I'll kick off discussion here with a question - how do the educators that use Celestia in presentations etc actually use the program in practice? Do you have complex, purpose-built scripts for each show or presentation that you do? Do you use it in the classroom at school as a supplement for other courses, or do you use it to illustrate concepts for lectures at observatories and/or universities?
I'm just curious here. I'm hoping to get a job at an astronomy outreach centre and would like to hear how people have used Celestia and how effective it's been.
How do you use Celestia to educate people?
How do you use Celestia to educate people?
My Celestia page: Spica system, planetary magnitudes script, updated demo.cel, Quad system
I've touted Celestia Educational addons around local schools because they are way better than existing resources that teachers currently use and the wow factor keeps kids riveted. My own son is major major fan. There are a couple of issues:
1/ Jumping between document and celestia is bit of a pain. Double monitors is better but havent encountered a school with that set up and even then tend to be trying to use celestia controls in word and vice versa. Better would be static document that you can print and a way to access all the links by say a popup in Celestia
2/ With typical student/computer ratios, it takes long time. The time required for the demos means that its outside the scope of syllabus time (I am talking New Zealand here) so can only be an activity for the enthused. Fortunately the activities are so good, there are plenty around.
Physics teachers tend to look immediately for a gravity simulator. Other programs do this and frankly I think they are toy. Students need to learn how to do the calculations and the trial-and-error approach I have seen in simulators doesnt teach much.
Even in elementary grade, Celestia is wonderful tool. A twenty minute tour (about all you could hope to do) can show the place of earth, the planets and some sense of the enormousness of the cosmos.
1/ Jumping between document and celestia is bit of a pain. Double monitors is better but havent encountered a school with that set up and even then tend to be trying to use celestia controls in word and vice versa. Better would be static document that you can print and a way to access all the links by say a popup in Celestia
2/ With typical student/computer ratios, it takes long time. The time required for the demos means that its outside the scope of syllabus time (I am talking New Zealand here) so can only be an activity for the enthused. Fortunately the activities are so good, there are plenty around.
Physics teachers tend to look immediately for a gravity simulator. Other programs do this and frankly I think they are toy. Students need to learn how to do the calculations and the trial-and-error approach I have seen in simulators doesnt teach much.
Even in elementary grade, Celestia is wonderful tool. A twenty minute tour (about all you could hope to do) can show the place of earth, the planets and some sense of the enormousness of the cosmos.
Malenfant wrote:or do you use it to illustrate concepts for lectures at observatories and/or universities?
That is what I am using Celestia now.
Another use is to demonstrate how 3D visualisation could be achieved in complex and large-scale problems.
Additional uses are many, I think, if more real-time features and network support are made available in Celestia.
Joe
-
Schalislaa
- Posts: 1
- Joined: 11.09.2006
- With us: 18 years 2 months
- Location: Western Australia
I work part-time on a website called Astronomy WA, which is a government-funded site devoted to providing astronomy resources and information to Western Australian educators and students.
At the moment I'm working on a review of Celestia to provide to teachers as a way to help them work out what astronomy software will be of most use to them. Also I'm going to be writing a series of how-to classroom activities using Celestia. (I'm aware there are many pre-existing educational resources available, I'm still going through them all at the moment!)
It would certainly be of great interest to me to find out how educators are using Celestia, and I'll hopefully be working with some local science communicators soon to help identify where they would find the software most useful in the classroom. I've also got acess to a planetarium at work so I'll be talking to the staff in there about how they used/would use the software also.
While I'm only just starting on the project this week, I'll be sure to post anything of use that I discover/develop over the next month or two, most likely as additions to this thread. I hope you'll find the information useful!
At the moment I'm working on a review of Celestia to provide to teachers as a way to help them work out what astronomy software will be of most use to them. Also I'm going to be writing a series of how-to classroom activities using Celestia. (I'm aware there are many pre-existing educational resources available, I'm still going through them all at the moment!)
It would certainly be of great interest to me to find out how educators are using Celestia, and I'll hopefully be working with some local science communicators soon to help identify where they would find the software most useful in the classroom. I've also got acess to a planetarium at work so I'll be talking to the staff in there about how they used/would use the software also.
While I'm only just starting on the project this week, I'll be sure to post anything of use that I discover/develop over the next month or two, most likely as additions to this thread. I hope you'll find the information useful!
Astronomy WA
Providing news and educational resources for Western Australia's astronomy & space science community.
Part of The Earth & Beyond ASISTM Project.
