The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Innovation department has announced new partnerships for education portal ABC Splash, with Australia’s leading cultural institutions.
The new partnerships include the National Archives of Australia, Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney), Australian War Memorial, The National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of Australia.
The partnerships will enable selected content from the institutions’ exhibitions and collections to be accessed by teachers and students through the education site.
Using ABC Splash, students can journey into rarely seen archival documents, artefacts and artworks, specially curated to bring to life their day-to-day lessons.
Presented as digi-books, these historical and artistic gems offer first-hand insight into some of Australia’s most significant cultural moments.
Highlights include the ethereal digital portrait of Cate Blanchett from the National Portrait Gallery and the poignant artifacts of an ANZAC Soldier and Cold War era cartoons from the Australian War Memorial.
Other cultural treasures include the intricate and complex string figures of the Yirrkala artists from the collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art and a facsimile of a mysterious handprint and confidential cabinet minutes from the vaults of the National Archives of Australia.
Further partnerships with more of Australia’s leading institutions, including the National Museum of Australia, will see more content added to ABC Splash over the coming months.
Bell Shakespeare is also creating cultural content for ABC Splash, bringing the Bard’s work to life in digital format for a new generation of students. Bell Shakespeare have created Shakespeare Unbound, a video series of key speeches from Shakespearean plays for ABC Splash.
The videos will be paired with commentaries from actors that unpack the meaning of the work in a way that is relevant for Australian students. The first Bell Shakespeare clips will be released on ABC Splash in July 2014.
ABC managing director Mark Scott said: “The ABC is delighted to partner with Australia’s most important arts and cultural institutions. Working together, we are able to bring remarkable, rich material into the nation’s classrooms, making it directly available to teachers and students everywhere. It demonstrates how ABC Splash has become an indispensable Australian digital educational resource.”
ABC director of innovation, Angela Clark, said: “ABC Splash is bringing a wealth of information into the classroom: from interactive maths games to history apps, science and the arts. By creating a universal and free digital learning resource we are able to empower both teachers and students, giving them the materials to make learning interactive and relevant for today’s digital world. In the process we hope that we will open up opportunities for all Australian school students to unlock the power of learning.”
All content on ABC Splash, which is run in partnership with Education Services Australia, is mapped to the Australian National Curriculum.
