: Addysg

My name is Arnie. I am an eight and a half year old Labrador retriever cross and I am a dog with a job. I am a guide to my human, the one called ‘Mum’.

We have been partners for seven years and she has very poor vision. Although she can see colour and shape, she has no depth vision and lives in a blurry world. My role is to keep her safe, stopping her from bumping into things and causing chaos.

This has been particularly important on our trips to one of our favourite places, National Museum Cardiff. Mum loves art and history, and we have been invited to help develop their audio tours for visually impaired people like Mum.

My role during these tours hasn’t just been to keep Mum safe but also to protect the priceless antiquities, beautiful paintings and fragile exhibits from the accident-prone one!

During these audio tours the museum guides describe in detail, to visually impaired visitors, their surroundings and interesting objects around them.

They also had sighted guides to help guide visually impaired people round the museum safely. Sighted guides are humans that do what I do: indicate steps, avoid objects and keep the visually impaired person safe. I think this makes a lot of sense because if they are anything like Mum they may need a little supervising.

One of the tours took us through the Evolution of Wales galleries. Our guide explained that each time the floor surface changed, it represented a movement forward in time in the story of the Earth. I took my time and stopped and tapped Mum's knee with my nose, so she knew to lift her feet and be aware of the changes in the surfaces.

I worked hard to ignore the giant bones, hanging in shapes of strange creatures, all over the place. I am sure they would have been very tasty, but I was in harness and at work!

The only part I was greatly concerned by was the terrible giant hairy creature that made a noise and moved, I tried to walk straight past and guide Mum safely out, but everyone stopped and stood to listen to one of the human guides talk about woolly mammoths and changing landscapes….? I had my eye firmly fixed on a quick exit!

Arnie Guide Dog

PS If other Guide Dogs want to take their owners on a pawsome Museum adventure, you can book a place on their audio description tours by phoning (029) 2057 3240. Woofing great!

Over the last few months Kate Congdon from Cardiff and the Vale College has been working on resources for ESOL (English as a Second or Other Language) students. In a previous blog I discussed how these had developed and been trialled at the college. On Thursday 8^th September we had around 300 students and 9 tutors come to St Fagans to try out the resources here on site. The resources that were trialled were for: Bryn Eryr Iron Age Roundhouses, Rhyd y Car, Gwalia Stores, St Teilo’s Church, and the Melin Bompren Corn Mill.

Shadowing some of the groups I was able to see how the students worked with the resources. All of the students were engaged with the resources and were keen to ask questions if they were unsure of the answer. By asking questions the resources were not only testing their reading ability but encouraging them to practice their spoken English. A big thank you goes to the front of house members of staff who were excellent at answering the questions in a simple and easy to understand manner.

As well as the printed versions of the resources we also trialled an iBook version of the Rhyd y Car resource which I adapted from Kate’s Rhyd y Car resource. The students that trialled this enjoyed the opportunity to use a different medium. The students appreciated that the iBook provided immediate feedback on the questions and used the iBook together with the printed version to check their answers. The only downside of the iBooks is that it is not compatible with android tablets which the college have. Therefore an alternative android version should be created to make the electronic resource more accessible.

The feedback from the students will be used to improve the resources and a finalised version will be completed in the coming months. Once they are completed we can then upload them to our website for future ESOL groups to use.

Yr Oriel yn Siarad

Wrth i mi sefyll a myfyrio yng nghanol yr arddangosfa, tybiais i mi weld ffigwr yn sefyll tu ôl i’r cownter pren……yna wrth edrych ar y bolltiau a’r crysau gwlanen ar y silffoedd…bron â chlywn i leisiau dynion…gydag acenion amrywiol…teimlais fy hun fel pe bawn yn llithro’n llythrennol i’r gorffennol….mae’n wir mae distaw oedd y presennol…ond deuai bwrlwm siop brysur o’r gorffennol yn fyw i’m meddwl i……yn sydyn dychmygais gyda gwên ddrygionus bod siwtcês David Lewis yn neidio allan o’r casyn gwydr ac yn mynnu dweud ei stori am ei anturieithau cyffrous…….

Yn wir roedd fel petai congl arall o’r amgueddfa yn galw am y cyfle i fynegi ei hun a dweud ei stori mewn modd bywiog a dramatig.

Dyma stori siop draper Emlyn Davies!

Pwy oedd Emlyn Davies?

Dyn lleol o Gastell Newydd Emlyn a symudodd i Ddowlais, Merthyr Tydfil i weithio fel cynorthwy-ydd yn siop J.S.Davies Drapers. Ym 1898 agorodd ei siop ddefnydd ei hun.