Providing news and educational resources for Western Australia's astronomy & space science community.
Part of The Earth & Beyond ASISTM Project.
This is the way I teach Astronomy with Celestia.
Italian schools are: Elementary, 6-10 years children, Middle, 11-13 years boys. High, 14-18 years boys.
I show Celestia in all these schools, and to adults too.
Only a percentage of High Schools and just a few of the Middle ones have the possibility to use FsGreg's learning system, using single PCs for all the attending students, moreover they are used mainly for language courses, so I cannot use this system.
Therefore I use cel scripts, many of them fine tuned upon teachers' specific requests, and moreover diversified as for student's age.
As I can speak in a mathematical way of Kepler's laws to High School students, I cannot do it to 6 years old boys.
But I can speak to them of the same argument in a softer way, showing their effects on the Solar System bodies (this is the reason of my "The Orrery" cel script).
So I prepared two different scripts for each show.
Many of my scripts have been heavily inspired by Bob Hegwood's very nice ones (thank you, Bob!), but most have been deeply modified, not only translating them, but changing the length, reducing the number of objects to be visited (only 5 moons for Jupiter, the same for Saturn, two or three for Uranus and Neptune) but going as closer as allowed by the biggest textures actually available for Celestia, and adding all the new possibilities given by the last Victor's-Vincent's patches, so music, sounds, images, text, all things that allow a more dynamic (and eye-catching!) show.
E.g., at the beginning of my Earth tour script I show the Earth as imaged by our ancestors, like Homer and Herodotus, superimposed to the real one.
I show only Chicxulub Crater, not three craters as in Bob's script, but I add to this the infrared image from satellite, showing clearly the earthly portion of the crater, a kind of movie (45 images) with sounds of the asteroid crashing on the Earth, images and sounds of dinosaurs dying after the impact effects, and so on.
It has too a close view of one hurricane over Florida (Don Edwards' Northern-Summer-Clouds_8kDDS.dds, thank you Don!), but I added stormy winds and thunder sounds, and many series of images that simulate lightnings in a satisfactory way, and this catches public?€™s attention.
Some other scripts have been fully written by me, but all following next assumptions, based on my long personal experience:
1- At all levels, whatever be the argument's theme and interest, a show longer than say 12-15, maximum 20 minutes, brings the public to lose attention (unless it is a very interested and involved public), so all my shows have such a "bare" length.
With "bare" I mean not considering interruptions, but at this point comes my additional effort.
I have a long experience as reader of public Astronomy conferences, that in the last 35 years (I'm 62) I cared both for schools and for adults as reader of my Astronomy Association.
The Celestia .cel scripts allow to stop the show at any moment, so before starting I ask the public to express immediately any question, and I immediately reply to them.
This normally opens a debate, with opinions, doubts, and more questions, and I use this meter to understand if the show is appreciated (so if it's useful) or not, allowing me to modify and tune it again and again.
2- The images MUST be nice, possibly the best available. To ?€?Switch ON?€
Italian schools are: Elementary, 6-10 years children, Middle, 11-13 years boys. High, 14-18 years boys.
I show Celestia in all these schools, and to adults too.
Only a percentage of High Schools and just a few of the Middle ones have the possibility to use FsGreg's learning system, using single PCs for all the attending students, moreover they are used mainly for language courses, so I cannot use this system.
Therefore I use cel scripts, many of them fine tuned upon teachers' specific requests, and moreover diversified as for student's age.
As I can speak in a mathematical way of Kepler's laws to High School students, I cannot do it to 6 years old boys.
But I can speak to them of the same argument in a softer way, showing their effects on the Solar System bodies (this is the reason of my "The Orrery" cel script).
So I prepared two different scripts for each show.
Many of my scripts have been heavily inspired by Bob Hegwood's very nice ones (thank you, Bob!), but most have been deeply modified, not only translating them, but changing the length, reducing the number of objects to be visited (only 5 moons for Jupiter, the same for Saturn, two or three for Uranus and Neptune) but going as closer as allowed by the biggest textures actually available for Celestia, and adding all the new possibilities given by the last Victor's-Vincent's patches, so music, sounds, images, text, all things that allow a more dynamic (and eye-catching!) show.
E.g., at the beginning of my Earth tour script I show the Earth as imaged by our ancestors, like Homer and Herodotus, superimposed to the real one.
I show only Chicxulub Crater, not three craters as in Bob's script, but I add to this the infrared image from satellite, showing clearly the earthly portion of the crater, a kind of movie (45 images) with sounds of the asteroid crashing on the Earth, images and sounds of dinosaurs dying after the impact effects, and so on.
