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Destination: Nirvana. 'How Buddhism came to Korea'

Focus area: Health Studies
Audience: 12-18 years
Software application: HTML, Flash and XML

This group of interactives encourages students to learn about the spread of Buddhism in Korea, explore and to reflect. The example demonstrates a high level of visually rich material backed up with audio. Independent study is supported via a glossary, opportunities to engage at a variety of entry points and individual interest.

Students are encouraged to explore and to reflect. The example demonstrates a high level of visually rich material backed up with audio. Students are invited to sample. Independent study is supported via a glossary, opportunities to engage at a variety of entry points and individual interest.

One aspect of the innovation lies in the opportunities for interactivity and reflection. In celestial ceilings the student engages with design principles outside of their own cultural experience. Using western ideas produces sparse designs not in keeping with the richness of a Buddhist temple. Students do not have to be talented artists to succeed in creating designs. They can learn about the symbols and therefore create ceilings which they understand. Other innovative techniques employed were the use of a photographic QuickTime VR tour of a traditional Korean Buddhist Monastery centuries old. By providing the student with the ability to explore an environment that is usually not available to the general public and in particular Westerners, the student is able to gain a remarkably accurate insight into how and where Buddhist Monks live.

Objects in this family

Celestial Ceilings

This interactive provides students with the ability to create their own ceiling designs comparable to that of traditional Korean ceiling paintings. The student is given the option of selecting a number of grid designs and an even greater number of tiles designs. By dragging their selected tile to a square within the grid they can then rotate as they like. As well as the ability to print their creations, the student can also find out information pertaining to the detailed designs and their meaning.

Buddha's Backpackers

Named as such due to the travelling nature of this interactive, the student is shown an animation, indicating the spread of the Buddhist movement from India to Korea. Another animation sits at the top right of the screen depicting activities that support the attached information relating to the map. The spread of the Buddhist movement is broken into several stages according to significant events. At each stage the student is able to click on highlighted points to obtain information about that region and they are also able to access further information from a topic menu at the side. Once the student has reached Korea the map enlarges on the country and it is then broken into areas of importance. The student is able to use a slider on a timeline to view the zonal distribution of Buddhism throughout Korea over a period of time.