Hi Frank et al,
All this talk of an education site is very interesting. I think that Celestia can support learners in a huge range of ways and a site that brought ideas and best practice together would be an enormously valuable resource.
Celestia instills a sense of wonder in users with an interest in astronomy who are prepared to put in some work. However, I am particularly interested in people with apparently no interest in astronomy. I would be keen to hear ideas about how to share the sense of wonder with casual users who have never stopped to think about their place in the Cosmos.
I am currently investigating the possibility of using Celestia in an education project supported by NESTA Futurelab (
http://www.nestafuturelab.org). The project is called
Welcome to the Neighbourhood (WTTN) and is aimed at casual passers-by rather than school students. The idea is to link virtual experience with actual, concrete experience of the universe to allow people to feel part of a celestial 'neighbourhood' rather than thinking that space is something 'elsewhere'.
WTTN incorporates a (patented) signpost located outdoors that points at (and tracks) a Solar System object. An electronic display on the sign's arm shows the name of the object and the distance to it (which will, of course, be changing).
The idea is that passers-by (with apparently no interest at all in astronomy) will be intrigued by the signpost and stop to play with it. A kiosk with a touch screen allows them to select a new object for the sign to point to. The display will then give the user the view they would have of the object if they had super vision. In addition, there are several other features envisaged, including a way to compare the object with the Earth.
We will be conducting tests of the interface with users and I will be happy to report on the results on the education site. One interesting difference between this project and the activities Frank developed is that we have to assume no willingness to learn Celestia in our users. At the moment I am planning some sort of Flash front end which calls CEL scripts.
Any comments on this particular project (especially ideas for the interface) would be very welcome.
Rest assured! whatever NASA may or may not do with the activities, your hard work has not been in vain. As with the development of Celestia itself, your pioneering effort is enormously valuable to those who follow in your footsteps.
(apologies for the long post
my first too!)
Adam
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, and more!
.
. That might change in the next few weeks though