Star Stryder » St Louis

AAS Day 2: Google Sky, Google Earth, and the International Year of Astronomy

pamela — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:03:37 +0000

I have been trying to find the time to learn how to use Google Sky for astronomy outreach for the last year. My time is limited, and I have to admit that my early attempts were met with very ugly implementations, and I’ve been dieing to see what others are doing and (more importantly) to learn how they are doing it. Today, Google is sponsoring workshop in the IYA meeting-within-a-meeting at the AAS meeting.

The first thing I learned is Google actually has folks assigned to nurture non-profits to help them plug in. http://www.google.com/educators/geo . They have help, tutorials, ideas and more pre-prepared to help us build our content into virtual worlds. Their latest and greatet includes: weather, sunlight skins, 3D Buildinsg/SketchUp, a Swoop feature that lets you fly and zoom, and a “My Maps” feature to share content among friends.

Part of what this makes powerful is it allows people to explore independently and it has almost limitless applications and places to explore. Educational research (out of my head not out of the talk) shows that if you sit with a kid and work through every possible way of triggering a jack-in-the-box, the child when handed the toy will pretty much set it down and wander off. Show them only a couple of many ways, and they will sit down and try all the unseen permutations they can figure out. This means that you can hand a person the tools to access the “oh wow” factors of Google Earth and Google Sky, and students will continue to play and explore and learn to find all the ways the “oh wow” Jack jumps out of the Google box.

Google wants to be a part of IYA. (And I’ll be hunting them down later.) They encourage all of us to go to the Geo Education online community and participate. I’m ready, I’m primed, and I want to learn.

After a brief talk, our presenter showed a series of examples (.kml files), including animations, content from missions, and other “Google Skins” created in the kml markup language for people to explore. These can be found in the Google Earth “Gallery” window.

I have come to realize that I desperately need to find a Google Sky and Google Earth expert for the IYA New Media Task Group.

(Side note: There is a Johannes Kepler actor here who has a southern bit of twang! I find this very amusing.)

AAS Day 2: Making Wishes come True

pamela — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:02:32 +0000

Earlier today I was giving a presentation on the IYA new media plans for next year. At one point, on behalf of the wonderful Adrienne Gauthier, I was talking about our plans (funding pending) for IYA in Second Life. After I said that “pending funding” sentence, Kris Koenig of Interstellar Studios raised his hand and said, “I’ll take care of it.” I was so confused by what he said that I looked at my overhead to see what I had written. He repeated himself and others in the audience clarified “He’s buying your team the IYA island,” and I, well, I had a giggly-thank you-”oh wow that’s wonderful” moment at the front of the room.

I can now proudly state that 400 Years of the Telescope Partnership will be sponsoring the International Year of Astronomy’s Island.

I have been lucky enough in my career to have had a handful of sponsors for various projects, and every one of my sponsors has been an organization that I have respected and enjoyed my interactions with in the past (SAO, Audible, OPTCorpâ€šÃ„Â¶). Not everyone is so lucky. For the past several months I have worked with the folks of 400 Years of the Telescope through my development of the IYA-US website, and I have come to respect them through their newsletter, amazing images, and website as I have worked with their friendly staff. To get funding from them in particular makes this moment sweeter.

We still have a long way to go to raise the funding we need for IYA, but this is a huge and exciting moment for us. We’re ready to run â€šÃ„Ã¬ Adrienne Gauthier has detailed amazing IYA plans – and this funding marks the firing of the start gun.

Thank you for getting us started. Kris and the 400 Years of the Telescope Partnership â€šÃ„Ã¬ You’ve helped make our IYA wishes come true.

AAS Day 2: Bring It On

pamela — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:33:38 +0000

Nancy Atkinson and I determined that yesterday we lived a life time. Press conferences, public talks, the exhibit hall, the oral sessions, the plenary sessions – It all swept over us and through our fingers as we blogged and recorded and brought to life everything that was around us. Our Ustreaming seems to be working (more or less) well.

Today will be a rinse and repeat.

Press Conferences here.
TV Show hosted by Ustream

New Media Round Table
Broadcast powered by Ustream.TV

Today I’m hoping to be able to write more and bring it to you here and at Astronomy Cast Live.

Tonight, we’ll be meeting up with anyone who is interested at Kitchen K, starting at 7pm. We hope to see you there!

Me, You, UStream and Astronomy Cast Live

pamela — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:10:27 +0000

So, I seemingly dropped off the planet this week prepping for next week’s AAS/ASP/IYA meeting in St Louis, MO. Sadly, Fraser had something come up and won’t be able to make it, but Phil, Chris, and Universe Today writer Nancy Atkinson will be taking the meeting by storm.

Here is a plan of events. All will be going up on Astronomy Cast Live!

Saturday, Noon to 4pm: AstroZone Can’t come? Join us on UStream! We will be UStreaming various events. I’ll announce everything when we go live on my twitter account (see box at right)

Sunday, 1:45-5:15: A User’s Guide for Plugging into the New Media Community for IYA

Monday, (9:30, 11:30) Press Conferences (I’ll try to have someone stream over UStream all press conferences so you can ask questions too)

Monday, All Day, Various IYA sessions to be blogged on IYA and Astronomy Cast Live by Georgia Bracey

Monday, 12:45pm, NASA Townhall. I’ll do my normal coverage of Griffin.

Monday, 2pm-3:30pm, Special Session on New Media (I’ll try to UStream this as well

Monday, Public Lecture by Dana Sobel (will text blog)

There are also a series of invited talks we will try to cover, and Preston Gibson (Astronomy Casts new producer) will be doing video interviews. At the end of the Monday, I’ll let you know Tuesday’s plans. This is going to be a busy American Astronomical Society / Astronomical Society of the Pacific Meeting

Astronomy Cast / Bad Astronomy / Galaxy Zoo / Blogger meetup in St Louis

pamela — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:06:54 +0000

Following the success of our meeting in Austin back in January, we’re planning another meetup to coincide with the St Louis AAS meeting next week. If you’re nearby, you’ll find Phil, me, Chris , Michael and a host of other astronomical types in the K-Kitchen bar from 7pm on Tuesday June 3.

Come. Chat. Drink. Astronomise.

Be there and/or be square