More wired than a Roman Internet café

November 2008 Blog Posts (17)

Tempus Fugit

Wow. We are already at the Thanksgiving break. Looking at the list of things done and not-done, I am evenly split. My Latin IIs are more or less on schedule, as are my IIIs, but AP, ah, AP, the perpetual late-comer. As a colleague put it, we spend too much time enjoying the poetry.

But it isn't about schedules and syllabi. How well do my students understand the language? I am beset by worries that they will emerge after four years, having learned little or nothing, with no… Continue

Added by Matthew Moore on November 25, 2008 at 2:28pm — 3 Comments

ReLIVE08 Conference: Report of Day 2's chaired debate, Latin workshop, and paper sessions

The chaired debate was the first thing on the agenda this morning. Roo, Ted, Bill, and Claudia were all on the panel, all of whom I had met the previous day. Delegates to the conference had been asked to submit questions to the panel in advance, and my question was one of ten selected to be asked. You can watch me ask the question and hear the answer via the recorded video webcast here:… Continue

Added by Andrew Reinhard on November 24, 2008 at 9:14pm — No Comments

ReLIVE08: Recap of paper sessions on education in virtual environments, Day One

The opening plenary speech was given by Dr. Ted Castranova of Indiana University who specializes in the economics of massively multiplayer on-line role-playing games (MMORPGs) like he was introduced by an Open University administrator who spoke briefly of the challenges facing school administrations as new educational technologies come into more common use, specifically with the agenda of learning via playing.

She said that crafting revised policy, management, budget, and strategy… Continue

Added by Andrew Reinhard on November 24, 2008 at 3:30pm — 1 Comment

Blogging the Aeneid: Book 1, lines 198-222

As always, cross-posted from http://apvergil.blogspot.com.

First of all, some interesting aspects of the language:

Aeneas' speech contains three different instances of anaphora (O...O, 198-9; vos...vos, 200-1; per...per, 204); clearly there is an effect that Vergil is looking to create through all of this repetition of key initial words - what might it be? Is Aeneas using these rhetorical devices to hammer his point home to his men -… Continue

Added by Preston Bannard on November 23, 2008 at 10:56pm — No Comments

Blogging the Aeneid: Book 10: Jupiter in the Council of the Gods

As always, cross-posted from http://apvergil.blogspot.com - visit and add a point on my stat counter map! (And comment, of course!)

We return after a short break in which fall trimester comments consumed any free time. As promised in the last post, we'll begin with a discussion of Jupiter's role in the council of the gods in Book 10 before returning, in successive posts, to Book 1 and closer readings of the text.

Jupiter's… Continue

Added by Preston Bannard on November 20, 2008 at 12:55pm — No Comments

Epode 10

Horace

Epode 10

The ship, loosed from its moorings, sets off under a bad omen, carrying that stinker Maevius. South Wind—may you remember to beat both sides of the ship with terrible waves; Black East Wind—scatter rigging and broken oars across the swirling sea; North Wind—rise up as powerfully as when you shatter great oaks on high mountains. May no friendly star appear in the black night where sad Orion sets. May he be carried on no quieter or more even sea than the… Continue

Added by Bill Parsons on November 20, 2008 at 4:00am — No Comments

Latin??? -- ReLive08 Pre-Conference Reception, 19 November

I had the good fortune to be in Milton Keynes in time to attend the pre-conference reception for delegates of the ReLIVE08 Conference (Researching Learning in Virtual Environments). I managed to speak to a few people who all had the same reaction once I told them what I was doing with Latin and virtual environments like Second Life and World of Warcraft: "Latin? Spoken Latin? And there's a publisher just for that?" I told them a bit more about my work for Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, and… Continue

Added by Andrew Reinhard on November 20, 2008 at 3:45am — No Comments

Blogging the Aeneid: Book 10: the Council of the Gods

As always, cross-posted from http://apvergil.blogspot.com.

Homework this weekend was to read Book 10 in English, so this post will be somewhat different than the past few; I've decided to write about a scene that I find one of the most fascinating in the entire Aeneid - the council of the gods (lines 1-117). This post will… Continue

Added by Preston Bannard on November 17, 2008 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Blogging the Aeneid: Book 1, lines 180-197

Cross-posted from my blog. As always, comments are greatly appreciated:

Link to text on Perseus

As last time, we'll lead off with a couple of minor but delectable examples of Vergil playing with language and meaning. First, one that I just noticed from the previous passage - in lines 160-161, Vergil has placed… Continue

Added by Preston Bannard on November 13, 2008 at 5:15pm — No Comments

Blogging the Aeneid: Book 1, lines 157-179

Once again, this is cross-posted from http://apvergil.blogspot.com. Comments in either place are always welcome and appreciated.

Before getting into a more general discussion of this passage, I just wanted to note a couple of interesting features of the language in this passage. First of all, line 164 has a particularly apt caesura, as it falls after silent - one can imagine someone reading it out loud to linger on that pause slightly longer… Continue

Added by Preston Bannard on November 11, 2008 at 8:00pm — No Comments

The Crucial Importance of Oral Input in Language Learning

A study published today showed something quite remarkable - that voices and words leave a definite readable signature in the brain - so clear, in fact, that it is readable to the extent that it is possible to consistently determine whose voice the brain is listening to, from the neural signature alone, and, moreover, it is possible to determine what was said - although this initial research only uses very simple vocalisations.

As we evolved with language as an oral/aural phenomenon ,… Continue

Added by Latinum Institute on November 11, 2008 at 4:30am — No Comments

Blogging the Aeneid: Book 1, lines 124-156

Last spring I began to blog, intermittently at best, on some of the passages we were reading in my AP Vergil class; it was meant both as an outlet for my ideas and to spur my students to greater thought about the passages than we had time for in class. I have finally begun again this year, and to the extent that I am able to stick with it (I'd like to post two or three times a week), I will be cross-posting on eClassics. I would love to read any comments that people have, either here or on the… Continue

Added by Preston Bannard on November 10, 2008 at 9:40pm — No Comments

Steven Colbert sings Happy Birthday to his mother, in Latin 6 November 2008

Open the file Full episode 6 November 2008

then scroll ahead, once it has loaded, to about 19:45, and enjoy.

Added by Chris Ann Matteo on November 10, 2008 at 6:49pm — No Comments

Seeking Latin Speakers for Second Life Workshop, Nov. 21, 10:45-12:15 GMT

I will be leading a workshop in how to use Second Life as a practical pedagogical tool for practicing oral Latin. The workshop will include instruction on how to install and activate real-time audio fro Second Life, how to chat, how to record machinima, and will culminate in a real-time, in-world demonstration of conversational Latin within this virtual environment.

This workshop is part of the Re:LIVE '08 conference being held at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England, of… Continue

Added by Andrew Reinhard on November 3, 2008 at 12:21pm — No Comments

Medieval and Vulgate Latin Textbooks and Online Summer School

With the launch of Latin for the New Millennium in support of 1st- and 2nd-year Classical Latin studies, Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers is interested in doing either a textbook or online course for students interested in Medieval and/or Vulgate Latin. After speaking with hundreds of Medievalists at Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo over the past few years, I have learned that Medieval Studies graduate… Continue

Added by Andrew Reinhard on November 3, 2008 at 10:43am — 3 Comments

Latinum - two and a half million

Latinum continues to provide lessons in Latin to the far reaches of the globe. This month, we passed our two and a half millionth audio file download.