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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, 17 Jun 2005

June 17, 2005: Exploring Graphical Navigation

I am often frustrated with the difficulty of finding stuff on these web pages. I think there must be a better way. Jack, my son, suggested some sort of graphical navigation. The idea is that you can click on a region of an image and bring up more detailed photos.

I have built a rough draft test page to develop this idea. There are about 2500 images and finding what even I want, well, its simply out of control. Perhaps a graphical interface with the photos is the way to do. Google does this with Google Maps using Ajax (asynchronous javascript and xml), a new web technology. This is not Ajax - just plain ordinary javascript - but a start. I need your input, your ideas, your code, your whatever.

posted at: 13:21 | path: | permanent link to this entry

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frank.starmer at gmail.com

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