Good morning all!

Mother Google routinely gets tons of great press for their innovations. A media darling, its products (which happen to be phenomenal), like Google Earth, are trumpeted far and wide when new updates are released. Not to take anything from Google – but it seems Microsoft gets less press when they announce neat products. Why is that? It’s a shame because Microsoft continues to develop amazing tools, like WorldWide Telescope (WWT), that I heard about from Twitter user Alfred Thompson recently.

WWT is a downloaded program, not an interactive website. It’s roughly similar to Google Earth but the interface seems a lot more intricate – and for good reason. WWT is extremely powerful, richly graphical simulation allowing access to enormous quantities of data and imagery of celestial objects and even the earth itself. After just spending a few minutes with this tool, it’s  clearly got potential as a whole-class activity when presenting a lesson. It would absolutely rock with an interactive whiteboard! I could see it used with upper elementary (just barely!) and higher grades on up.

The screenshot above doesn’t do this software justice. Even though the interface is intricate, it is well-designed and intuitive, with mouse clicks and wheel spins doing exactly what you think they would, allowing you to zoom, rotate, interact and explore. The implications are obvious for anyone who teaches astronomy and/or the solar system (hey, we just did that in third grade…)  The WWT “About” page provides a glimpse into what this tool is all about, and if you’re really interested, their “In Depth” page explains the impressive resources that went into development of this tool.

WWT is clearly a professional-grade tool that in the hands of a capable user (teacher or student) nas terrific educational potential. You can download the software and give it a try yourself, or, check out this recent TED Talk for in which Roy Gould (a teacher) and Curtis Wong (a Microsoft researcher) demonstrate the program’s epic capabilities. Seriously … this is hard core stuff! Enjoy!

Hope this helps,

-kj-