The Visitor Studies Group

Virtual Visitors & Real Readers

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

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

Downloads of presentations and workshops from this event can be found in the members resources section of this site.