Random Connections – Page 145 – A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.

R. I. P. Shadow

August 27, 2009 Tom 2 Comments

Miscellaneous

This morning I got a call from Laura that I didn’t want to receive. She had taken our old cat, Shadow, to our vet. We had feared the worst, and those fears were confirmed by the vet’s prognosis – complete kidney failure. The only humane thing to do was to put him to sleep. Shadow … Read More “R. I. P. Shadow” »

Hope School Dedication

August 23, 2009 Tom 1 Comment

Saturday I attended the dedication of the Hope School Community Center located on Hope Station Road near Prosperity, SC. This historic school is one of the few survivors of nearly 500 Rosenwald schools constructed in South Carolina between 1917 and 1932. Hope School served grades 1-8 in the African-American community for 28 years, from 1926 – 1954.

In the early 1900’s Junius Rosenwald was president of Sears Roebuck, and was instrumental in the development of their famous catalog. Rosenwald became interested in the state of education in the rural south, and developed a set of plans for schools that could be ordered and build easily, similar to the house plans that had been available through the Sears catalog. Rosenwald also provided funding for for many of the schools, targeting his efforts toward African-American communities in the south.

The Hope School was a two-room school built in 1925 on land donated by the Hope family. James H. Hope was state superintendent of schools from 1922-1946, and spearheaded many projects to reduce school funding disparities between wealthy and poor counties.

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Black Forest German

August 17, 2009 Tom 1 Comment

Restaurants

I had decided to ride up toward Hendersonville and Asheville for a Sunday drive. While driving through Hendersonville I spotted Haus Heidleberg, and it reminded me of the hole that had been left in Greenville’s ethnic cuisine since the closing of Haus Edleweiss last year. That also got me craving German food. It was too … Read More “Black Forest German” »

Jocassee – Paddler’s Paradise

August 16, 2009 Tom 4 Comments

Paddling, Photography

I really wanted to get out on my new boat. With the entire day available for paddling, I decided to head up to Lake Jocassee. I had paddled Jocassee many times, but our excursions were always rather limited. I was stoked to get out on a boat that could actually get me somewhere and see parts of the lake I had not seen before. This turned into a review of a paddling destination as much as a review of the new boat.

It seems that I’m always starting off in a fog. That’s been more physical than metaphysical lately, with a foggy start to last week’s Edisto trip, and now with fog blanketing the Upstate. Most of it had burned off by the time I arrived at the upper boat ramp at Devil’s Fork State Park.

New(ish) Kayak – Old Town “Dirigo”

August 10, 2009 Tom No Comments

Gear, Paddling

I bought my first kayaks when I started working in Spartanburg Five, eleven years ago. The Perception Torrents have been great, fun boats, but there are several problems. First, these are wet boats. There are self-bailing holes in the bottom, so you are constantly sitting in water. Secondly, there isn’t any storage to speak of. … Read More “New(ish) Kayak – Old Town “Dirigo”” »

The Curative Powers of the Edisto

August 9, 2009 Tom 4 Comments

Paddling, Photography

This was not a good sign. Pinpoints of light danced across my vision as I checked last minute e-mail. The truck was loaded, and in a few minutes I would be heading south to Sumter to spend the night with my brother, Stephen. In the morning we would join the band of miscreants known as Lowcountry Unfiltered for another epic journey down the Edisto River. A migraine headache was the last thing I needed.

I had taken some preventative medicine and decided to go for it. The drive down was interesting, as various extremities alternately numbed and chilled. As long as I kept my eye on the road and didn’t look down the visual aura stayed to the edges. I managed to keep a couple of plain McDonalds hamburgers down and make it safely to Steve’s.

The day broke full of deep fog. We still had a two-hour drive to the put-in, and we speculated about how cool it would be to paddle through this. We might even stumble upon some ancient civilization, kept hidden until the mist burned off. Given our knowledge of the area, this was a real possibility.

Rough Week in Lake Wobegon

August 7, 2009 Tom 1 Comment

EdTech, Rants

Warning: Rant ahead

I have a dream. I don’t know if it’s even possible. For once, I would like to place a large order of computers, have them be priced appropriately, be delivered on time, and work like they are supposed to when we get them set up. Is that really too much to ask?

This summer instead of purchasing HP computers we bought Dells. Pricing and support arrangements through our local system integrator were the main reasons for the switch. Also, we have had TONS of problems with HP products over the past few years. Last year deliveries were late and we had the perennial problem with the drivers not wanting to do an inside delivery. To compound matters, they tried to overcharge us for half a million dollars AND tried to tack late fees onto that as we worked to get the price sorted out.

That was last year. This summer Dell has let use experience even more different levels of frustration. Our first delivery had the driver refusing to do what was asked. That got ironed out quickly, and we didn’t have any more problems. Then came the deployment. When we tried to boot up the computers, we found that we had purchased 850 bricks – the computers wouldn’t work.

Spartanburg County Instructional Technology Academy

August 7, 2009 Tom No Comments

EdTech

This week we held the kick-off sessions for the Spartanburg County Instructional Technology Academy (SCITA) at USC-Upstate. The three-day workshop was the start of a graduate course that is funded by an E2T2 grant that Spartanburg school districts 1, 2, 5, and 7 had applied for and received. In addition to the graduate course, participants would receive and be trained in emerging technology for their classrooms.

The first day began with an overview of the program and an introduction to the course by Dr. Jimmy Pryor, who will be the instructor. Danielle Stengle from CSI Outfitters then spoke to the group about using technology for special needs students.

Discovery Education MediaShare

July 31, 2009 Tom No Comments

EdTech

The citizens of South Carolina really have some wonderful online resources available to them. For ten years now the State Library has made available a wealth of research and reference materials through the DISCUS project. This is available in all schools, libraries, and colleges, and available at home if you obtain a free password from one of those sources. Then there’s KnowItAll.org and all of the other amazing resources from SCETV. One of the best of these is the Discovery Education video clips available from StreamlineSC. Like DISCUS, this is available free to all schools in the state through a special licensing arrangement with Discovery. At the SCETV conference this week I learned about a new feature that Discovery is promoting called MediaShare. This new service looks really cool, and looks like it will be another great resource for teachers.

As the name suggests, MediaShare allows users to share files of various types – PowerPoint slide shows, Smart and Promethean files, podcasts, and video clips. The idea is that these types of files often take up more space on servers than some districts allow, so Discovery has created this place to host the files. MediaShare is monitored for appropriateness of content, and districts can also set approval levels for files uploaded by their users.

SCETV Summer Workshops

July 30, 2009 Tom No Comments

EdTech

This week SCETV is holding its summer technology workshops. Normally I’m so busy building new schools and putting in computers that I can’t take part in the summer workshops. This summer, however, I decided I would try to make it. I figured that during summer there would be better participation than there might during the school year.

Last spring I did three sessions each day, which meant that I had no down time nor opportunity to visit any other sessions. This time I cut one of my presentations, so I would only be doing two workshops each day – Basic Google Earth and Creating Interactive Lessons with Google Earth. I had also been asked to conduct a geocaching activity one of the afternoons.

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