he went to school at Cabrillo. So I think my claim here is valid.

I thought back to all of the many, many community events I have done over the years. There are various reasons that I do them. Mostly they centered around SBCC- but others are because I love the ocean. I have got to figure a way to get some in the CoP to shift thinking a bit.

So my action with the CoP has to be "make it relevant to them- and they will come.."

Hey, the more I sit here and write, the more I learn about my work..

Plan: Media exposure so people see what has been done
Action: Press Releases
Observation: CoP sees no relevancy to them specifically
Reflection: devise methods to individually target the CoP

Ideas:

1. Ask NOAA to host a trip on the Shearwater for the students with their ROVs to look at Mowhawk reef.
2. Host a field trip to Divecon or call Jeff Kowalishen to visit CHS with me.
3. Get Marymount or other Santa Barbara schools to visit the Aquarium and the ROVs.
4. Write a paper to submit at MTS conference or MTS Journal on Constructivist Learning through Marine Technology.
5. Contact Venoco to solicit financial support for expansion of the ROV project at CHS for next year.
6. Meet with the President of SBCC to again convice them to aggressively pursue a formal partnership with CHS with Lompoc Unified School District and Alan Hancock CC District's approval.

Drove up to Cabrillo today anticipating seeing everyone. What a beautiful day. I love the drive to Lompoc up the coast with all of the rural land in North County.

I knew something was up when there were no cars lining the sides of Constellation road as I got to the school. I had to laugh to myself when I realized it was Spring Break for them. I went into the Aquarium anyway as I saw a door was open. Curators Mark R was there along with Adrianna.

Mark spent about 20 minutes with me as I asked how the ROV Teams were doing. I was amazed to see the Team A machine in the back in its completed state. Bob had really done a great job getting them to get finished. He is one of a kind. Mark told me that Brian and Skunkworks were doing well and that he was over Brian's house the other night. I still have not seen Skunkworks machine but I'm sure Brian will bring it in soon when we water test. The manip was mounted and looked good. Mark explained they burned up a motor but got another one.

The whole thing is coming together, thanks to Bob and Dave. I snapped a few photos of "Vanessa" which is the name of the ROV. I left Mark and headed back south feeling real good about the project and the school.

Mark is the spokesman for the student run aquarium and her clearly was excited and proud. I queried him about the changes in his class mates. He explained how there were team building and leadership results and that this project was causing a high degree of motivation for school and was cross curricular with science, math and even writing.

As I drove back I thought of the Community piece that Paul mentioned was lacking in my Cycle 1 feedback. He recommended that I continue to tell the story to as many people that would listen.

So I then decided my NEXT ACTION: "Utilize the local media to gain attention to what is happening..."

More next week...