Why?s Man for schools

Today, it was the website for schools which was the priority.

With the schools closed for the weekend, the emails are fewer, and there are no visits to make, nor visitors to welcome.

So, the website for the schools becomes the centre of attention.

This is a shot of what the home page currently looks like. It's not yet online but it is definitely onscreen, on a screen here as the site comes together.

By this time next week, it should be live online and pupils, teachers and parents will be able to use it when they're investigating George Wyllie.

The trick will be in making it accessible to all pupils, whatever their stage or the subject context. As the artist dealt in the visual, the structure of the site is being built on images and photographs and that should help all pupils to work with the vast amount of information and work that he created.

The site will have three key themes - boats, locomotives and 'burds'. These run through a lot of George Wyllie's work and can be understood at different levels. There's also humour in each of these themes, as well as more serious underlying messages.

Three specific pieces of work have been chosen, as examples of other concerns - Stones of Scotland, 32 Spires for Hibernia and The Difference of Hiroshima - allowing for the classroom focus to encompass history, geography, citizenship.

There are also three other media sections, not scul?ture or art, but instead... drama, music and writing, all of which George Wyllie created and performed. It will be good for pupils to see the subject boundaries melting away.

Well, that's the hope.

Across the top of the home page, there will be links to information about the artist; the location of his works in Scotland; details of influences on him and those he influenced, as well as a bank of press cuttings.

At the bottom, there will be links to two areas for those supporting pupils in their learning. One for teachers and schools: the other for parents and those at home. (Teachers will have access to an additional 750 photographs of key Wyllie work in a secure area. The amount of work he produced is well beyond incredible.)

Then there are the links to the social media pages, with the blipfoto icon proudly positioned first.

So, on this wet Saturday night that's how it's looking.

It's the next stage.

And it should mean that schools will be able to continue long after the festival is over.

It's a legacy site for pupils and those supporting them.

That's the plan.

So, into the last week of the website's development... Getting there.