learning-adventure-2

LA #2 Celestia Software

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:06:04 +0100

Day four of the process otherwise known as Learning Adventure #2:

As others have already eluded to - are we to post each step of the process? Not sure so I did not post yesterday but thought I should today.

I took the program to the students to include a collaborative process to the LA. They were not interested in participating - again for my teaching environment, these are volunteer participatory opportunities. Tried as I might - I have not been able to connect a learning opportunity directly into our curriculum. I was intrigued as to why they immediately and concisely decided that they did not what to design a question for this program. The answer was very consistent - "I'm not interested in astronomy or the
universe, this would be something that may go better with smaller children."

Still looking for a group of peers to colloborate with, I took the program to the faculty members (11 of them) that I work with each day. Again, not interested. Next step was to go to the science teachers on the campus. Here is where the excitement was found. I met with two and they were familiar with Celestia and had used it previously in their courses as an outside class assignment. We discussed the directions - both initial and subsequential - given by Gary. They provided me examples of questions they had used in the past that were founded in math and the sciences. We developed a new question that we searched the universe for the answer.

Again, this assignment provided me with the following learning opportunites:
1. learning starts with a questions - a reason to seek out knowledge.
2. whatever learning that is first anticipated - may or may not occur but will provide a vehicle for additional questions and learning opportunities.
3. possibility the answer(s) to the initial question(s) may not be as revelevent as the learning that occured to get to the answers.

The wealth of knowledge that I obtained by spending a couple of hours with my peers in the science department outweighed (for me) the answer to our question.

LA #2 Celestia Software

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:02:50 +0100

DayTwo of Learning Adventure #2  

I found a way to ask a couple of questions (relevant or not) and get the answers after searching the internet for hours. It was well worth the time investment. Which is the first thing that I have to accept - learning does take time and commitment. My desire to pick something up and "just do it" is getting in my way of enjoying the learning adventures. I would not question the investment of time if I was committed to learning Spanish, therefore I  must question why I feel that I should be able to learn to be competent on Celestia and other computer programs with little to no time involvement.

I was amazed at the visual images that are possible on this program. The  possibilities for learning here is truly only limited by the imagination of  the individual. I enjoyed reading about this history of the program and the  blog sites that talked about the improvements from a users point of view on  the new edition. I can see this being easily accepted and used in schools by  educators. What are some of the questions that can be asked of Celestia that could incorporate a math or science lesson plan?

Final Reflection on the use of Celestia Software

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 07:12:20 +0100

I had not used Celestia since my interaction with the science educators. They did such a great job demonstrating and showing me how to use the program, that I felt I had gotten out of the LA what Gary wanted us to. Today, I tagged along with Dan while he was working on answering his question. It was a completely different experience and equally, if not more valuable. Listening to Dan problem-solve his way through the process was very exciting and his energy is contagious.

Dan and I met on Adobe ConnectNow which was Colby's cadre gift. What a great site. Dan was able to look at my screen and interact with me as we communicated via Skype. I know many of you do this daily, but this technology is so new to me that I was very excited to be able to do both simultaneously. It was a great learning adventure for me. And working on Celestia was just an additional piece to the learning experience.

My reflection on this LA:

I discovered that I have two community of learners and I need to understand how to utilize both - the first is at my institution and the second is Cadre XI members. Both provide a educational, collaborative learning experience yet both have a different focus. When working with Cadre members, we talk through the process more, we discuss learning theories, and we try to connect what we are experiencing with our readings. This is a much "richer" collaboration.

Gary - I'm afraid to put this on paper since it may come back to haunt me, but I can't wait for our next Learning Adventure. My disclaimer is this - I am may re-track this if you have us write language for a computer program. For some reason, I feel that you have that up your sleeve for us to try.