For the past several years, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory
(NOAO) has been promoting the use of actual research in the classroom
through a program called Research Based Science Education (RBSE).
Recently, they have begun restructuring the program to include an
online class and a shorter workshop component.
This is a trend being shepherded by the National Science Foundation in all of its
teacher education programs. The online class was hosted by a WebCT
server, similar to that used by the popular Onlinelearning.net. The summer
workshop was held in Tucson, Arizona, at the NOAO's Kuiper Space
Sciences Building on the campus of the University of Arizona.
This summer, I had the great privilege and opportunity to attend the
workshop, and in so doing I got to use large telescopes in the 1 to 2
meter class, a spectrograph connected to another telescope, and work
with other teachers as we conducted a short research project on the
characteristics of stellar novae in the Andromeda Galaxy.
The program is targeted at science teachers in K-12 schools. Several
science education center folks were in this year's group as well. For
more information about the program, check out the website at
<http://www.noao.edu/outreach/tlrbse/>.
There are several downloadable activities which simulate actual
research projects. Participants in the program can contribute to
ongoing research which is published in the RBSE Journal.
This is a column about using the Macintosh in science education. I
am going to tell you about my experiences in using a Mac in this
program - and several surprising observations I made along the way.
Class members were told they could use either Macs or PCs. During
the online class, some used both, one at home and one at work. During
the summer session, we could bring our own computer or have one rented
for us. Out of 20 teachers selected for this year's cohort, 16 brought
or chose PC laptops, and four chose Macs.
When we arrived, we were told we would have Internet access. Once
the IP numbers were distributed and the other numbers, such as the
router and DNS servers, listed on the board, we were asked to connect
to the Internet just to test the setup.
In less than a minute, I was online and surfing (checking out
LEM, natch). No restart required, as I'm
sure you know. In fact, I rebooted into my OS X partition just to
make those settings match, and I was done in less than 5 minutes. I
noted there was an HP LaserJet 4050 in the room, so I printed its
network configuration page using the onboard menu, then connected to it
with OS X, which already included a driver. OS 9 did not have
a driver for the HP already built in, so I downloaded the driver from
HP and installed it.
Then the cry went up, "Has anyone connected yet?" As it turned out,
two of us had - both of them Mac users. The PC users had yet to get
online. Even though I am not a PC user myself (all I know about them I
learned from helping others in workshops), I helped a few people enter
their network connection information.
Once one of the PC users got online, they helped the others, and
after a while (actually it took quite a while) we had to start the
workshop and put off finishing all the others until later. Everyone was
surfing with a variety of machines from Windows 95 to XP Professional.
One laptop we could not get to connect; an expert PC user in the group
had to intervene and do some deep Windows voodoo in the registry to get
it to run.
The workshop proceeded, and eventually someone needed to print. "Is
anyone able to print?" came the plaintive cry, and I was once again the
first person to raise my hand. I was handed a floppy, which I quickly
handed back, shrugging. "Don't trust 'em," I said. "I have an external
USB Zip drive, though," and after a restart or two and shuffling of
drivers within Win 98, I had a file on a PC-compatible Zip disk that I
could print on my iBook.
- By the way, did you know that "hot swappable" on a Windows machine
means you have to "disconnect" the machine through a control panel
before you unplug it? Neither did I.
Clearly, other folks needed to print. Whereas connecting a new
printer in OS X was a breeze, connecting in Windows 98 and even XP
turned out to be a pain. In Windows Me it was plain impossible - we
never solved it.
For example, if you use the Printer setup Wizard in XP, you can
choose to connect to a local printer or an " Internet or network"
printer. The printer was clearly on the network and had an IP address
assigned to it. Which option would you choose? We chose "Internet or
network" and wasted a good half hour trying to get the printer to
print. Finally, I said, "When all the logical choices are exhausted,
use the illogical one," and selected local printer. Lo and behold,
there is a TCP/IP port setting for local printers. So we finally got
that one solved; and some time later, everyone could print - except for
the Windows Me laptop, which didn't offer the choice of adding a TCP/IP
printing port.
Windows users will point out that if someone was present with a
thorough knowledge of Windows, we probably could have done this more
quickly. My only defense is that we Mac folk were outnumbered 4 to 1
(not counting instructors), and no one else figured it out before I
did. At least one Windows user present was as good with Windows as I am
with Macs.
Then we all went to Kitt Peak to observe, requiring new IP
addresses. I created a new configuration setting and boom, I was
surfing again. The PC users were terrified of changing the settings -
after all, we had to go back to Tucson soon and use the same room as
before - but someone said you could "rewind" or "reset" Windows XP, at
least, to a configuration it had a few days before, and therefore it
was okay to fiddle around with the settings. I wonder what else got
changed in the interim, and I got the impression the feature was not
available in earlier versions of Windows. I told everyone the numbers
would be easy to re-input, so if necessary, we could do that.
