Hello,

my name is Peter Romero.  For the past three decades, I have focused on being an educator, mentor and consultant in the fields of engineering, technology and the arts.  Over the years, I have had the privilege and challenge to initiate, create and develop several educational programs including developing the first long distance online educational program in history.  The program, Space Islands, found Congressional favor along with NASA and was logged into the Library of Congress in 1996.

For the past two decades, I have worked exclusively in an all male technology high school here in Southern California, during this time period I also researched and integrated the latest brain and psychology research on how boys learn.  The boys who attended my school came from a variety of socioeconomic, cultural, and educational backgrounds.  This unique environment afforded me the time to assess the research on what worked and what was media hype.  In turn, this helped me to further create, develop and implement several educational programs for boys that have met with much success and positive results ranging from the local public and private schools to the global virtual classrooms.

In my travels to many public and private schools in our state I have not seen all schools treated equal.  Many of the schools have, if they’re lucky, one abandoned classroom that has become the “Resource Center” or  “Computer Lab.”  The computers are out of date with programs to match.  Students generally only learn a little keyboarding, work on electronic flash cards, or surf a very slow Internet.  The purpose of this blog is to address these issues, find alternative ways of teaching with what technology is available, and just open up to total creativity.  Welcome to Leonardo’s Apprentice.

Education

• B.S.I.T. in Business Systems and Communications
• B.S.I.T. in Multimedia and Visual Communications
• M.Ed. in Educational Leadership

Programs and Projects Developed

• Teacher’s Aide Program developed.  Redondo Beach Unified School District.  1976.
• Computer Programming\Literacy Course.  First in California.   El Monte Unified School District.  1982.
• Fine Arts Department & Program.  Don Bosco Tech. 1992
• Space Technology Department & Program.  Developed programs between NASA and students.  Don Bosco Tech. 1994.
• JPL Educational Consultant.  NASA educational online program.  1998.
• Digital Visual Arts Department & Program.  Don Bosco Tech.  2000
• Media Arts & Technology Department.  4-year STEM type program.  Don Bosco Tech.  2009.
• 2008  Developed Leonardo’s Apprentice

Why Leonardo’s Apprentice?

In 7th Century Spain, there lived the “Man Who Knew Everything,” or so it was said by his friend Bishop Braulio of Saragossa.  This was the Dark Ages, and Isidore had spent a good portion of his life collecting and documenting all information known to him from the Bible, mythology, and local urban legends.  Being a time period where illiteracy was wide-spread, nothing more was done with the information Isidore collected.

Seven hundred years later, Leonardo da Vinci, also spent his life collecting, analyzing and documenting the several volumes of notebooks he wrote.  The big difference between these two info-brokers was what they did with their information.  Leonardo who was already a noted artist, inventor, engineer, designer, scientist and map maker used his information to solve problems by making connections of what he had learned and recorded.  Leonardo was also an educator and mentor, because in the end he taught and mentored future generations of scientists, inventors, engineers and artists.  Isidore, on the other hand, only became a footnote in history and his book benefited no one.

It is my hope and desire that the discussion created on the best way to mentor educators and open up new possibilities in how to engage, motivate, and teach their students through project-based learning.