I am in St. Louis at the American Astronomical Meeting conference right now. The scientific part starts tomorrow, but for today I’m participating in the International Year of Astronomy 2009 workshop to help teachers use online technology to teach astronomy.
As a meta-example of this, we’re streaming the workshop! I’ve embedded the video stream below.
Online Video provided by Ustream
This is not my UStream chat room, but one we (meaning really Pamela Gay) set up for IYA. We’re talking about some of the ways IYA will be online starting in 2009 — MySpace, Facebook, streaming video (duh), and various other intertoob methods of getting out the word that astronomy rocks.
Feel free to go to the UStream page and join the chat… or use an IRC client: the server is chat1.ustream.tv and the room is #iya-new-media. If you want to change your nickname there, type "/nick Galileo Galilei" (or whatever) in the text field. I don’t know how much we’ll be checking the chat room but if something comes up we might be able to discuss it!
June 1st, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I was in! Some of the sharing stuff sounds pretty interesting. Sounds like a good way to keep up-to-date on everything.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hello from inside the meeting….in real life he looks just like he does on UStream!
June 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
“hello BA readers, my loyal minions”,
hehe he means us
June 1st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Yeah, I’m one that came in from Twitter. =)
June 1st, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I am at the meeting too…but in the room next door since I am presenting during part of another session!
June 1st, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I’m at the meeting too. Lots of ideas and useful advice. Working on a Day Two post for my blog. Day One post will go up soon.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Do all astronomers use Mac OSX?
June 1st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
“Feel free to go to the UStream page and join the chat…”
Anyone succeed? Searching Ustream.tv doesn’t reveal it for me.
Link?
June 1st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iya-new-media
June 1st, 2008 at 2:14 pm
@01101001
This is the link to the channel..
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iya-new-media
June 1st, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I got a Ustream chatbox by clicking the word-ballon at the bottom of the Ustream embed (URL: http://www.ustream.tv//channel-room/201430)
Through chat, some told me:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iya-new-media
I should have figured that out.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Sorry! I posted this in a hurry and forgot to add the link to the page. It’s there now.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Is there a plan somewhere which talks from which sessions will be broadcast? (It works quite well so far.)
June 1st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Daniel, we’re working on streaming a bit of the conference. I’ll have info on this here when I figure it out!
June 1st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
The chat’s currently moderated (+m) (so only voiced people, or people who are IRC aware and know how to send privmsg’s, could contribute), but this:
“I don’t know how much we’ll be checking the chat room but if something comes up we might be able to discuss it!”
…leads me to believe the chat was intended to be open. Is the moderation intentional? (I don’t mind if it is, it just seems to me that this implies the chat would be open).
June 1st, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I wrote a blog about the online chat-session during the workshop:
http://www.astroblogs.nl/2008/06/01/sterrenkunde-in-second-life/
OK, it’s in dutch, sorry. Long live Babelfish.
June 1st, 2008 at 3:50 pm
This is off-topic, but what the hey. The more appropriate places for this comment are buried about 50 posts ago. Here we go:
Anyone care to take a guess as to what the ratio of American TV viewers who know we just put a lander on Mars last Sunday to the number of American TV viewers who know that the toilet on the Space Station is currently broken?
I’m thinking it’s about 1 to 100. Maybe it’s closer to 1 to 1000.
It’s not just TV. Radio, newspapers…all have dedicated considerably more time and space to the “broken toilet” story than to the “WE’RE ON ANOTHER PLANET!!!!” story.
Maybe NASA should have put a toilet on the Phoenix lander, and then announced it was broken. Just for the extra coverage.
June 1st, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Caught your speach Phil, very impressive public speaker, great Job! Really enjoyed enjoyed the whole thing actually, thank you.
June 1st, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Hey Phil, great work today. All you guys deserve kudos for blazing trails! I was hooked all afternoon. Now I have a ton of marking to catch up on after supper that I was going to do this PM until I made the ‘mistake’ of clicking over to the Ustream. Time well spent!! Thanks again!
June 1st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
In case you don’t know about it, consider mentioning Slooh:
http://www.slooh.com/
June 1st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
(Guess I should have put in a disclaimer, I don’t work for them, but have a subscription and think it’s pretty cool)
June 1st, 2008 at 7:36 pm
I saw the presentation that mentioned Google Mars. I found out some things I didn’t know. (Starting with: there is a Google Mars.)
The streaming screen is now dark, which means everyone is having dinner and drinks – no doubt at the favorite St. Louis spot of all American Astronomical members and one of St. Louis’s finest restaurants, none other than: ______________________.
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:41 am
Chip, thank you for mentioning Google Mars here. I wasn’t watching the presentation and didn’t know it existed. Cool.
Tom, Slooh looks interesting as well.
There are so many wonderful resources out there that we don’t know about. That’s why the outreach of IYA is so important.
Harold, I think people like to see things not work. There were headlines about the missed communication transfer and possible short-circuit for the Mars Lander. That seemed to get more play than the great photos or the possibility of having uncovered ice with the thrusters.
June 2nd, 2008 at 8:13 am
[...] First, a favor: if you participated in the online workshop on Sunday — even if you just watched the video stream — then we’re asking that you take [...]