mikes web log

The Green Man has to have a voice so we have created 15 potential voices. Has the reader any favourite?

The voices can be found on the following page. It now works!

http://www.zygoconsulting.com/demo/gm-sounds.html

Had a great brainstorming(thought showering) session with Jay and Deborah at the Botanical Gardens. How can podcasting augment the work of the gardens?

How about

- Podcasts of visitors talking about the gardens

- Podcasts for pupils coming into the gardens -sub-themed for different age groups.

- Vid casts of special plants and habitats which they can access before they arrive.

- Themed podcasts – the medicinal podcasts – conservation podcasts.

- Podcasts of trail around the gardens

- The gardeners talking about their areas of the gardens.

 -The Green Man podcasts

These could all be different subscription items made up of small manageable chunks podcasts will. There is a botanical garden in Melbourne that has one substantial podcast that takes you on a tour of the gardens. A bit big (30 minutes) for my liking. The Birmingham Botanical Gardens podcasts will be short and sweet and make the listener WANT to visit the gardens.

A great opportunity has arisen linked to two of my present focii. We are at the present time beginning to expand the ‘Computers in Homes’ project into Year 4 at two of the project primary schools. A total of 150 families.

Year 4 in Prince Albert primary are visiting Birmingham Botanical Gardens on 7th/8th November to look at different habitats. This gives me a great opportunity of a podcast with PICTURES. We will get the children to take photographs of the plants and then record them talking about them. What a wonderful resource to share with their parents.

Podcasting photographs can use the facilities of Windows Movie Maker. Create the audio file using Audacity and then drop it into Movie Maker. The still images can then be dropped into the video section. The whole thing can then be published as a file that can be succesfully podcasted. Look out for the instructions …..and problems and evaluation.

Working for Birmingham Botanical Gardens on the Green Man Project is proving to be a great experience. I’m actually learning something about those things called plants. They are almost as amazing as animals. How about a ‘Prayer Plant’ that survives under the rain forest canopy by collecting light during the day by displaying the green upper leaf and then prays at dusk (hands – no leaves together) so that the red under leaf is exposed. Still trying to get my mind around the lighting that causes this. Then we have the cacti that have no leaves, just stems, so that they can preserve water

The Green man will reside in a Victorian cottage in the gardens. Visitors will enter the cottage and the entrance area will be the inside of a tree. On the floor you will see the rings of growth around you will see and hear the tree growing. The Green Man will greet you; he will suddenly appear above you. A delightful leafy, smiling face that will welcome you into his home.

The home, which is the bigger room of the cottage, will be the canopy of the rainforest. There will be seats sculptured out of tree fruits and in the centre will be a series of computer screens where you as the visitor will be able to interact with the Green Man. 

“Hello Green Man”. “Can you help me?” says the Green Man. “I have a headache can you find the aspirin tree?” The visitor is given a quest which takes them out into the Botanical Gardens to find the aspirin tree and get some information about it. This is then fed back to the Green Man and is the head ache cured. That depends on what is found out. 

How far are we away from this realisation? About 7 months. Software needs to be developed. The cottage needs to be developed. Quests need to be discovered - medicinal, smelly, food, household, mathematical, carnivorous, arid, tropical and conservational quests are just a few examples of the wonderful trails that can be developed within this wonderful \compact environment.

The Green Man has been part of our heritage. The evidence points to this mythological figure being linked to the fertility of the ground. In many respects the Green man is Natures representative. The Green Man is linked to death and revival and regeneration.  
 

The Green Man is enjoying modern day resurgence as we become progressively alarmed by what we are doing with the environment. The Green Man is now associated with environmental awareness.
One of the problems we are going to have is that the images of the Green Man are usually of an angry foliated face. They are dotted all over the 14 Century churches joining the other grotesque gargoyles that adorn them. Were they a medieval environmental warning of environmental change?

 
Quite a lot of the users of the Green Man are going to be young users. How will they cope with a grotesque foliated image? The image has got to persuade these young users to communicate and through this discover the mysteries of the gardens.

To help the young visitors we will have to find or devise a story that will introduce them to this controversial figure. A story which is going to support its mythological origins and also make him a ‘real’ figure that children will want to communicate with.

The Green Man is a brilliant choice to lead visitors to discover the gardens. It is planned that the Green Man will give the gardens users ‘Quests’ which will lead them to question what they see and help them find answers to there questions. They will discover for themselves the magic of plants and the environment in which they exist.