Random Connections – Page 136 – A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

Paddling Lake Oolenoy

March 30, 2010 Tom No Comments

Alan and I both are on spring break this week, so we decided we needed to get some kayaking done. Monday morning we loaded up the boats and headed toward Lake Oolenoy in Table Rock State Park. Lake Oolenoy is a small lake, only 36 acres or so. Scenic Highway 11 runs across it’s upper … Read More “Paddling Lake Oolenoy” »

iFrame Is Your Friend (in Google Earth)

March 27, 2010 Tom 2 Comments

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. I was putting together that last post and stumbled upon a whole world of new possibilities for embedding content into Google Earth. I noticed that several of the embed codes used the <iframe> code and just referenced a URL for the embeddable media. I began to wonder if … Read More “iFrame Is Your Friend (in Google Earth)” »

Three Collaborative Google Earth Projects

March 26, 2010 Tom No Comments

EdTech, Geocaching and Maps

I had wanted to entitle this post “Cool Google Earth Lesson Plans That Don’t Really Use Google Earth”, but I figure that would be a bit wordy. The idea was taken from my “Creating Media Rich Lessons with Google Earth” presentations that I’ve been doing lately. One of the strategies in that presentation is to embed content from other sources into Google Earth. As I was giving some examples to the workshop participants, it occurred to me that you could do a collaborative project in Google Earth where kids do most of their work in some other application, bringing these together at the last minute in Google Earth. Here are a few of those ideas, and the applications needed.

Roxanne

March 25, 2010 Tom No Comments

Miscellaneous, Music

The other day I walked into our office and heard “Roxanne” by The Police playing on the stereo in our lobby. It was turned down low, but Andy Summer’s dry guitar pattern and Sting’s distinct voice are hard to miss. This wasn’t an arrangement of “Roxanne” scored for the 101 Strings or some such nonsense. … Read More “Roxanne” »

US 1

March 23, 2010 Tom 10 Comments

Geocaching and Maps

When I was about 12 years old my brother-in-law gave me a Rand McNally Road Atlas. I had already been collecting maps for some time, so having an atlas with a map of every state in the US was a dream come true. I pored over every state, plotting out extended road trips.

One road that especially caught my attention was US 1. First, there was its primacy in the numerical highway system. It must be important if it’s number 1. Then, there was the route. It runs all the way from Key West, Florida, to the northernmost point in Fort Kent, Maine. And finally, there were all of the interesting cities that it connected – places I’d never been, such as Washington, D. C., Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. It seemed like the perfect highway to me.

Recently I’ve had the occasion to drive different segments of US 1 – in Columbia last week, in Florida two weeks ago, and in Maine over this past summer. The recent jaunts on this highway rekindled my interest, so I started exploring the route in Google Earth, and trying to find out what I could about its history.

SCETV Workshops Spring 2010

March 18, 2010 Tom No Comments

EdTech

The time-lapse video above gives some indication of the frenetic pace I’ve been hitting this week. Several months ago I agree to once again do my Google Earth workshops for the SCETV Technology Conference. Had I known how hectic these past two weeks were going to be even without the conference, I might have reconsidered. However, despite PASS testing, 135th day counts, and other pressing needs in Spartanburg Five, I headed on down for the Wednesday – Friday sessions.

As I had done last year, I’m presenting two different sessions. The first is a basic introduction to Google Earth. The teachers get some time just to become familiar with the program’s controls and navigation, and I give them some suggestions for using it in their classrooms. The second session is more in-depth. I cover ways that Google Earth can be used to create highly interactive lessons buy using embedded media. I tend to get lots of oohs and ahs with that session because there is some really cool stuff you can do.

Wednesday we had a luncheon and were joined by several representatives from Discovery Education. Phillipe Cousteau, grandson of Jaques Cousteau, was our keynote speaker. In the evening the Discovery Educators Network (DEN) STAR members had a dinner at the SCETV studios, and we were again joined by Phillipe Cousteau. He spoke about some of his current environmental education endeavors.

Furman Singers and the End of an Era

March 18, 2010 Tom 1 Comment

Local, Music

Tuesday night Laura and I attended the Furman Singers’ concert. It was the last tour concert with Dr. Bingham Vick at the helm. This May Vick will retire from Furman after 40 years as a professor there. In most respects the concert was typical of the Singers’ tour concerts. The first half featured major choral … Read More “Furman Singers and the End of an Era” »

Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge

March 14, 2010 Tom 4 Comments

Travel

It was a second Saturday, and the Lowcountry Unfiltered group had another trip planned. This time it would be a bicycle trek to the Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge on the Georgia coast south of Savannah. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to join them. We were making a quick trip to Florida to pick up Laura’s mother. However, since we would be driving right past, we decided to stop on the way down. We liked it so much that we also decided to stop on the way back to break up the trip. It turned out to be a great discovery.

Sometime between 1929 and 1932 this area was developed as an airfield, and served as an emergency landing strip for air routes along the Eastern coast. In WWII it was redeveloped as an Army airfield and was used to train both fighters and bombers. In 1946 there was an attempt to transform the Army base into a commercial airfield, but that ultimately failed. In 1962 the area was designated as a wildlife area.

The runways of the old airfield are in an unusual triangular pattern. The old tarmac remains, and this serves as an excellent base for hiking or biking. There is also a wildlife drive that loops through the area, using part of the old runways and taxiways.

On our first stop it had just started raining, but we decided to do the wildlife loop anyway. We first stopped at Woods Pond, and were amazed at the number of storks and green herons. The whole place was covered with birds.

The road continued through pine, live oaks, and hanging Spanish moss…

…then crossed several of the old runways.

Even More Echo Valley

March 14, 2010 Tom 5 Comments

History and Genealogy, Internet

By some strange coincidence Houston and Lynda were working on family photos when I posted my piece about Echo Valley. The weird thing was, they were processing photos from 1968, and had just come to our great mountain adventure when we visited the park. These photos were taken by my father. Last night they gave … Read More “Even More Echo Valley” »

Jimmy Buffett and the Shoe Event Horizon

March 14, 2010 Tom No Comments

Miscellaneous, Weirdness

In Douglas Adam’s original radio play “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, Arthur Dent eventually lands on the planet Brontitall. There he discovers a super-evolved race of bird creatures with a painful past. On Brontitall the main industry was the production of shoes. Eventually the economy reached the “Shoe Event Horizon” where it became economically … Read More “Jimmy Buffett and the Shoe Event Horizon” »