Aloha – Macs in AAS sessions and Astronomy 101
May 28th, 2007 by admin
Well, I’m at the AAS meeting in Honolulu.
The most interesting Mac-related news is that, for the first time, AAS presenters can use Macs (and Keynote) for presenting in oral sessions. They have Powerbooks with Parallels running OS X and Windows in every room, so people are free to use whatever OS and presentation software they want. Excellent idea. Hopefully this becomes standard practice for AAS. I grumbled about being forced to use Windows here some years ago, so it’s only fair I post again now that the situation has been improved.
On an unrelated note, I attended the NASA CAE workshop on improving the introductory astronomy class for non-majors, and it was excellent. There is a large body of research that lecture-only classes are ineffective for teaching non-science major courses, and so called “active learning” techniques are better. I’m convinced, and I think many people would benefit from the workshops so… find one near you and check it out.
Tags: aas, keynote, powerpoint — .