Technology

Typically, the reputation of any given Latin teacher is that (s)he is reluctant to embrace new technologies as pedagogical tools - after all, Latin has been taught quite successfully literally for millenia without modern gadgets. This is, in fact, a source of pride for me in many ways; I need little more than students willing to learn and engage the materials and texts in thoughtful ways, as it is for most teachers and should be. The key to employing modern technology in the classroom is to use it only when absolutely necessary, that is, when there is a definite purpose to use that technology rather than another technique or method of delivery. Otherwise, one is embracing novelty simply for the sake of embracing novelty. One meaningful use of technology for me, and one of my most successful series of lessons, was the virtual tour of the Mediterranean world I put together during my second year of teaching. In order to introduce both the literature and geography of the ancient world, I assigned my Latin I students several translated readings from the Aeneid: the episode in which Aeneas recalls how Synon tricks the Trojans into accepting Odysseus' horse and the scene in which Aeneas leaves Dido, catalyzing her suicide. (These moments are quite appealing to melodramatic teenagers.) When we finished those units, we used the library's set of computers to explore the travels of Aeneas, tracing his journey via online maps through the Mediterranean world, focusing especially on Troy, Carthage, and Rome. We when made a 'stop' at any site of particular note, we took the time to view photographs of the ancient ruins and monuments that inhabit these sites, stressing the fact that these are real places where people have lived, built great nations, and continue to live today. This naturally led to subsequent discussions and online searches for related areas of interest and paper topics, such as architecture or mythology via images of ruined aqueducts or temples. The overall ideas that students acquire are the realities of the heritage the western world has bequeathed our own Western society and that the study of Classics encompasses many disciplines such as the hard sciences, archaeology, architecture, literature, theology, philosophy, etc. Although internet images are limited in terms of the depth of experience, still my students were generally amazed at the scope, beauty, and reality of what they saw - the Classics become immediately relevant and interesting on many levels and are suddenly something more than declension charts in a textbook.

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