It has too a close view of one hurricane over Florida (Don Edwards' Northern-Summer-Clouds_8kDDS.dds, thank you Don!), but I added stormy winds and thunder sounds, and many series of images that simulate lightnings in a satisfactory way, and this catches public?€™s attention.
Some other scripts have been fully written by me, but all following next assumptions, based on my long personal experience:
1- At all levels, whatever be the argument's theme and interest, a show longer than say 12-15, maximum 20 minutes, brings the public to lose attention (unless it is a very interested and involved public), so all my shows have such a "bare" length.
With "bare" I mean not considering interruptions, but at this point comes my additional effort.
I have a long experience as reader of public Astronomy conferences, that in the last 35 years (I'm 62) I cared both for schools and for adults as reader of my Astronomy Association.
The Celestia .cel scripts allow to stop the show at any moment, so before starting I ask the public to express immediately any question, and I immediately reply to them.
This normally opens a debate, with opinions, doubts, and more questions, and I use this meter to understand if the show is appreciated (so if it's useful) or not, allowing me to modify and tune it again and again.
2- The images MUST be nice, possibly the best available. To ?€?Switch ON?€
"Something is always better than nothing!"
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As a teacher of Astronomy in a high school, Celestia has become the most important tool I can use. In fact, four years ago, when my high school administrator first asked me to teach Astronomy, I refused. I had no way to actually get the kids out of the classroom and up into space. Who wants to learn about the universe while staring at me while I lecture? Although there are plenty of good videos to show, I simply could not see anyone getting really excited about the universe, unless they could go into it and see all of its wonders for themselves, preferably while piloting their own spacecraft.
When I discovered Celestia 1.2.0 on the web, I instantly recognized its potential to get my students out of the classroom and up into space. I realized I could use the program two ways. First, I could load the program on my teaching computer, connect it to an LCD Projector, and use it to fly to different locales. Back in 2003, Celestia had relatively few add-ons, and was primarily a Solar System simulation, so the views I could offer my students back then centered around trips to the planets and their moons. Some spacecraft were also offered, but the list was short.
I tried this method and found it somewhat cumbersome (user-friendly scripts had not been put into use yet). The LCD Projector brightness was too low to display the stars properly. I had to hit lots of keystrokes. Nevertheless, it did work and I was able to display Celestia to my class via a projector, and take them to some neat places in the solar system. The downside of this was that they were still in their seats ... listening to me. I was not getting them personally into space!
The 2nd approach was to load Celestia on a class set of computers in a computer lab, and allow an entire class of kids to take their own journeys into Celestia space. Celestia 1.2.0 was not CPU heavy and even a school computer could run it.
I felt this would be more enjoyable to the kids so I tried it out with my Earth Science class. I set up Celestia on our school's computer lab (with 30 computers). My students really liked it, but it had problems. I had to constantly speak, give them directions on what buttons to push, what keys to press, then lecture about what they were seeing. They liked the visual appeal, but it felt too much like a classroom with the teacher lecturing. There was also the MAJOR problem of them not paying attention to me while they played around with the program, and losing their way quickly (which I would then have to fix).
Instead, I tried something else. I wrote a guided tour of Celestia space, using MS Word. In it, I included complete step by step instructions for how to operate the program, while also including a detailed written lesson about the places they were visiting. They could read it and learn at their own pace. I also provided a written worksheet for them to complete.
This initial written tour did not include any cel:urls (not invented yet by Chris). It required no add-ons. Celestia default was all they needed. It took about 45 minutes to read and execute.
It was a BIG HIT! My students loved going at their own pace, without constantly listening to me yelling out instructions in the background.
The guided tour was placed on the Celestia website by Chris for others to use.
I joined the forum and learned that there were LOTS of plans for future versions of Celestia ... lots of new features. That convinced me that I had discovered a way to get my students into space. I, therefore, agreed to begin teaching a dedicated course in Astronomy in my high school. I even talked my school principal into buying 30 Nvidia FX 5600 video cards for the computers in our science computer lab.
Shortly thereafter, NASA discovered my guided tour and realized that something like it was exactly what they wanted to do on their own website ... give visitors a means of interactively going into space. They contacted me and under a consulting agreement, I began to develop a series of journeys through Celestia space. Unfortunately, that was not simple to do. There was still very few custom add-ons for the program. It is one thing to develop a tour of the Life Cycle of Stars, but another to realize you have no protostars, pulsars, black holes or even nebula to take visitors to.
