More wired than a Roman Internet café

All Blog Posts (639)

Fable of the Day (Greek): The Swallow and The Raven

Χελιδὼν καὶ κόραξ

Another fable from Syntipas - check out the GreekAesop wiki for more information about Syntipas and his fables! I've included the text and a segmented version here; for grammar notes and more information, please visit the wiki. You can keep up with the latest Bestiaria posts by using the RSS feed, or you can…

Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 24, 2008 at 8:30pm — No Comments

Puer Romanus!

In some of my spare time I try and track down obscure Latin and Greek books. Particularly I've been trying to gather information and texts relating to WHD Rouse and the direct-method revival around that time that seems to have arisen (and then been swamped). Anyway, Appleton and Jones produced a number of Latin materials at the time, similar in scope to Rouse's "A Greek Boy at Home", from what I can tell. I've just located one of them, "Puer Romanus" which may be of interest to some:…

Continue

Added by Seumas Macdonald on February 21, 2008 at 5:41am — 4 Comments

Fable of the Day (Greek): The Poor Man and Death

Ἄνθρωπος πένης καὶ Θάνατος

The Poor Man and Death = Perry 60 (English…

Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 20, 2008 at 8:32am — No Comments

Schola

Schola, the Latin social site on ning that started up at the start of the month, is doing well - with now over 100 members, the quality of the discussion has improved, as there is now a core of active members with good standards of Latinity.

Every day, letters and notes fly back and forth in the public fora, and an unknown number of private messages are exchanged - these can be in any language - but the public forum only permits Latin.

I believe the success of Schola is… Continue

Added by Latinum Institute on February 19, 2008 at 4:59am — No Comments

Fable of the Day (Greek): Donkey and Cicada

I've decided to start a new experiment, publishing some Greek fables here in the eClassics website. I'm starting off with the fables of Syntipas, since I've been working on a Greek Aesop wiki with the fables of Syntipas. Check out the GreekAesop wiki for more information about Syntipas and his fables! I've included the text and a segmented version here; for grammar notes and more information, please visit the wiki. Here is Fable 1.…

Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 18, 2008 at 6:59pm — 1 Comment

Blackie's Greek and English Dialogue

John Stuart Blackie produced a marvellous little book in 1875 of dialogues in Greek and Latin, having come to Scotland and been appalled at the weakness of the students in colloquial Latin and Greek. It's well out of copyright, so as soon as I get some more time, I'll be adding it to my (slow to appear) podcasts, and make a copy available of the text. Would that we could unearth more gems like this.

Added by Seumas Macdonald on February 11, 2008 at 7:48pm — No Comments

Teaching Ancient History Online

In response to Andrew’s challenge, here is something I have been working on.

This term, for the first time, Franklin Pierce University is running “Ancient and Medieval Worlds” in the 100% online environment. As…

Continue

Added by Bill Parsons on February 10, 2008 at 9:35am — 1 Comment

love anthology

I found a review in the London Times (Feb 9 books section) of Jeffrey Eugenides' anthology of love stories and poems, My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/
His interest was originally piqued by a Latin teacher. Who says we're not sexy?

Added by Ann Martin on February 9, 2008 at 6:29am — 2 Comments

Technology and Classics

Following on Seumas's lead, I'm posting something here with the title "Technology and the Classics" so that if Andrew wants to pick up a list of these, he'll be able to find it.

I'm someone who is absolutely passionate about the use of the Internet for teaching and learning, Classics included! I'm also very excited about how community tools, like this ning.com community, make it possible for teachers to connect and share ideas online. In addition to this Classics ning, I would… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 9, 2008 at 12:30am — No Comments

Fable of the Day: De avaro sacculum alloquente

Title: De viro avaro sacculum nummorum alloquente: About the miser speaking to his sack of money, by Abstemius

Latin Text:

Vir quidam avarus, qui ingentem aureorum acervum male partum relicturus moriebatur, interrogabat sacculum nummorum, quem morienti sibi iusserat afferri, quibus voluptatem esset allaturus? Cui sacculus: heredibus, inquit, tuis qui nummos tanto… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 8, 2008 at 6:56pm — No Comments

Technology and Classics

I first started applying technology to my study of classics several years ago. It began with electronic flashcards, which increased my vocabulary learning untold amounts. Then I moved from working on paper to working on computer for reading and annotating texts. But the biggest leap came last year.

