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Use of the World Wide Web in Astronomy Teaching

from 2 - Distance Learning and Electronic Media in Teaching Astronomy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

J.M. Pasachoff
Affiliation:
Williams College-Hopkins Observatory Williamstown, Massachusetts 01267, USA
L. Gouguenheim
Affiliation:
Observatoire de Paris, Meudon
D. McNally
Affiliation:
University College London
J. R. Percy
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Summary

I discuss the burgeoning World Wide Web and how it can be used to aid astronomy teaching. I supply a list of a variety of useful Web sites.

The World Wide Web was invented 5 years ago at CERN, which is now translated as the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, as a way of aiding access to information from remote sites. The invention of graphic interfaces, notably Mosaic by a group at the National Supercomputer Center in Illinois and then Netscape Navigator as a private development by many of the original Mosaic people, led to an explosion in use of the Web. Millions of people around the world are now able to access information from over 100,000 Web sites.

There is much astronomical information on the Web, though that information make up only a small fraction of all the information available through this medium. The astronomical information is of many varied types, from images of observations to tables of data to lesson plans to journal articles. The question for us to address here is how best to make use of this information for astronomy teaching. Even with the increased resources available at our desktops, the individual teacher remains an important part of the educational enterprise.

One set of alternatives deals with whom the Web information is aimed at. To present new Web data in class, it is useful to have a means of projecting computer information on a screen, which is most often done with an LCD projector panel.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

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