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.
Sun, 20 Mar 2005
March 20, 2005 Another attempt in improving the usability of these web pages
Each week I receive email from a number of you requesting some new insights
(for example, tracking the progress of the approaches or tracking the
unbuilding of the west tower crane). As I put these stories together and
increase the weekly set of routine photos, I wonder how anyone but me can
find anything among these pages.
Over the past year and a half, the organization
has progressed from 1 long linear web page to a group of pages to groupings
of pages. I have created an archive page with links to everything. But
again, unless you know what is in the archived pages, it might take several
attempts to locate what you are looking for. Last week, Jason Osborne
of Clemson, made a wonderful suggestion - why not put a last updated time
stamp on the menu bar and in the archive. I am feeling a bit guilty that
I did not think of this a long time ago. So now we have time stamps
indicating the last time I updated a story.
But today I thought about Google. Why not include a Google search box in
the header of each story and limit the Google search to my web site. Google
has a simple way to constrain search results by including the
clause site:ravenelbridge.net in the search expression. So I set up
a Google search box with this embedded in the search expression. Let me know
if this helps locating things.
posted at: 10:00 | path: | permanent link to this entry