Since the old phrase "necessity is the mother of invention" has always been true, I began working not only with NASA, but with some of the gifted designers on the forum to develop new add-ons for the educational activities that I wanted to design. Don Edwards, Jack Higgins, Rassilon, Grant Hutchinson, Selden, BH and many others designed some spectacular new places to visit in Celestia ... new planets, spacecraft, nebula, protostars, etc. In the meantime, Chris and the Celestia development team added new features that augmented the use of Celestia in education.
As a result of this wonderful collaborative effort by so many talented people over the course of a year, I was able to write/assemble six new detailed journeys through Celestia space in 2004. The add-ons were loaded into Celestia in my school. The written Activities were loaded on the computers. The software was upgraded to version 1.3.0 and my students were given a chance to not only visit the Solar System, but to go deep into space to see spacecraft, travel to the edge of the universe, learn the complete life cycle of stars or travel into the future to see Mars become a terraformed world of cities and oceans.
It worked so well in a school setting that my course became the most popular course in my high school. I began to turn away students wanting to get in. In the meantime, wholesale improvements to Celestia continued to be made in 2005 and 2006. Cel:urls appeared ... nebula became animated in 3D, spacecraft of all kinds began to be designed, sounds were added to the program along with celx scripting, galaxies took a quantum leap in design and appearance. In particular, the use of Cel:url links embedded in the Activity documents was a godsend, enabling me to take my students instantly to any time or place in the Celestia universe.
The Activities became a bit too long and complex for use on the NASA site. Instead, they opted for a simple approach with just a few cel:url links and a few rhymes
to showcase Celestia.
Today, through the generous contributions of dozens of new graphics artists and add-on developers on the forum today to include Jestr, Cham, Runar and others, plus the incredible talents of the development team, to include Chris, Fridger, Toti, Christophe, Vincent, Victor and Boux, Celestia 1.4.1-ED is approaching the level of a Star Wars movie in sophistication. That has enabled me to create and contribute 12 spectacular Activity journeys, with two more now under development ("The Origin of the Universe", and "The Impact that Shook the World" (the asteroid impact of 65 million years ago)).
These trips include detailed tours of the universe and our solar system, the complete life cycle of stars, an extensive review of over 40 different spacecraft in the space program, trips to the future to see Mars terraformed and our Sun swell to a Red Giant, a trip 4 billion years back in time to witness the impact of Earth by Orpheus and the formation of the moon, and an exciting look at the world of SETI.
My students absolutely LOVE taking them ... far more than listening to me lecture
I play some ethereal space music in the computer room, turn out the lights and let them travel Celestia space at their own pace, following the detailed instructions and teaching lessons in the written Activities. They complete detailed worksheets as they go, which they use as study guides and notes. The visual appeal is so extraordinary that they consistantly get top grades in the subject content that they are learning about.
All of the Activities can be downloaded one at a time for free, or a self-installing CD set of them can be obtained from me for a minimal fee. They are available on the Motherlode education site located at:
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php
I can honestly say that the use of Celestia via these Activities has transformed my high school Astronomy course from a room with a teacher, some videos and a blackboard, into a high-tech space simulation experience far more exciting than anything these kids have ever experienced in a school. In part because of my use of Celestia, I have been recognized by USA Today as one of the "best" teachers in America. I've been nominated three times for the Disney Teaching Awards and this year, was a close runner-up for the award, for the use of computer technology in the classroom.
That said, there are five limitations to the use of Celestia Educational Activities. These include:
1. The documents and corresponding trips are detailed journeys, and they can be long. They can take from 1 - 4 hours to experience (e.g. - the Life Cycle of Stars is a 4-hour lesson)
2. You do have to switch from the on-screen instructions to Celestia, then back again. It can get tedious, but there is no way around it. Over 400 cel:urls are used in these journeys and obviously they do not work on a paper document. The Activity must be interactively accessed and interfaced with Celestia.
3. Celestia has gotten VERY sophisticated and now demands a good video card with OpenGL capability to enjoy the best that it has to offer. Many school computers simply don't have that level of video processing. Even my Nvidia FX 5600 cards are reaching their limits.
4. The kids have to read a long document. Some are poor readers and will tend to fall behind. This can be overcome if they are willing to stay after school, or you can tell them how to load the Activity on their home computer to complete at home (a real PLUS for some situations).
5. As mentioned by Andrea above, not all schools have a full class set of computers that students can access (although that is getting better).
