After months of work by the Drachen Foundation Board, the entire Foundation staff, and technical work by two outside organizations, the new Drachen Foundation website is here. These months have taken us back in time to when the organization started, by reminding us of many of the projects, books, workshops, exhibits, and kite stories we’ve been involved in. Likewise, the new website will revisit all of these endeavors – in a new and exciting, easy-to-navigate format – and bring the Foundation back to its original mission: to disseminate kite information, worldwide.

Key Features

How to Use This Site: https://www.drachen.org/how-use-site
Online Collections: https://www.drachen.org/collections

Our fifteen year history has allowed us to accumulate a large collection of kites, photographs, books, and kite ephemera. With today’s technology we have been able to digitize the majority of our collection and we will soon offer it online for the first time. One of the original purposes of the Foundation was to collect and maintain a kite archive. We are excited to open that archive to the world kite community. Please be patient as we render our collection for online access. It will go up shortly.

But the most exciting aspect of today’s technology is that it is interactive. We now have the ability to make the website a living, breathing, growing entity that gets stronger with more use. Worldwide users will be able to contribute pictures, articles, kite plans, or any of their favorite kite memories.

Interactive Features

Drachen Blog: https://www.drachen.org/blog
Kite Biographies: https://www.drachen.org/bio
Kite Cultures: https://www.drachen.org/learn/kite-cultures
Virtual Exhibits: https://www.drachen.org/exhibits
Discourse Archive: https://www.drachen.org/articles

A large portion of our site will be dedicated to teachers, as they have become our largest audience. We hope to provide examples of kite curricula, workshop ideas, and inexpensive kite kits and materials. All are clearly explained and easily adaptable to any teacher’s classroom.

Educational Features

Kite Lessons: https://www.drachen.org/teach/lessons
Free Kite Plans: https://www.drachen.org/learn/drachen-kite-plans-materials
Online Store: http:/;goodkites.com

Finally, the key to the website’s success will be defined by your use and interaction. We need your feedback as you become familiar with the site and especially when you find obstacles to your searches. We know there will be a period of time that programming adjustments must be made and we’ll need your input to make those work for you. We hope this site will allow you to find and use information you might not otherwise locate, to ask questions that can be answered by the Drachen Foundation staff or by the Foundation’s worldwide audience, and to enable you to build, write about, or teach about kites more successfully.

Scott, Ali, Katie