A website really designed for kids!

I found this website by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery education arm and thought I'd share it with you. It is one of the rare sites I've found that really seems to be designed with children in mind. Many of the others I've seen all have that corporate branding look that adults are all so keen on whereas this one with its lovely illustrations seems much more child-friendly to me (I plan to check it out with my own kids to test my theory!). I can imagine this sort of vibe working well for our Circus project.

If you have time the web links at the bottom of the page are also quite interesting especially Bedazzled the kids online fashion magazine done with a Flash plug-in and Bemused which is the Museum's interactive page for kids where they can upload their drawing, watch videos etc.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass...

Uploaded to Flickr on June 15, 2009by choreographics

Over the past few weeks Julian, Paul and I have been researching interactive timelines to try and pick apart the functionalities that might work for our timeline. Some of the more interesting ones we have looked at inlcude:

BBC's British History timeline

MOMA's Colour Chart timeline

Biography.com's Black History timeline

The Museum of London's Exploring 20th century London

Design company White Void's use of Flash in presenting layered information

We are hoping to start talking to Flash developers some time after Easter so if you know of any other good timelines please let us know!

Don't Dream It's Over...

Thanks for making me feel so welcome at the EFYP meeting yesterday and for responding so enthusiastically to our project. As Julian mentioned we have just finished most of the 70s and 80s section of our timeline but are struggling a bit with the late 80s/early 90s. Not that we have a lack of material rather we have too much! A funny thing happens when you come to examine recent history especially if you lived through that period as a young adult. This is the period we usually hold dear to us for the rest of our lives. It is a time (before real adult responsibilities set in!) when we are free to indulge all our passions and we often find it hard to separate things that were important to us from things that have been shown to be historically significant.

What/who was important to you from 1985-2000? We have a pretty good selection of bands and significant single and album releases from alternative to commercial but we are now trying to narrow down our themes. Some of the ones we are toying with are the resurgence of the music festival; women in rock/pop, and the advent of national FM radio (especially TripleJ).

We'd love to know what you guys think. Were there any pivotal moments for you? Seminal bands, venues, feastivals, movements? Don't be shy - all feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Caz

'Let's Make More Crowns', or the danger of not looking closely at your web metrics!

Kids taking part in the 'Thriller Experience' linked to the Powerhouse's exhibition 'The 80s Are Back' Image: Copyright Powerhouse Museum

Welcome to the first VCN team blog for 2010 especially to our newest member Paul. Given all the great work EFY did on the Education website before Christmas I thought you might be interested in this post from the Powerhouse. It looks at the reasons why they chose to put up certain content for their kids pages, how it has been used and by whom. The Powerhouse take their web metrics very seriously and are considered leaders in the field. I think that this post shows very graphically why it is prudent to do so.

Caz

Museums and Education

I found this recent article on museums and education while checking out Museums Australia's new 'ning' and thought you might be interested.

Living in the Seventies

Costume worn by Greg Macainsh on Skyhooks 1976 American Tour and designed by Greg Macainsh and Uschi Flett. Performing Arts Collection.

Without a doubt the highlight of the week has been trawling through the Performing Arts Collection's Skyhooks stash. The JUKE magazine archive itself has some 12 folder of photographs, then there are Kathleen O'Brien's amazing live performance shots, costume drawings, and the costumes themselves. We have also found some good through-lines and cross-references for sub-themes like the role of television and fandom in popular music.

We are still aiming to have models for our three levels of content (pop-ups, events and extension modules) by Christmas but the days seem to racing by! As you are probably aware, Julian has also been working on finishing the Ballets Russes doco and filming interviews for work we have been asked to do by UTS which all needs to be done by 20 December so time is very tight.

I'm hoping for at least one more post before Christmas but in case I don't get another chance thanks for making me feel so welcome. Next year is going to be awesome!

Caz

PS: Just a reminder that our new Communication Strategy can be found in the VCN Project folder on the L:drive.

Ballets Russes content for FUSE

Costume designby Leonard French for the Vizier, Nutcracker, Ballet Guild, 1953. The Arts Centre, Performing Arts Collection

As discussed at our last meeting DEECD have requested some 'hot content' for the ministerial launch of FUSE in January so Julian and I have been working on a short documentary piece inspired by our recent Ballets Russes exhibition. The exhibition is currently on tour in Shepparton and will be off to Hamilton in March so we thought that it was a good opportunity to provide regional teachers with some content they could use either in isolation or in conjunction with a visit to the exhibition.

The doco will run for about 8 minutes and includes excepts of curators Steve Tonkin and Margot Anderson giving floortalks in Gallery 1 interspersed with still images of the designs, photographs and artworks featured in the exhibition. The second part of the doco features the teachers and students from Bendigo Secondary College who attended a special costume design workshop following their visit to the exhibition. I've seen the rough cut and Julian has done a great job. Once it's finished I'll make sure to post it so you can all see it.

Next week we plan to start mapping out the 'event' module we are creating for Skyhooks - should be fun!

Caz