The Bridge Blog
A dialog about our new bridge and these web pages
Overview. As a pointy-headed
university professor, my weekend project of bridge photography and
building these web pages generated many questions and introduced me
to just-in-time learning. I enjoy chasing my curiosity and
want to identify ways to encourage younger learners to also enjoy curiosity
chasing and learning.
Learning usually requires repetition while forgetting occurs when
I infrequently use information. Many young learners do not understand
the importance of repetition. Weekly visits to the bridge provided
the repetition necessary to detect changes in the bridge and
consequently generated
many questions and opportunities for learning. Over the course of the
bridge project, I had access to few experts for answering questions.
Rather than a liability, this became an asset and pushed me to improve
my search skills with Google. Soon, I found that answers
to questions encountered during my weekly photo shoots were often
only a Google-search away -
(see
Restoring the Joy in Learning). Consequently Google + Internet became
dependable extensions of my memory.
The bridge story is a work in progress and is evolving from a simple
collections of photographs to an experiment with Internet-centric
just-in-time learning.
Insights I gain from you
will find their way into the learning centers of MUSC.
Palmetto Bridge Constructors, a joint venture between
Tidewater
Skanska and
Flatiron Constructors, as well as
High Steel Structures,
Freyssinet, the
SCDOT and the
Federal Highway Commission Office
of Bridge Technology guided much of my learning.
I also learn from many of you and from Google-linked resources. More
important is the e-mail encouragement I receive from many of you.
Fri, 25 Feb 2005
February 25, 2005: Time for another reorganization
It has come time to separate my one way dialog (more like a web log or blog)
into a separate section. Matthew, Brian, Satya and Christopher, my IT Lab
brain trust, are pushing for a major reorganization along the lines of a
Blog. They assert, probably correctly, that all my text sometimes gets in
the way of my story. I have started experimenting with rebuilding the bridge
story with Blosxom, a blog (and a preliminary view will be available soon).
I am also exporing placing all the images in a database, with a separate tag
field so that you could pull back all images with the same tags. I am
thinking that providing a search facility will help some of you since I have
little insight into the ways many of you wish to explore this story.
posted at: 18:23 | path: | permanent link to this entry
