Background

For the teaching of astronomy there can be no alternative to the hands-on experience of using instruments on a real telescope observing on a clear dark night. Such experience is not possible for millions of students who are excited by the ideas of astronomy. It is not merely one of cost. The logistics of assembling a class of students after school hoping for clear skies destroys the possibilities of real observing for the majority of students. Robot telescopes change all that.

In educational terms a robot telescope can provide a range of experiences of observational astronomy. The development of CD-ROM and the Internet to support classroom learning have produced the concept of REAL(Dunlap 1996): a Rich Environment for Active Learning as an appropriate framework on which to develop the classroom response to these technologies. The Bradford Robot Telescope has demonstrated student centred experiences to generate a Rich Environment for Active Learning(REAL), for astronomy. It is based on a massive extension of the library and experiential resource available to the teacher over the Internet, the opportunity for the student to develop and answer questions associated with the learning programme and access to a robot telescope which provides two modes of operation: service observing and eavesdropping. In the concept of REAL the students are:-

• Allowed to, and taught to, determine what they need to learn through questioning and goal setting

• Provided with sufficient scaffolding in the environment to help students with prompts, examples, modelling and collaborative support

• Enabled to manage their own learning activities

• Enabled to contribute to each others’ learning through collaborative activities.