Welcome to NASATalk
This is a free blog space to comment and share.  Fill out this form and email to nasatalk@cet.edu to apply for your own blog or collaborative group.

Charles A. "Chuck" Wood is executive director of the Center for Educational Technologies and NASA-sponsored Classroom of the Future.

Laurie Ruberg, Ph.D.
Associate Director and Adjunct Faculty
Center for Educational Technologies (CET)
Wheeling Jesuit University (WJU)
lruberg@cet.edu

Debbie Piecka
Instructional Designer/Educational Researcher
Center for Educational Technologies
Wheeling Jesuit University
dpiecka@cet.edu

Dynae Fullwood
Teaching From Space Office
NASA Johnson Space Center
2101 NASA Parkway, Mail Code CB
Houston, TX 77058
Office: 281-244-7426
Fax:  281-244-7026
elicia.d.fullwood@nasa.gov
www.nasa.gov/education/tfs

Brandon Hargis, M.Ed
Aerospace Education Specialist
NASA Langley Research Center
17 Langley Blvd. MS 400
Bldg 1216, Rm. 119
Hampton, VA 23681
Office: (757)864-9570
Cell: (814)933-6489
brandon.hargis@nasa.gov

Eileen Poling
Teacher of Gifted
Tucker County Schools
eileenon@hotmail.com

Robert Starr
NASA LEARN Project Manager
Langley Research Center
Robert.M.Starr@nasa.gov

Daniel Laughlin
NASA Learning Technologies (NLT) Project Manager
Goddard Space Flight Center

Garrison Hall
8th Grade Science Teacher
L.E. Gable Middle School
Roebuck, SC
hallgk@spart6.org

Go to ETE Collaborative

Social Media Writer/Researcher

Center for Educational Technologies

Wheeling Jesuit University

Email: kmorris@cet.edu

WaterBotics (www.waterbotics.org) is the National Science Foundation-sponsored underwater robotics curriculum with the goal of providing hands-on experiences to middle and high school age youth in engineering design, information technology tools, and science concepts, and to increase awareness and interest in engineering and IT careers.

The curriculum, which can be used either in traditional classroom settings or in after-school and summer-camp situations, is problem-based, requiring teams of students to work together to design, build, test, and redesign underwater robots, or “bots” made of LEGO and other components. Students use the NXT and LEGO Mindstorms^TM software to program their robots to maneuver in the water, thereby gaining valuable experience with computer programming. Teams must complete a series of increasingly sophisticated challenges which culminates with a final challenge that integrates learning from the prior challenges.

WaterBotics has also been used with undergraduate engineering students and adult learners as well. The curriculum can be used in intensive, one-week summer camps or as a sequence of science or technology classes in school.

The huge variety of LEGO pieces available allows for a nearly infinite amount of solutions to a given task. This enables students to be highly creative and innovative, and results in an amazing variety of bots by the project's end.

Engineers are increasingly called upon to deal with complex, non-traditional, and previously unforeseen challenges. The underwater environment of the WaterBotics program gives students a sense of both the known and unknown challenges that real engineers face every day. And for those students who have participated in land-based robotics projects, the complexities of the underwater environment present unique demands that challenge even the most experienced robot designers.

Tasks such as getting the bot to float or sink, keeping it upright, compensating for the effects of water pushing against it, and getting it to move in three-dimensions, are novel challenges that correspond to specific science topics, such as buoyancy, drag, stability, and three-dimensional movement.

Participants in the Aug. 1-5, 2011 NASA WaterBotics Workshop at the Center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling Jesuit University range from Middle School students to adults (including college student, a science teacher, and a Girl Scout leader). Each of them are blogging from their own points of view.

Norman "Storm" Robinson, III
Education Outreach Manager for Engineering and Robotics Center
for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC)
Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332-0282
(404) 385-4088
http://www.ceismc.gatech.edu/

Robotics and Engineering ePDN Collaborative

This blog will offer ideas for teachers about how to design and implement Project-Based Inquiry Learning (PBIL) to improve student achievement in STEM areas.  Many of the topics that will be discussed in this blog will be directly applicable to classroom instruction.     This blog is primarily a tool for previous and present participants of the Project-Based Inquiry Learning: Science Teaching & Learning in the 21st Century Certificate Program; however, this forum is open for all STEM educators interested in learning more about PBIL. 

Go to Project-Based Inquiry Learning - ePDN Collaborative

American Evaluation Association Graduate Education Diversity Intern (AEA-GEDI)

Doctoral Student, Duquesne University, Foundations of Leadership, School of Education

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

AEA-GEDI at Center for Educational Technologies, Wheeling Jesuit University, Oct-Jun 2011-2012

Email: goodt@duq.edu

My collaborative will provide readers with information on how to put their class online. There will be discussions about what Web 2.0 tools will work best for an online class. There will also be discussions on the best practices of online teaching and learning. There will be discussions on pedagogy, tools, online course management and online course design. As the STEM teachers create their own online courses, I hope that they will be able to help each other by sharing what worked and what did not. In this way, the other teachers will not make the same mistakes and will create robust online courses that lead to student and instructor success.

Go to ePDN Turn Your Classroom Digital Collaborative