In closing, I believe Celestia is the best thing Astronomy education has ever seen. Using it in a guided way via scripts or written Activity documents is the absolute best way to stimulate kids today and give them a universe not only to learn about, but to EXPERIENCE!!!
If you haven't experienced a Celestia Educational Activity journey yet, visit the website above and see for yourself just where they can take you. Pick any topic that interests you. Just remember that you have to download the add-ons, and the customized version of Celestia-ED to run the Activities.
Feel free to email me for advice or comments. Enjoy!
Frank
When I discovered Celestia 1.2.0 on the web, I instantly recognized its potential to get my students out of the classroom and up into space. I realized I could use the program two ways. First, I could load the program on my teaching computer, connect it to an LCD Projector, and use it to fly to different locales. Back in 2003, Celestia had relatively few add-ons, and was primarily a Solar System simulation, so the views I could offer my students back then centered around trips to the planets and their moons. Some spacecraft were also offered, but the list was short.
I tried this method and found it somewhat cumbersome (user-friendly scripts had not been put into use yet). The LCD Projector brightness was too low to display the stars properly. I had to hit lots of keystrokes. Nevertheless, it did work and I was able to display Celestia to my class via a projector, and take them to some neat places in the solar system. The downside of this was that they were still in their seats ... listening to me. I was not getting them personally into space!
The 2nd approach was to load Celestia on a class set of computers in a computer lab, and allow an entire class of kids to take their own journeys into Celestia space. Celestia 1.2.0 was not CPU heavy and even a school computer could run it.
I felt this would be more enjoyable to the kids so I tried it out with my Earth Science class. I set up Celestia on our school's computer lab (with 30 computers). My students really liked it, but it had problems. I had to constantly speak, give them directions on what buttons to push, what keys to press, then lecture about what they were seeing. They liked the visual appeal, but it felt too much like a classroom with the teacher lecturing. There was also the MAJOR problem of them not paying attention to me while they played around with the program, and losing their way quickly (which I would then have to fix).
Instead, I tried something else. I wrote a guided tour of Celestia space, using MS Word. In it, I included complete step by step instructions for how to operate the program, while also including a detailed written lesson about the places they were visiting. They could read it and learn at their own pace. I also provided a written worksheet for them to complete.
This initial written tour did not include any cel:urls (not invented yet by Chris). It required no add-ons. Celestia default was all they needed. It took about 45 minutes to read and execute.
It was a BIG HIT! My students loved going at their own pace, without constantly listening to me yelling out instructions in the background.
The guided tour was placed on the Celestia website by Chris for others to use.
I joined the forum and learned that there were LOTS of plans for future versions of Celestia ... lots of new features. That convinced me that I had discovered a way to get my students into space. I, therefore, agreed to begin teaching a dedicated course in Astronomy in my high school. I even talked my school principal into buying 30 Nvidia FX 5600 video cards for the computers in our science computer lab.
Shortly thereafter, NASA discovered my guided tour and realized that something like it was exactly what they wanted to do on their own website ... give visitors a means of interactively going into space. They contacted me and under a consulting agreement, I began to develop a series of journeys through Celestia space. Unfortunately, that was not simple to do. There was still very few custom add-ons for the program. It is one thing to develop a tour of the Life Cycle of Stars, but another to realize you have no protostars, pulsars, black holes or even nebula to take visitors to.
Since the old phrase "necessity is the mother of invention" has always been true, I began working not only with NASA, but with some of the gifted designers on the forum to develop new add-ons for the educational activities that I wanted to design. Don Edwards, Jack Higgins, Rassilon, Grant Hutchinson, Selden, BH and many others designed some spectacular new places to visit in Celestia ... new planets, spacecraft, nebula, protostars, etc. In the meantime, Chris and the Celestia development team added new features that augmented the use of Celestia in education.
As a result of this wonderful collaborative effort by so many talented people over the course of a year, I was able to write/assemble six new detailed journeys through Celestia space in 2004. The add-ons were loaded into Celestia in my school. The written Activities were loaded on the computers. The software was upgraded to version 1.3.0 and my students were given a chance to not only visit the Solar System, but to go deep into space to see spacecraft, travel to the edge of the universe, learn the complete life cycle of stars or travel into the future to see Mars become a terraformed world of cities and oceans.
It worked so well in a school setting that my course became the most popular course in my high school. I began to turn away students wanting to get in. In the meantime, wholesale improvements to Celestia continued to be made in 2005 and 2006. Cel:urls appeared ... nebula became animated in 3D, spacecraft of all kinds began to be designed, sounds were added to the program along with celx scripting, galaxies took a quantum leap in design and appearance. In particular, the use of Cel:url links embedded in the Activity documents was a godsend, enabling me to take my students instantly to any time or place in the Celestia universe.
