Thu, 11. October 2012
How Many Astronomers Teach Astronomy Online?
Some, but not many, unfortunately.
Like many amateur astronomers, I like to follow some of the online astronomy news outlets to keep ahead of what's happening in astronomy - but I am particularly on the lookout for professional astronomers who are using the Internet for serious public outreach purposes.
Here in Australia we have some very clever and talented professional astronomers. They are, without exception, very friendly and very willing to give free public talks and accept opportunities to talk about astronomy in the mainstream media. So their enthusiasm for public outreach is beyond question but I wonder why more of them don't do more public outreach online.
Of course, many professional astronomers are extremely savvy with computers and mobile devices and are very keen to get themselves out there using modern social media - but what disappoints me is that the majority of them do not seem to use the online opportunities that are available to educate the public more about astronomy.
Sure, many of them are 'Twitter' tragics and they engage in 'Facebook' activities - but these forms of social media do not present a forum for anyone to explain astronomy to the public and their only serious usefulness is as a medium to direct you to other pages containing interesting astronomy articles, usually written by someone else. I find 'Twitter' messages (140 characters max.) immensely underwhelming and if you write more than two sentences in 'Facebook' people think you're a nerd!
'Google Plus' is a superior social media product to Facebook and a very suitable forum for astronomers to write mini-articles about anything astronomical. It is designed for longer articles on its posts; and it allows you to follow someone without them needing to “friend” you.
A perfect example of this is an astrophysicist from California called Brian Koberlein, an active advocate for public outreach, who not only writes regular educational astronomy articles on 'Google Plus' but responds to any questions posed by those who read it. It's so easy to open a 'Google Plus' account and if you do, you must follow Brian Koberlein! I am hoping more astronomers will follow his lead on 'Google Plus', where you can simply post the article, like a blog, without needing a link to it. Speaking of blogs, I am convinced that blog sites are still the best way a professional astronomer can teach astronomy to the great unwashed like us.
Last month's guest speaker at MAS, Geraint Lewis is a great blogger. By coincidence, so is this month's guest speaker, Simon O'Toole. However, I haven't found many more yet. Here are some links to their great blog sites and a couple of other astronomers that I follow and recommend:
Geraint Lewis: http://cosmic-horizons.blogspot.com.au/
Simon O'Toole: https://iwouldntnormallycall.wordpress.com/
Amanda Bauer: http://amandabauer.blogspot.com.au/
Peter Edmonds: http://peterdedmonds.blogspot.com.au/
Geraint is very highly regarded at MAS (his blog is first class); we'll meet Simon for the first time this month; Amanda is an American working at the Australian Astronomical Observatory; and Peter is an Australian working as the press scientist for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in the US.
It's not many but it's all I have found so far! I'm still searching for more professional astronomers who take up the challenge of writing outreach blogs for the an astronomy starved public. There have to be more – so if you find any, please let me know!
Of course, closer to home, there are some MAS members who are also bloggers – but that is different story.
in Astronomers
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21:40
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