The Visitor Studies Group

Virtual Visitors & Real Readers

VSG Summer School
At-Bristol Science Centre 
21st & 22 September 2006

Presentations and workshops highlighted in bold in the programme, as well as an evaluation of the event itself, are available as downloads at the bottom of this page. 

Programme - Day 1

9.30 Registration, delegates welcome, tea & coffee

10.00 Introduction to Event

10.15 'The Engaged Tone - engagement with interactives doesn't necessarily mean that people are learning' (Andrew McIntyre, Director, Morris Hargreaves McIntyre)

11.00 'Great Expectations - the necessity to set realistic goals for interactive exhibits' (Helen Featherstone)

12.00 Lunch

12.45 'Making Usable Websites - techniques for refining the structure and overall usability of websites' (Martin Bazley, ICT4Learning)

14.00 'Art and the Interactive - how talk based research has been used by artists to inform hands-on exhibit design' (Debbie Syrop)

14.45 Tea break

15.15 'Generation Genome - a case study illustrating decisions made to overcome the challenges of creating an exhibit on something too small to see that will engage a diverse target audience' (Ben Gammon & Emma Cooke)

16.00 'Evaluating Learning from Online Resources - a framework for evaluation of e-learning environments' (Nicky Boyd, Museum Learning and Evaluation Consultant)

18.00 Evening debate on research, methodological and ethical issues raised during the day

19.00 Day 1 Ends

Programme - Day 2

9.30 Delegates welcome back, tea & coffee

10.00 'From One Frontier to Another - using research in two leading interactive science centres, Exploratorium and At-Bristol (Goery Delacote, At-Bristol CEO)

11.15 'Exploration as a journey not a destination - the importance of encouraging exploratory behaviour in visitors' (Ian Russell)

12.00 Lunch

12.45 'Common Pitfalls of Interactive Design' (Harry White)

13.30 Delegates explore At-Bristol

14.45 'Affecting Immersive Experiences - using simple but robust research techniques to monitor and evaluate low-tech multi sensory immersive learning experiences' (The Eden Project & the University of Exeter)

15.45 Wind-up Discussion

16.15 Event Ends