The Activities became a bit too long and complex for use on the NASA site. Instead, they opted for a simple approach with just a few cel:url links and a few rhymes
to showcase Celestia.
Today, through the generous contributions of dozens of new graphics artists and add-on developers on the forum today to include Jestr, Cham, Runar and others, plus the incredible talents of the development team, to include Chris, Fridger, Toti, Christophe, Vincent, Victor and Boux, Celestia 1.4.1-ED is approaching the level of a Star Wars movie in sophistication. That has enabled me to create and contribute 12 spectacular Activity journeys, with two more now under development ("The Origin of the Universe", and "The Impact that Shook the World" (the asteroid impact of 65 million years ago)).
These trips include detailed tours of the universe and our solar system, the complete life cycle of stars, an extensive review of over 40 different spacecraft in the space program, trips to the future to see Mars terraformed and our Sun swell to a Red Giant, a trip 4 billion years back in time to witness the impact of Earth by Orpheus and the formation of the moon, and an exciting look at the world of SETI.
My students absolutely LOVE taking them ... far more than listening to me lecture
I play some ethereal space music in the computer room, turn out the lights and let them travel Celestia space at their own pace, following the detailed instructions and teaching lessons in the written Activities. They complete detailed worksheets as they go, which they use as study guides and notes. The visual appeal is so extraordinary that they consistantly get top grades in the subject content that they are learning about.
All of the Activities can be downloaded one at a time for free, or a self-installing CD set of them can be obtained from me for a minimal fee. They are available on the Motherlode education site located at:
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php
I can honestly say that the use of Celestia via these Activities has transformed my high school Astronomy course from a room with a teacher, some videos and a blackboard, into a high-tech space simulation experience far more exciting than anything these kids have ever experienced in a school. In part because of my use of Celestia, I have been recognized by USA Today as one of the "best" teachers in America. I've been nominated three times for the Disney Teaching Awards and this year, was a close runner-up for the award, for the use of computer technology in the classroom.
That said, there are five limitations to the use of Celestia Educational Activities. These include:
1. The documents and corresponding trips are detailed journeys, and they can be long. They can take from 1 - 4 hours to experience (e.g. - the Life Cycle of Stars is a 4-hour lesson)
2. You do have to switch from the on-screen instructions to Celestia, then back again. It can get tedious, but there is no way around it. Over 400 cel:urls are used in these journeys and obviously they do not work on a paper document. The Activity must be interactively accessed and interfaced with Celestia.
3. Celestia has gotten VERY sophisticated and now demands a good video card with OpenGL capability to enjoy the best that it has to offer. Many school computers simply don't have that level of video processing. Even my Nvidia FX 5600 cards are reaching their limits.
4. The kids have to read a long document. Some are poor readers and will tend to fall behind. This can be overcome if they are willing to stay after school, or you can tell them how to load the Activity on their home computer to complete at home (a real PLUS for some situations).
5. As mentioned by Andrea above, not all schools have a full class set of computers that students can access (although that is getting better).
In closing, I believe Celestia is the best thing Astronomy education has ever seen. Using it in a guided way via scripts or written Activity documents is the absolute best way to stimulate kids today and give them a universe not only to learn about, but to EXPERIENCE!!!
If you haven't experienced a Celestia Educational Activity journey yet, visit the website above and see for yourself just where they can take you. Pick any topic that interests you. Just remember that you have to download the add-ons, and the customized version of Celestia-ED to run the Activities.
Feel free to email me for advice or comments. Enjoy!
Frank
See, now these are the sorts of comments I was looking for when I started the thread 
. I've been meaning to try fsgreg's addons for ages, I might just give them a go now
. I've been meaning to try fsgreg's addons for ages, I might just give them a go now My Celestia page: Spica system, planetary magnitudes script, updated demo.cel, Quad system
[quote="fsgregs"]2. You do have to switch from the on-screen instructions to Celestia, then back again. It can get tedious, but there is no way around it. Over 400 cel:urls are used in these journeys and obviously they do not work on a paper document. The Activity must be interactively accessed and interfaced with Celestia.
