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Online Education Experiences
Taronga Zoo.
Gorilla, Gorilla, Gorilla Website.
Gorilla information has been developed onto a website. Education staff wrote the information and staff from MC3, a website company, designed the site. It includes information about primates and their characteristics with the main focus being on Taronga Zoo’s Western Lowland Gorillas.
http://ww2.zoo.nsw.gov.au/zoo.net/gorilla/index.aspx
Primary and secondary school students and the general community.
Flexible.
No cost - free access on the internet.
Cost for final set up of the site was approximately AU$10,000 by a website design company. Countless human resource hours were spent by Zoo Educators, Zookeepers, Design staff and IT staff to develop and approve the material to go on the website.
The site is sponsored by McDonald’s Family Restaurants (NSW and ACT Franchisees) as part of their sponsorship of the McDonald’s Gorilla Forest. The site is hotlinked to Taronga Zoo’s main website. News releases distributed at the initial launch received wide coverage. A competition was delivered through McDonald’s Restaurants which directed people to the site. The competition was promoted through in-store posters.
Initially up to ten staff members were working on the project. Once established, minimal maintenance is required to maintain the site.
The site has links to the sponsor McDonald’s Family Restaurants as well as a range of links to other useful gorilla and primate websites.
Initial resources to develop the information for the site were fairly substantial. Originally it was designed as a paper resource but as technology (and further funding) became available it was decided to develop it into a website for wider coverage. Zoo Educators and Zookeepers developed the information, Zoo Designers developed the lay out, Zoo IT staff converted the material to html and the website company developed the site. Now that the site is running the greatest resource is the chat room component but as the site is extensive questions are generally minimal.
Since the launch of the site the hit rate has been quite good especially during the life of the competition.
The main factors which hold any website development is the supply of the content and approval of designs. If all the content was supplied at once and approvals were all the next day, the project could potentially take three weeks to complete. If all aspects of the web design are discussed and agreed on early in the project, in most cases a smooth quick construction process can take place and money can be saved.
Taronga Zoo Education Centre Ph: +61 2 9978 4555.
 Online Education Experiences
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Offsite Education Experiences
ARAZPA Education Policy
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