Celestia Forums

How would people feel about a dedicated forum to discuss the use of Celestia as an educational tool? It seems like there's enough interest to warrant it, and it might relieve some tensions that seem to keep resurfacing.

--Chris

I think that would be an excelent idea.

My vote goes for; Yes indeed

Bye, Anders

Im pretty sure Frank would appreciate this... And since Celestia is an educational tool it fits in pretty well... Im for it...

Hello i think wich its wonderful, at Xalapa, Veracruz M?©xico, my partner and me use Celestia how an educational tool, if Celestia is a very good space simulator, now with the patch of sound an images overlay, can do big things.


I think wich now have very much people using Celestia with this end.

Yes this is a great idea!

I'm all for it.

Welcome to the new forum, I'll enjoy it!
Bye

Andrea

Hm, what sort of topics do you envisage being discussed in such a forum? Are you expecting "hey, I used Celestia in a classroom today and it went down really well?", or "OK, how do I use Celestia to show orbital dynamics", or "here are some tools to help you use it as an educational tool"? Or any/all/none of the above?

Malenfant wrote:Hm, what sort of topics do you envisage being discussed in such a forum? Are you expecting "hey, I used Celestia in a classroom today and it went down really well?", or "OK, how do I use Celestia to show orbital dynamics", or "here are some tools to help you use it as an educational tool"? Or any/all/none of the above?

The first and the third? Obviously, there might be some overlap between some of the other forums--discussion education oriented add-ons and tools could potentially belong in Celestia Add-ons or Celestia Scripting (though I see the Scripting forum targeted more toward script developers rather than users.) Discussion about using and enhancing education oriented add-ons would go in the new forum. It could also be a place for discussion astronomy and science education in general; I don't think there's a huge danger of the topic straying too far from Celestia on this board.

--Chris

Hello Chris

The Educational Forum idea is good for me!

IMHO another Forum should be even more interesting. See. http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic ... 3&start=36

phpBB offers a lot more advantages than the developers mailing list (eg coherent formatting, immediate visibility, hystorical trace, better time coherence, search capabilities, later-edit and reorganization of posts).

phpBB offers the capability of giving permissions with high granularity both to users and to forums in order to control and limit the posting activitiy. http://www.phpbb.com/support/guide/#section3_1_2

So why not a new forum dedicated to the dev team, where everyone of us can read but only developers can post?

With this new forum everyone will be informed about the discussions behind the current development process. IMHO It should be quite interesting and formative for many of us in order to unveil the true complexity of the development activity.

We as users will continue to use and post on the current development forum that should remain as is. If something interesting will born in this forum should be discussed by the dev team in the new dedicated forum, like often happens now in the mailing list.

I've seen this approach on other development teams, and seems be working very well.

Kind regards

Well, as I already wrote in another thread, I think this would be a great idea.

Just one question, though : Since the features I'm working on (Celestia_patch) concern both the development and the educational sides of Celestia, should I post the next release(s) in the development or in the educational forum ? To my mind, posting them in the new educational forum wouldn't be a bad thing, since that would lower the pressure about the integration of these features in the official version...

Well, Vincent addresses a valid point.

So far I kept more or less following the activities of our "educational community". If these become now separated off in a dedicated Forum, that may well change...

Since personally, I am not actively interested in these educational matters for a variety of reasons (!), I will presumably skip that new forum entirely in the future.

Our "educationals" being very active on the one hand, also have a certain tendency to produce /extended/ code patches without previously interacting much with the developers that know Celestia's design structure and design principles really well.

A recent example is the issue of overlays etc....
Chris' recent implementations are just much more versatile and elegant than what has been coded in those patches.

Clearly a further "seclusion" via a separate educational Forum may just act in the wrong direction, as to this crucial communication BEFORE the coding.

Apart from these considerations I have little to say about such a new Forum.

Bye Fridger

As an educator I like the idea, but only if it is within the shatters.net Forum Index. I would not want it to be separate from this phpBB. All of the add on, development, scripting, etc topics would remain where they are. I would imagine an education forum would benefit educators, not necessarily students, so it would be a place for Celestia geared education topics like lesson plans or Celestia integration in a learning environment. For instance, it would not be where an actual addon would be discussed, but where that addon would be presented in a final format and how it could be used in the classroom.

Paolo wrote:So why not a new forum dedicated to the dev team, where everyone of us can read but only developers can post?

I think actually that this would be a much more useful idea than a "Celestia in Education" forum (though if both could be added that would be the ideal solution ).

This goes back to the discussion that the dev mailing list isn't really the ideal venue to discuss these things anymore. Obviously there's going to be a few people who are still clinging to the idea that mailing lists are better than forums, but I think they're a dying breed nowadays. But having a dedicated Development board that is exclusively for a small group of active core Celestia Developers and programmers might be a good way to get things focussed again without fear of distraction or 'contamination' by outsiders. As it is most of the development seems to happen and be discussed on the Forum anyway.

Bloody University server reset my connection just as I posted my last message. Gnar!!

Anyway, I think that both forums would be absolutely ideal. From an educational-centered point of view, I can only be excited by the prospects of that, and from a curiosity point of view I think being able to read along with what the development team is doing would be fascinating. I certainly wouldn't want to post in that forum (I used to think differently, but now I think that my own ignorance of programming would only make any post by myself utterly ridiculous!), but seeing how the development process moves along, as well as possibly getting sneak peeks at upcoming features would be great.

...John...

Malenfant wrote:

Paolo wrote:So why not a new forum dedicated to the dev team, where everyone of us can read but only developers can post?

I think actually that this would be a much more useful idea than a "Celestia in Education" forum (though if both could be added that would be the ideal solution ).

This goes back to the discussion that the dev mailing list isn't really the ideal venue to discuss these things anymore. Obviously there's going to be a few people who are still clinging to the idea that mailing lists are better than forums, but I think they're a dying breed nowadays. But having a dedicated Development board that is exclusively for a small group of active core Celestia Developers and programmers might be a good way to get things focussed again without fear of distraction or 'contamination' by outsiders. As it is most of the development seems to happen and be discussed on the Forum anyway.

Sounds like a good idea, but don't close the board for the developer only, let atleast the rest of us have access to READ the posts made there.

Thanks, Anders

I'm agree to see a dev only forum to be able to follow what's going on...

This subject is very interesting to me. Although I agree this thread should be on this site like the others threads; Celestia Development, Celestia Textures, Celestia Scripting etc.

I offered to present a fly thru demo using Celestia at our local library. They are planning a space theme in the children?€™s area later this year. My concerns are many and basic. What will be shown and how long the show will go has not been discussed. I plan on just running some scripts of various types with live narration or recorded usin this new feature I have seen on the forum. What I am asking for are very basic, basic things. Like what does and don'ts should be noted or covered and any other important presentation related item. This question is in relation to the program not just general public speaking. I am not a scientist or astronomer. I am thinking as I write this I should seek out someone in the field to narrate and answer questions.

Anyway I will follow this thread and keep you all posted as this develops.

Don

chris wrote:How would people feel about a dedicated forum to discuss the use of Celestia as an educational tool?

Hello Chris, to multiply the forums is not inevitably a good thing, but as it is true that Celestia can be a formidable educational tool, to gather the topics concerning this particular use seems a very good idea, IMHO. Jeam

ElChristou wrote:I'm agree to see a dev only forum to be able to follow what's going on...

Try the web mailing list archive:

SourceForge.net celestia-devel archive

The search function seems to have gotten much better recently so it ought to be much more useful.