[/quote]
I still wonder if this could be overcome with scripting. Ie you load a
script for the activitity, read the paper, and press a "Next" or "Prev"
onscreen widget to access the next cel:url associated with paper. Yes,
it would still be possible to get lost, and would way to restart at a particular
place. The best I can suggest for this is a widget that displays the cel:url
list with link text matching the paper. Then scroll through list to what you
want.
What's missing in celestia scripting at moment is way to create the widgets. Its doesnt seem that difficult to me (and yes, I am programmer
and no I dont have the time to implement it).
[/quote]
I still wonder if this could be overcome with scripting. Ie you load a
script for the activitity, read the paper, and press a "Next" or "Prev"
onscreen widget to access the next cel:url associated with paper. Yes,
it would still be possible to get lost, and would way to restart at a particular
place. The best I can suggest for this is a widget that displays the cel:url
list with link text matching the paper. Then scroll through list to what you
want.
What's missing in celestia scripting at moment is way to create the widgets. Its doesnt seem that difficult to me (and yes, I am programmer
and no I dont have the time to implement it).
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LordFerret
- Posts: 737
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- Age: 68
- With us: 18 years 3 months
- Location: NJ USA
I've enjoyed reading all of the comments here, and I especially find it encouraging to see those of you fostering such interests in younger students... especially this day in age lately, hearing all the babble on TV about how NASA is a waste of time and money .
I am not a teacher, but I have used Celestia just recently to demonstrate light. In particular the speed of light and distances afar. Starting from the surface of Sol, I headed straight for Earth at 1c, "Imagine you're a beam of light -"! What a revelation that was. 
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I am not a teacher, but I have used Celestia just recently to demonstrate light. In particular the speed of light and distances afar. Starting from the surface of Sol, I headed straight for Earth at 1c, "Imagine you're a beam of light -"! What a revelation that was.
scaddenp wrote:fsgregs wrote:You do have to switch from the on-screen instructions to Celestia, then back again. It can get tedious, but there is no way around it. Over 400 cel:urls are used in these journeys and obviously they do not work on a paper document. The Activity must be interactively accessed and interfaced with Celestia.
I still wonder if this could be overcome with scripting. Ie you load a
script for the activitity, read the paper, and press a "Next" or "Prev"
onscreen widget to access the next cel:url associated with paper.
Celestia widgets is a neat idea, but a second option is to embed the widgets in the Word document. I don??t use word, but isn??t it possible to embed code in it - like HTML?
Of course, another option is to publish the tours themselves in HTML: then all kinds of interesting options becomes available. PArticularily so since one can cross-link between the HTML document and the Web Info command in Celestia, so that one can jump back and forth between a particular location in Celestia and a particular sentence in the HTML doc. Add to that that one can simply embed celx scripts in the HTML page, and it becomes pretty powerful...
- rthorvald
Thanks for the comments, guys.
Selden: I can leave out some of the higher end graphics for some activities, and in fact, I do so in Activity 9 and Activity 10. Both have a higher res and lower res "version". Activity 3 and Activity 4, the tour of the solar system, also come in two versions ... a shorter tour, and a longer more detailed tour.
Runar:
Unless I don't understand some things about HTML, I would think that the Activity document would still have to be accessed by reading it, then switch to Celestia to go somewhere, then go back to the document, etc. It seems that whether the Activity is written in MS Word, or on a webpage, the effect would be the same. Even converting them to PDF (which I tried and failed to do), would have the same problem.
I could set up every cel:url link that is now embedded in the Activity document as a bookmark, and have a series of bookmark files that Celestia would load, depending upon the Activity. That would theoretically allow the Activity to be printed as a paper document. The problem is that the bookmark does not currently control speeded up time. That is ... a cel:url can send someone to both a particular location and a particular time, with the clock running at a particular speed (e.g. - 1000x faster). A bookmark can go to a particular place and time, but it does not control the clock.
I could work around this with some additional instructions in the document, I guess.
I'll keep it in mind.
scaddenp:
Scripts may be possible also. I have not gotten comfortable enough with writing them yet to understand what I would have to do to imbed every cel:url into a script and advance them via keystrokes. It would be difficult in that a user could not easily go backward and review a previous scene, Many of my students need to do so frequently.
I'll also consider what scripts might be possible. The Activities are constantly undergoing new changes, so ....
Regards
Frank
Selden: I can leave out some of the higher end graphics for some activities, and in fact, I do so in Activity 9 and Activity 10. Both have a higher res and lower res "version". Activity 3 and Activity 4, the tour of the solar system, also come in two versions ... a shorter tour, and a longer more detailed tour.
