Seeking students for an online game-method Latin 1 pilot

[Roger Travis]

I'm doing some very early work on developing an online Latin 1 that uses the game-method I'm pioneering in Operation KTHMA, the role-playing Greek historians course. The central idea will be to use a role-playing game-story, with its established (and addictive) model of progression, as a metaphor for inherently engaging and interactive progress in the Latin skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

By practicing their Latin skills in the game-world (7CE Italy is my first thought, though I haven't decided firmly yet), students will unlock other skills. For example, by gaining experience points for using the present active participle in simple contexts, a student will unlock the perfect passive participle; by using the PPP, he or she will unlock the ablative absolute; by using the ablative absolute a sufficient number of times, he or she will unlock the gerundive, etc.

I've just got the green light to start putting together a pilot of 12 students, which the powers that be may let me double to 24, and so I'd love to hear from anyone who thinks he or she might like to enroll in summer 2010 in such a course, or who knows anyone who might.

The course, in the months of July and August, would involve eight hours of real-time interaction via computer per week, probably scheduled in the morning so that the maximum number of English-speaking timezones might be involved. There would also be asynchronous activities via UConn's web-tools. The course would cover the standard college semester's worth of material, and prepare the students for second semester Latin.

I'd also love to hear about any related ideas this post inspires--should I be thinking more in terms of advanced Latin do you think? Should I be thinking of Greek instead? Let me know what you think! Gratias.