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ICT Skills for Teachers

Use the Worldwide Telescope (Beginner level)

As a Geography teacher you may wish to implement the WebQuest called To Mars and Beyond. You look for an interesting visual media resource to capture the attention of the learners. You decide to use Microsoft Worldwide Telescope to show them the night sky and find Mars. You will then introduce the topic by running the Mars tour on the Worldwide Telescope site.

By the end of this task you could achieve the following outcomes:

- Download Worldwide Telescope Windows client
- Install Worldwide Telescope
- Navigate Worldwide Telescope
- Find and play guided tours
- Set the location
- Change the view
- Conduct a filtered search

Follow these steps to re-enact what this teacher would do to use the Worldwide Telescope:

1. Install Worldwide Telescope before using the tool - be sure that your PC has the minimum system requirements. You also need good Internet access. Download it here »
2. Install the Worldwide Telescope. See how »
3. Start Worldwide Telescope. See how »
4. Set up to your location - if you set up your location to your local town or a town nearby, you will see te sky as it is from that location and will be able to recognise features. See how »
5. Look at the Guided Tour: Educator's Tour - this is a good place to start for a general introduction to how Worldwide Telescope can be used by an educator. See how »
6. Change the view to Look at Solar System: 3D Solar System View - this view will give you the night sky and you can pan around as if you are gazing at the sky and rotating your view. See how »
7. Open the Guided Tour: Life on Mars? See how »
8. Change the view at Look at the Sky: Digitized Sky Survey (Color) - this view will give you the night sky and you can pan around as if you are gazing at the sky and rotating your view. See how »
9. Set search filter to planets - this will bring up Mars in the context bar as you pan around the sky. Find Mars through the context bar. See how »


WorldWide Telescope minimum system requirements (PC):

  • Microsoft® XP SP2 (minimum), Windows® Vista®, or Windows® 7 (recommended)
  • PC with Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2 gigahertz (GHz) or faster, recommended
  • 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM; 2 GB RAM recommended
  • 3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance
  • 1 GB of available hard disk space; 10 GB recommended for off-line features and higher performance browsing
  • XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor
  • Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing and scrolling device
  • Microsoft® DirectX® version 9.0c and .NET Framework 2.0
  • Required for some features; Internet connection at 56 Kbps or higher

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