Runar:
Unless I don't understand some things about HTML, I would think that the Activity document would still have to be accessed by reading it, then switch to Celestia to go somewhere, then go back to the document, etc. It seems that whether the Activity is written in MS Word, or on a webpage, the effect would be the same. Even converting them to PDF (which I tried and failed to do), would have the same problem.
I could set up every cel:url link that is now embedded in the Activity document as a bookmark, and have a series of bookmark files that Celestia would load, depending upon the Activity. That would theoretically allow the Activity to be printed as a paper document. The problem is that the bookmark does not currently control speeded up time. That is ... a cel:url can send someone to both a particular location and a particular time, with the clock running at a particular speed (e.g. - 1000x faster). A bookmark can go to a particular place and time, but it does not control the clock.
I could work around this with some additional instructions in the document, I guess.
I'll keep it in mind.
scaddenp:
Scripts may be possible also. I have not gotten comfortable enough with writing them yet to understand what I would have to do to imbed every cel:url into a script and advance them via keystrokes. It would be difficult in that a user could not easily go backward and review a previous scene, Many of my students need to do so frequently.
I'll also consider what scripts might be possible. The Activities are constantly undergoing new changes, so ....
Regards
Frank
fsgregs wrote:Unless I don't understand some things about HTML, I would think that the Activity document would still have to be accessed by reading it, then switch to Celestia to go somewhere, then go back to the document, etc. It seems that whether the Activity is written in MS Word, or on a webpage, the effect would be the same.
Yes, that??s correct. The only advantage would be the cross-linking that allows you to jump back to the document from Celestia (via WebInfo) to the exact word (if tagged) where you left it (regardless of if the webpage is currently open or not). Well, there??s another advantage, of course - the format is universally accessible.
As for PDF, while it is a nice format for this type of production, it??s not as versatile than HTML...
- rthorvald
rthorvald wrote:Celestia widgets is a neat idea, but a second option is to embed the widgets in the Word document. I don??t use word, but isn??t it possible to embed code in it - like HTML?
That IS the current situation. The problem is that you constantly switching
between word and celestia. Thats what would like widgets for.
I like very much the Widget idea, associated to Celestia, to do all sorts of things, especially if the widget could interact with Celestia.
Actually, I started thinking about the widget idea some weeks ago, and searched some information about designing and programing widgets. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time left, after my teaching job, to do that kind of stuff for the moment (too much students work to read and correct at home).
Actually, I started thinking about the widget idea some weeks ago, and searched some information about designing and programing widgets. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time left, after my teaching job, to do that kind of stuff for the moment (too much students work to read and correct at home).
"Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin", thought Alice; "but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!"
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tech2000
- Posts: 258
- Joined: 14.02.2006
- Age: 52
- With us: 18 years 9 months
- Location: Skepplanda, Sweden
Cham wrote:I like very much the Widget idea, associated to Celestia, to do all sorts of things, especially if the widget could interact with Celestia.
Actually, I started thinking about the widget idea some weeks ago, and searched some information about designing and programing widgets. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time left, after my teaching job, to do that kind of stuff for the moment (too much students work to read and correct at home).
Isn't LUA able to add that kind of widget?
scaddenp wrote:Lua can?? Okay, got my attention. in an OS independent way? Can someone
point me to more detail as to how?
I've done some experiments along these lines, using Lua hooks in the Celestia code as described on the developer thread. With this approach it's possible to insert Lua code into Celestia that responds to input events and displays graphics using OpenGL. I've used this to implement draggable windows with text, images, pushbuttons, text entry fields, etc. It's stll very experimental at this stage, but demonstrates the possibilities.
- Hank
A tiny thing: other utilities of Celestia:
For long time I sought over Internet any "virtual globe map", geographical and political, unsuccessfully (Google Earth dont serve for this). Then, I fell in an idea: to change the Celestia textures. So, I scanned a world map and apply it as Mars texture. (Earth dont accept this procedure). Of course, it run well. But, there are two problems:1) my world map has Mercator projection, and Celestia need Cylindrical projection. 2)Is desirable a more detailed map.
I will continue the search...
For long time I sought over Internet any "virtual globe map", geographical and political, unsuccessfully (Google Earth dont serve for this). Then, I fell in an idea: to change the Celestia textures. So, I scanned a world map and apply it as Mars texture. (Earth dont accept this procedure). Of course, it run well. But, there are two problems:1) my world map has Mercator projection, and Celestia need Cylindrical projection. 2)Is desirable a more detailed map.
I will continue the search...
The stupidity kill the cat, the curiosity keep me alive