Teach Astronomy A Comprehensive Online Astronomy Education and Outreach Resource
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31686/ijier.vol4.iss10.603Keywords:
Astronomy education, online resources, electronic textbook, multimedia content, human-computer interface, lifelong learningAbstract
A web site called Teach Astronomy (http://www.teachastronomy.com) has been created to serve astronomy instructors and their students, amateur astronomers, and members of the general public interested in astronomy. The content includes astronomy articles from an introductory level textbook and from the online resource Wikipedia, short video clips, astronomical images, podcasts, and recent news stories. This article describes the technology behind the delivery of those learning resources, which is relevant to the capabilities and limitations of the web site. One key innovation is the Wikimap, a Flash-based tool that presents the visual results of a real-time clustering analysis of hundreds or thousands of text items, displaying the item that best matches the search term and most closely related items. The clustering is carried out in a Lucene index, and it can operate on any database containing items of text. The astronomy content is routinely updated, in some cases daily. Due to the prevalence of smartphones, tablets, and other handheld devices, a simplified non-graphical version of the interface was developed using custom style sheets. Teach Astronomy has a large following of students taking introductory astronomy classes and members of the public with a recreational interest in astronomy. In the past year, there have been 250,000 unique visitors. Currently we are developing a new interface that uses HTML5 instead of Flash to display the Wikimap, an app version of the website for use on smartphones and tablets, and tool to support an instructor and learner community.
Downloads
References
Cook, J., Pachler, N., and Bachmair, B. (2011). Ubiquitous Mobility with Mobile Phones: A Cultural Ecology for Mobile Learning. E-Learning and Digital Media, 8, 181-186.
EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research. National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology. (2013). https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1302/ERS1302.pdf Accessed 14.06.20.
EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research. Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology. (2014). http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ss14/ERS1406.pdf Accessed 15.09.15.
Gartner, Inc. Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Soared in Fourth quarter of 2011 with 47 Percent Growth. (2011). http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1924314 Accessed 13.07.30.
Gartner, Inc. Gartner Says Annual Smartphone Sales Surpassed Sales of Feature Phones for the First Time in 2013. (2014). http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2665715 Accessed 14.06.19.
Gartner, Inc. (2016). Gartner Says Five of Top 10 Worldwide Mobile Phone Vendors Increased Sales in Second Quarter of 2016. Gartner Research. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3415117. Accessed 18.09.16.
Giles, J. (2005). Internet Encyclopedias Go Head to Head. Nature, 438, 900-901.
Author. (2012). Astronomy in the United States: Workforce Development and Public Engagement. In A. Heck (Ed.), Organizations, People, and Strategies in Astronomy I (pp. 77-91). Venngeist.
Author, Author, Author, Srinithan, A., Author, Ganesan, N.K., and Guvenen, B.C. (2013). A New Online Astronomy Resource for Education and Outreach. Concept and Content. Astronomy Education Review, 12(1).
Lih, A. (2009). The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia. New York: Hyperion Books.
Pearson Education. Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey 2013. (2013). http://www.pearsoned.com/wp-content/uploads/Pearson-Student-Mobile-Device-Survey-2013-National-Report-on-Grades-4-to-12-public-release.pdf Accessed 14.06.06.
Purcell, K, Rainie, L., Rosenstiel, T., and Mitchell, A. How Mobile Devices are Changing Community Information Environments. (2011). http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/03/14/how-mobile-devices-are-changing-community-information-environments/ Accessed 14.06.06.
Saleh, A.A.M. (2011). Technology and Architecture to Enable the Explosive Growth of the Internet. IEEE Communications Magazine, 49, 126-132.
Shankar, K. (2012). A Review of Scientific Collaboration on the Internet. The Information Society, 28(3), 197-199.
Shin, D.-H., Shin, Y.-J., Choo, H., and Beom, K. (2011). Smartphones as Smart Pedagogical Tools: Implications for Smartphones as U-Learning Devices. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(6), 2207-2214.
The Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimedia Report Card. (2015). http://reportcard.wmflabs.org Accessed 15.09.15.
Winokur, D. Flash to Focus on PC Browsing and Mobile Apps; Abode to More Aggressively Contribute to HTML5. (2012). http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html. Accessed 12.07.20.
Xiaojing, G. (2012). Data Integration for the World Wide Web. Transaction Series on Engineering Science and Technologies, 1, 142-144.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2016 Chris David Impey, Kevin K. Hardegree-Ullman, Anand Patikkal, Carmen L Austin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Copyrights for articles published in IJIER journals are retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the journal. The journal/publisher is not responsible for subsequent uses of the work. It is the author's responsibility to bring an infringement action if so desired by the author for more visit Copyright & License.
How to Cite
