Archives of the bridge photos, channel gap and approaches

Why these web pages happened

Being a curious bioengineer and university professor, I have passion for enabling others to enjoy learning and problem solving. Internet-centric learning is a major addition to our box of enabling tools. Examples include newer community sites such as Flickr which enable learning about photography. Other community sites such as the Participatory Culture Foundation and Conversate are appearing which facilitate locating and interacting with other like-minded individuals.

On June 12, 2005, Gene Stead, 97 years of age, quietly died while sleeping. Gene was Chairman of Medicine at Duke from 1947 - 1967 and was my first boss. But he was more than a chairman. He paid great attention to individuals, whether faculty, students or patients, and worked at enabling them to reach beyond their grasp. He understood that problems could rarely be solved by technology alone and demonstrated over and over again that success often rides on resolving personal and cultural issues.

Several years ago, my son, Josh, and I visited Gene for the weekend. Gene was frustrated by the difficulties in maintaining communication with younger people. We talked about the Internet, about Google, about what to learn and how to avoid the forgetting curve. We shared our frustration that many younger people have lost their curiosity and wrote a short paper about restoring the joy in learning and about learning and forgetting. Together, we built his web site as a tool for exploring Internet-centric learning and addressing issues of curiosity and forgetting. These pages are a continuation of our explorations in learning, sharing and igniting curiosity among young learners. Here I am using the construction sequence of the new Cooper River Bridge as the learning theme.

An all around look