About astroex.org
Postal address:
European Southern Observatory
Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2
D-85748 Garching bei München
Germany
Phone:
+49 89 3200 6306 (or 3200 60)
Fax:
+49 89 3200 64 80 (or 320 32 62)
E-mail:
info@astroex.org
Collaboration
Texts:
Anne Værnholt Olesen, Lars Lindberg Christensen, Arntraud Bacher, Rainer
Gaitzsch, Jean-Marc Brauer, Emma Fosbury, Robert A.E. Fosbury, Jean-Marc Brauer
Coordination:
Lars Lindberg Christensen and Richard West
Graphics design:
Martin Kornmesser
Dutch translation
Eddy Echternach, Robert Wielinga and Peter Barthel
Coordination:
Peter Barthel
Partly financed by:
NOVA, NAC, Gratama-stichting, Groninger Universiteitsfonds, Kapteyn Instituut
van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
French translation
Thibaut Plisson and Nausicaa Delmotte
German translation
Birgit Armsdorfer, Arntraud Bacher and Paul Scheier
Italian translation
Carmelo Evoli, Angelo Meduri, Piero Benvenuti and Eugenio Benvenuti
Partly financed by:
Società Astronomica Italiana (SAIt), la sezione Calabria della SAIt.
Swedish translation
Martin Lundqvist and Britt Sjöberg
Spanish translation
Álvaro Llorente
Thanks to:
Karl-Heinz Lotze (Germany), Nino Panagia (STScI/ESA), Nina
Troelsgaard Jensen (Frederiksberg Seminarium), Anne Rhodes, Jesper Sollerman,
Tycho Brahe Planetarium (Denmark), Wendy Freedman, Darren Reed, Arsen Hajian,
Jos de Bruijne, Ole Hjort Rasmussen, Helle and Henrik Stub (Denmark), Johann
Penzl (Germany), Thibaut Plisson (USA), Marina Rejkuba (ESO), Manuela Zoccali
(ESO), la Professoressa Angela Misiano (Liceo Scientifico "Leonardo da
Vinci", Reggio Calabria).
Credits: Web version
Technical
The interactive versions of the exercises work in Internet Explorer 4.0+, the newer versions of Mozilla, and Netscape (see below for more detailed info). The site is optimized for the resolution 1024x768., but it is no problem to go through the exercise using the resolution 800x600.
Why interactive education?
There are different reasons for producing interactive educational material.
Especially in the areas of physics and astronomy - there is often a need to visualize concepts that are less easy to 'grasp' for most students. Interactivity can make the process of explaning these concepts easier and more 'living'
Interactive education can be seen as a supplement (although not a substitute!) to the 'normal' class-room education. The topics can be treated in a different way that the normal class set-up allows.
Interactivity can help to activate students, and spark an interest with some students who normally would be less interested in a given topic.
Interactivity can be a good opportunity for teachers to integrate IT in the education. Using relevant software always makes IT education more interesting.
Why use Java?
Naturally one of the main reasons for making interactive version of these exercises is to gain easy access to the exercises, which otherwise only has published in a few thousands printed copies and as .pdf files. For us there were two options for the choice of programming language: Flash and Java. Whereas Flash is optimal with respect to the graphical presentation, Java does a better job of performing real measurements and calculations on e.g. images.
We decided to use PHP for the server communication and storage of user data
since it is widely used and freely available.
Supported Browsers and OS combinations (Interactive Exercises)
WINDOWS
- Internet Explorer 4+
- Mozilla 1.0+
- Netscape 6+
LINUX
MAC
Known bugs
1. Sometimes the calc button in the interactive version of exercise 1 needs an extra click or two.
2. Under LINUX there is a problem where text entered in the applets is sometimes not shown.
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