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Teacher Review for Celeste SE

Sky Map app delivers less

David B.
 School district administrator
Oakland Unified School District
Oakland, CA, United States
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My Subjects English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, Arts
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My Rating
Learning Scores
Engagement
Pedagogy
Support
My Students Liked It Yes
My Students Learned No
I Would Recommend It No
Setup Time Less than 5 minutes
Great for Knowledge gain
Great with Advanced learners
General
How I Use It
This might be great at a cocktail party to start a conversation like, "Hey, that's Neptune up there. Did you know that it was discovered by astronomers trying to figure out why Uranus' orbit had anomalies." Then of course, you'd have to do this nonchalantly enough so that the other person didn't know you were reciting it off the phone. But for a classroom? I wouldn't bother.
My Take
CeleseteSE, one of many sky map apps, allows a smartphone user to locate celestial objects. In the day time, this means identifying the direction of the objects. But at night, you can point your phone to the sky and find out what that bright light is. Unlike other free sky map apps, CelesteSE only shows the location of objects within the solar system: sun, planets and moon. It's only claim to usefulness is that students can click on the objects and learn about them. What this amounts are little "tweet-sized" random facts that are not in any thoughtful order. Although it's only two dollars, there are free sky map apps that deliver more: like identifying constellations, stars, galaxies, and settings that allow you to find out what will be in the sky on a specific date in the future or past.