For me, a commitment to making classical languages living and active is a underlying burden and principle for both my studies and teaching. I was more than thrilled to see Evan Millner's… Continue

Added by Seumas Macdonald on February 8, 2008 at 5:30pm — No Comments

use of technology in my teaching

Here are some ways I have used technology with my students, the majority aged about 11-14:

I have had them meet on and explore parts of vroma.org, the virtual Rome MOO.

I have used quia.com to set up class pages, record Latin for students

to listen to, post up images, write quizzes and games, search for other

people's materials there. I have had my students create their own web

pages with Dreamweaver.

I have used SKYPE (free on line telephone… Continue

Added by Ann Martin on February 8, 2008 at 2:17pm — 3 Comments

Fable of the Day: De sene et Morte

Title: De sene mortem differre volente: About the old man wanted to postpone death, by Abstemius

Latin Text:

Senex quidam mortem, quae eum e vita raptura advenerat, rogabat, ut paululum differat, dum testamentum conderet et cetera ad tantum iter necessaria praepararet. Cui mors: cur, inquit, non hactenus praeparasti, toties a me monitus? Et cum ille eam numquam a se… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 7, 2008 at 6:30pm — No Comments

Latinum (again)

I made a little graph, plotting what has been happening with Latinum since I started the podcast in May 2007.

Downloads have steadily been rising, although they leveled off at 100 000 a month for a while, I'll be curious to see if the new level of 140 000 a month is the new plateau, or if it rises once again. I estimate there are around 6… Continue

Added by Latinum Institute on February 7, 2008 at 5:02am — 1 Comment

Fable of the Day: De praetore repetundarum damnato

Title: De praetore repetundarum damnato: About the praetor condemned for extortion, by Abstemius

Latin Text:

Praetor qui provinciam cui praefuerat expilaverat, repetundarum damnatus fuerat. Cumque aegre ablata restitueret, dicebat quidam e provincialibus, hic noster praetor mulieres imitatur, quae foetus concipientes mira voluptate afficiuntur, cum autem eos emittunt,… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 6, 2008 at 9:49pm — No Comments

Et sedebit conflans, et emundans argentum

A friend of mine emailed me this earlier today, and it's so perfect for Ash Wednesday that I couldn't resist reposting it here.

There was a group of women in a Bible study on the book of Malachi. As they were studying chapter three, they came across verse three which

says: He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. This verse

puzzled the women and they wondered what this statement meant about the

character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out… Continue

Added by Raphaela on February 6, 2008 at 10:07am — No Comments

Fable of the Day: De muliere ignem ferente

Title: De muliere ignem in mariti domum ferente: About the woman bringing a fire into her husband's house, by Abstemius

Latin Text:

Vir quidam prudens uxorem ducebat. Interrogatus autem ab amicis, quid sibi vellet facula illa, quam nova nupta accensam a paterna domo effert, rursusque mariti domum ingressura accendit et introfert. Significat, inquit, me hodie ignem a… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 5, 2008 at 8:27pm — No Comments

Fable of the Day: De accipitribus et columbis

Title: De accipitribus inter se inimicis quos columbae pacaverant: About the hawks who were enemies whom the doves pacified, by Abstemius

Latin Text:

Accipitres invicem inimici quotidie decertabant, suisque odiis occupati, alias aves minime infestabant. Columbae illorum vicem dolentes, eos missis legatis composuere. Sed illi, ubi inter se amici effecti sunt, ceteras… Continue

Added by Laura Gibbs on February 4, 2008 at 8:07pm — No Comments

eClassics Members Selected for Venice Conference on Classics Pedagogy

Dr. Lisa St. Louis and Dr. Shawn Graham, both eClassics members as well as teachers at Robert Welch University, have had their proposal selected for the Meeting the Challenge conference to be held this summer in Venice, Italy. To learn more about their proposal and the conference, click here.

Please join me in extending a warm congratulations to both Lisa and Shawn who are doing truly marvelous things in… Continue

Added by Andrew Reinhard on February 4, 2008 at 4:08pm — 1 Comment

Schola again

Well,
Schola certainly seems to have got off to a flying start - 48 hours later, many letters, comments and postings have been made, all in Latin. There are now 33 members.
My headache now is to translate the huge language file for the site into Latin - I've done 5% so far, enough to give the site a Latin feel.

Added by Latinum Institute on February 2, 2008 at 2:37pm — 3 Comments