A Virtual Tour of Creation's Journey and All Roads are Good

A Virtual Tour of Creation’s Journey and All Roads are Good at the George Gustav Heye Center is a virtual exhibit from the Museum of the American Indian on Manhattan Island in New York. This online exhibit is a joint project between the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Four Directions project. It originally stared out as collaboration between these groups to educate the public. It serves as and educational resource for those who are unable to make it to either New York or Washington DC. The exhibit itself consisted of two parts: the virutal tour would be as seen through children's eyes of the permanent exhibit and a virtual museum of the students' cultures.

The site is set up to give the user the experience of actually attending the museum. Its fully interactive. The site allows you to enter and ‘browse’ through different halls that contain objects for viewing. One of the interesting features to this exhibit is the use of flash. The user is able to rotate the image in a 360 degree view, which in turn allows them to select the the exhibit hall they want to view. In each of these halls are images of the items in the collection. The object appears in a window on the right hand side and gives the user the options of zooming in and out, as well as horizontal, or a 360 degree view of the object. Included on this page is a map of the 'museum' where the user can select where they would like to go next if they choose not to use the interactive flash display.

Each of the objects contains a brief explanation as to what it is and in most cases an explination as to why it was chosen to be in the exhibit. It is because of the programs desire to help educate and work with Native American children that led to the objects in the virtual tour to be selected by students. Students from two clases were selected to chose from the permenent exhibit the artifacts they liked.

Flash is incorporated in order to give a more realistic view of the exhibit, especially since it is supposed to be through a child's eyes. The virtual exhibit is for the general publie. Most of the descriptions are by children, and as such, scholars may not find this a usable source. However, it does give the viewer a general sense of the objects presented.