Gwerthu gwlanen fyddai yn bennaf, a prynai’r mwyafrif o’i stoc o Felin Cambrian yn Drefach Felindre (sydd nawr yn gartref i’r Amgueddfa Wlân). Byddai David Lewis, perchennog y felin, yn teithio i’r cymoedd i gasglu archebion am wlanen, a’r defnydd yn cael ei gludo ar y tren i Ddowlais o stesion Henllan. Byddai’r gwlanen yn cael ei droi’n grysau a dillad isaf i weithwyr y pyllau glo a’r gweithfeydd haearn lleol.

Creu Sesiwn i Blant

Ychydig o fisoedd nôl, fe ddechreuais i weithio ar y syniad o greu sesiwn a gweithdy i blant ysgol yn yr amgueddfa wlân wedi selio ar yr hanes uchod, ac atgyfodi’r siop a chafodd ei ail greu yn yr amgueddfa yn 2013.

Mae’n hanfodol, i ddechre, i unrhyw hwylusydd neu actor mewn amgueddfa pan yn ceisio bywiogi darn o hanes i wneud ei waith ymchwil ei hun. Rhaid darllen y ffeithiau wrth gwrs, gwrando ar unrhyw dystiolaeth sydd ar gael yn yr archif, a chael gweld gwrthrychau priodol o’r casgliad - ond hefyd yn ychwanegol i hyn oll mae’n rhaid ymgolli eich hun yn llwyr yng nghefndir a chyfnod yr hanes yn gyffredinol.

Mae’n bwysig i ffurfio perthynas dda gyda’r curaduron, ac unrhyw arbennigwyr arall sydd yn gweithio I’r sefydliad, a thrwy’r unigolion hynny cael mynediad i lu o adnoddau defnyddiol arall i sicrhau bod y sesiwn neu weithdy yn un a sail hanesyddol gywir iddo.

Gweithio Gydag Atgofion

Y stop gyntaf i mi wrth droedio nol i orffennol y siop oedd i gysylltu a Mark Lucas, Curadur y Diwydiant Gwlân, a fi’n gyfrifol am gasglu’r hanes at ei gilydd.

Fe rhoddodd bentwr o ffeil i mi i ddechrau, yn cynnwys copi o fywgraffiad bywyd a hanes teulu Emlyn Davies a ysgrifennwyd gan ei wŷr Alan Owen: Emlyn Davies: The Life & Times Of a Dowlais Draper in the first Half Of The Twentieth Century.

Un o’r profiadau mwyaf cyffrous i mi yn y broses yma o adfywio hanes yw i gael cyfarfod mewn person a phobol sydd ynghlwm yn uniongyrchol â’r hanes. Diddorol oedd nodi bod Mark Lucas mewn cysylltiad rheolaidd a Alan Owen, a bod cyfle i mi gyfarfod ag ef i holi cwestiunau - mwy am hyn yn y blog nesa!

Since the last post the local families coming to the Museum from Ely and Caerau have been enjoying taking part in a variety of exciting sessions, including:

• experiencing what it was like to go to school in Victoria Wales
• learning to handle a newt found during pond dipping in the Tannery ponds
• making clay coil pots to take home.

So far 102 people have taken part in this programme of activities at St Fagans and the feedback from everyone has been overwhelmingly positive.

“I enjoyed the experience of going to a Victorian school because I learnt new things and how they learnt back then.”

“I had a good time holding a newt and looking at all the pond bugs.”

“Brill, we had lots of fun, will be coming back!”

“I liked pottery because you can get messy and it is crafty.”

“Calming session.”

The children are learning a lot, so are the parents, and so are we. We’re finding out just how much families love to learn together and the families are discovering all that the Museum has to offer them. Many of these families had not visited St Fagans until coming along to one of these sessions, and now they are thinking of coming back again. This is why we value our partnership with ACE Action Ely Caerau so much, as they are able to help us meet and work with these lovely groups to show them just how relevant the Museum on their doorstep can be to their lives.

With one more week to go we are looking forward to welcoming more families to Bryn Eryr, the Iron Aged farmstead, to help us with an authentic Iron Age smelt, and a very enthusiastic group who will be coming in to take part in a traditional weaving workshop.

Keep following this blog for more updates.

If you are interested in taking part in fun family activities and events at St Fagans over the summer there are lots of opportunities to get involved, just check our What’s On for more information.

This week we welcomed the lovely Croeso Club from Caerphilly to St Fagans. They are an informal community group set up by a local resident, Sandra Hardacre, almost ten years ago. The group aims to support community members to learn new skills, be sociable with others and go on new adventures.

Over the last 6 weeks they have been working with Groundwork Cymru to help to pilot a new project called Go Green 4 Health, which is all about inspiring, supporting and encouraging individuals to use the outdoors to be more active. Each session focuses on a different aspect of using the outdoors for activity, such as ‘the benefits to being outdoors’, ‘overcoming barriers’ and ‘’staying safe’.