The Royal BC Museum’s learning portal was created a few years ago to give the public another way to access information at the provincial museum.
Liz Crocker, a Royal BC Museum learning program developer, explains that the goal is “to share stories of British Columbia as told through the work of the Royal BC Museum.
“There’s lots of videos, there’s images, there’s written articles, there’s maps, there’s stories from the people that work at the museum” says Crocker.
“There’s also a playlist section of the learning portal which allows visitors a chance to actually create their own content on the portal, and share their own stories about British Columbia.”
The learning portal is also an excellent resource for the classroom.
“Much of the content within the learning portal is integrated with the BC school curriculum.
“We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for educators to search for content that they can use in the classroom to augment classroom activities” says Crocker.
And now, there’s new technology to enhance a visit to the portal.
“We got funding from the Joan and John Walton Innovators Fund to purchase some equipment to enhance our learning programs.”
Including a 360 degree camera – “there’s lenses on either side, so it will take pictures from all around” – a gimble to hold the camera steady, and a drone.
“And we also trained three Royal BC Museum staff to become certified Transport Canada drone pilots” Crocker adds.
Museum staff are excited to use this new equipment “to create more dynamic and immersive photos and videos that we can add to our online learning program, and [to allow the public to] imagine that they’re here, in the exhibitions, with our digital field programs, or imagine they’re in the field with the researchers, or actually in the collections as well.”
“Because BC is such a big province” says Crocker, “and we have a mandate to reach as many British Columbians as possible, we hope to get out into other areas of the province, and take more drone footage, and then share that with our visitors.”
Veronica Cooper