The printer provided was a venerable Apple LaserWriter Pro 630.
Despite several attempts, I couldn't get any of the Windows users to
print on it. It may have had odd compatibility switch settings in that
little DIP switch panel on the side; I didn't want to mess with that
for a four-day visit, and so once again only the Mac users could print.
I know from past experience that the LaserWriter can print from a PC;
Apple even has drivers posted on their website. We just never could get
any of the Windows machines to locate the printer on the network.
Then we came back, reconnected everyone, and got printing running
again. The workshop proceeded, and we all had a great time.
There are four other points I want to make about the use of Macs and
PCs in this workshop. But they're a good deal shorter, so bear with
me.
First thing was, out of four instructors seen to be using computers
during the workshop, three used Macs, and one used a PC. We were told
that many - perhaps most - professional astronomers use Macs as their
personal machines, and that OS X is an even bigger draw because of
its Unix underpinnings. I don't have any statistical data on the
numbers of users, but that is what we heard. They were experienced Mac
users, but, like myself, only peripherally aware of how to do things in
the Windows world. That's why we had to help each other set up during
the workshop. Most of the instructor presentations in PowerPoint were
using a Mac. One instructor, Dr. Travis Rector, 
has made many of the famous deep-sky posters you see at the
Kitt Peak gift shop and in magazines like Sky and Telescope. He uses a
blueberry iBook to
look up coordinates while working at a Unix control terminal at the
telescope.
Second short story: Dr. Rector needed to log in to his Unix account
to transfer some files to a download directory for us and had left his
laptop up the hill in another location. I had OS X booted up, so
he quickly opened the Terminal app, logged in to his account, and moved
the files. Score one for OS X over OS 9.
Third short story: There are many software packages for manipulating
images, specifically the FITS type images which telescopic CCD cameras
provide. The most commonly used one in professional astronomy is called
IRAF, which is a free program. You can see links to this software at
<http://www.noao.edu/dpp/software.html>.
This is a Unix-based program, and they've just come out with a version
for OS X. IRAF is not as easy to use as some commercial software
packages, but it is powerful and can run on mainframe computers, handle
extremely large files, and is considered a standard in professional
astronomy.
I know zip about Unix, but my experiences this summer have
encouraged me to learn more. Despite the poorly named "PC-IRAF" version
they have available, it is still strictly a Unix, Linux, and Mac
OS X program. It doesn't run in Windows at all. If someone out
there has successfully installed and used it on OS X, let me know
how it went - and how to do it myself.
Fourth short story: So that we could all use the same software, we
were given a copy of the National Institute of Health's Image software.
There is a companion program called Scion Image for the PC.
Theoretically, the programs are identical. It uses a macro language,
and macros were given to us to be used to process FITS images for our
projects on a personal computer. The main difference is that the Mac
version worked like a charm, and the PC version 1) crashed frequently,
2) used an archaic file selection window that many of the Windows users
couldn't figure out (Mac user to the rescue again) and 3) wouldn't run
at all on Windows XP Pro. I'll be writing a separate article
about Image later this summer. These problems prevented several of the
participants from completing the online course before the summer
workshop.
By the end of the workshop, I'm sure everyone was tired of hearing
us say, "I can fix your Windows problem, but you won't like my
solution," and, "At what point do you give up and come back to the
Light Side?" But seriously, exactly how much is the savings from that
cut-rate computer worth if you can't get your work done?
Macs aren't perfect - another iBook suffered a catastrophic crash
and had to have its drive wiped and the OS reinstalled while we were
there (and note I never got my hands on that machine before they had
already wiped it, so that may have been a Windows user's solution to a
Mac problem), but I have to say, if this experience didn't sway a few
folks, I don't know what would.
For their part, I salute the NOAO instructors and astronomers for
maintaining a professional, even keel throughout the workshop and
attempting to help everyone with whatever they had to work with. They
want to ensure you'll go home and use the software and do the
activities; therefore they didn't force everyone to use a Mac but tried
to provide a cross-platform experience without prejudice. It is
unfortunate that they have to test their software on half a dozen
flavors of Windows to make sure it is truly compatible, whereas they
can test the Mac version on just two.
I've got a series of articles planned relating some of the nuts and
bolts of processing FITS images on the Mac, so stay tuned!
is a longtime Mac user. He was using digital sensors on Apple II computers in the 1980's and has networked computers in his classroom since before the internet existed. In 2006 he was selected at the California Computer Using Educator's teacher of the year. His students have used NASA space probes and regularly participate in piloting new materials for NASA. He is the author of two books and numerous articles and scientific papers. He currently teaches astronomy and physics in California, where he lives with his twin sons, Jony and Ben.< And there's still a Mac G3 in his classroom which finds occasional use.
