The World Wide Telescope (WWT) India workshop that was held at the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in association with the Microsoft Research,California Institute of Technology (CalTech),garnered a positive response with a turnout of around 300,including around 50 teachers. The workshop that was held over two days in Bengaluru on September 2 and 3 was held for just one day at IUCAA. It dealt with the WWT software that is a virtual,interactive and comprehensive map of the night sky aggregated from various space missions and observatories. Speaking about the workshop,Arvind Paranjpye Scientific Officer Public Outreach Programme at IUCAA,said,The workshop aims at familiarising the software with both the general public and with professional astronomers. The software provides a virtual view of the night sky and even allows the user to create his own tours that can be synchronised for various languages. About the educational reach out of the software,Sridhar Vedantham,Head of Communications and External Projects at Microsoft Research India,said,The primary concept of the software that was actually introduced almost two and a half years ago,is to ensure that the the gap between interactive teaching in schools is reduced. The tours can be developed to suit the style of the classroom and the students. The module for the tours that are being developed as of now can be done in four languages that include English Hindi,Marathi and Malayalam. Yan Xu,senior research programme manager Microsoft Research,said they hope to conduct more such workshops across the country,wherein they will mainly look to help teachers learn how to use the software. The whole point of the workshop would be to help teachers learn it so that they can address the lessons that they need to teach the students accordingly. We will provide the assistance to help design the tours accordingly, Xu said,
