Metaphorae

While trying to find Latin words that meant "network" and "web," their literal meanings suddenly occurred to me.

Network, Latin reticulum: a fish net, a small mesh bag

Now that is a great metaphor. I think our modern networks do the same things that ancient networks did, i.e. hold our source of sustenance. Whether that sustenance is fish and vegetables or information and knowledge, a woven lattice keeps everything together for us.
But we don't just leave the fish in there, or the information. Fish and information aren't much good to us lying around. We have to prepare it somehow, process it, let it stew, and then consume it for ourselves, incorporate it, sate and nourish our minds and bodies.

Then there's the web. One word for web in Latin is orsus. It can refer to the warp on a loom, the threads that you use to start making woven cloth. Because of this, the word orsus can also mean beginning or undertaking.

Another great metaphor. The webs in our life can be the foundation of our learning, whether that web is made up of face to face relationships, a PLN, or the world wide web. Then the fun part is adding in all the different threads, weaving all sorts of new outside information and experiences into a single cloth, everything being connected.

I should point out that Romans are obsessed with weaving and use images of weaving in so many metaphors. It's interesting to discover how weaving was associated with feminine virtues. A common gravestone epitaph for women was lanam fecit: she worked wool.

I wonder what ancient Romans would think of the internet and its ability to connect people. Perhaps they would be reminded of their system of roads which connected all the peoples of the Roman empire. If they looked at them on a map, perhaps it would appear to them like a net or a web, and they would refer to the internet using the same metaphors we use today.

Pax

Searching for a title of this post, I wanted to translate Ning into Latin, but I did not know where the name came from. Eventually I discovered it is the Chinese word for peace.

Our task this week was to search through the site Ning.com for Ning social network groups relevant to us as teachers.

A general complaint: I do not know as much history as I would like, and perhaps I am unfair in saying this, but Napoleon III has really made my life difficult. I discovered it was he who decided to refer to everything south of the United States "Latin America." It was essentially a little propaganda so that France could try to gain some imperial influence in there along with Spain and Portugal. Little did he know, that one day instructors of the Latin language would be searching the internet for resources and all they would find are sites about twentieth century politics and salsa and tango lessons.
I mention this because I had trouble finding Latin language sites on Ning. But I do not blame Ning. I blame Napoleon III because I have this problem all the time.

But even beyond this issue, I thought the Ning search function was a little problematic. Even when I entered topics less esoteric than Latin instruction, like using technology in the classroom, it seemed like a lot of unrelated Ning groups came up. I wonder if anyone else had trouble with the search feature?

I found two groups that were relevant to me as a Latin teacher: Schola and eClassics.


Schola is a Ning conducted entirely in Latin. All posts not in Latin are deleted. To be honest, it is a little intimidating. I am very good at parsing Latin grammar, understanding etymologies, translating ancient texts, discussing and teaching ancient Roman culture. However when it comes to Neo-Latin, and speaking and writing in Latin I am very weak. Navigating the whole site in Latin is intimidating. I am not sure I would recommend it to students in part because it is difficult to make sure your personal information is safe if you can not tell how much you are sharing. But I think this site could be a really great way for me to improve my Latin production skills. I had the opportunity to attend a spoken Latin conference this summer, and really enjoyed it. But instead of a once of year event, now I can use Latin for communication any time from my own computer.
NB: This site asks you to fill out some information, and then you will be emailed before you can belong to the group.

eClassics is a place for everyone interested in classics, although it is mostly teachers. It is not updated very regularly but people are responding to each others queries. People are sharing advice about teaching grammar, using mnemonic devices, different resources to use, even finding jobs. I especially like the videos that have been posted. Some, like the music videos in Latin, can be used in the classroom. Others are great tutorials for me as I try to include more inductive learning of grammar and spoken Latin.

Leges artificii

I have picked a piece from the NY Times Sunday Magazine Education Issue I cited last post, the article Achieving Techno-Literacy by Kevin Kelly. He discusses his experience home-schooling his son for a year, the role technology played, and the kinds of techno-literacy lessons he wanted to incorporate. Here's his list of some key ideas:

• Every new technology will bite back. The more powerful its gifts, the more powerfully it can be abused. Look for its costs.

Sometimes it's not just a problem of people not looking for the costs, it's that people accept them easily. Take cars for example. This technology contributes to 40,000 deaths every year in the US alone. That's almost like having a Vietnam war every year. I think about this a lot, but I still drive. Do you? Looking for costs is important, but it may not be enough.

• Technologies improve so fast you should postpone getting anything you need until the last second. Get comfortable with the fact that anything you buy is already obsolete.

I feel like this could be taught in a home economics course as well as a technology course. And could be taught to school administration. We have to think long term when we buy into new technologies, for ourselves or our schools.

• Before you can master a device, program or invention, it will be superseded; you will always be a beginner. Get good at it.

This might be my favorite one. "You will always be a beginner" is great advice for our age. Technology changes fast. Economies change fast. Even our climate is changing fast. Expert beginners are going to succeed no matter what the future has in store.

• Be suspicious of any technology that requires walls. If you can fix it, modify it or hack it yourself, that is a good sign.

A skill I sorely lack. Maybe it's just me, but it seems that its only my friends who profess computer geekdom who can modify the software and/or hardware that corporations put out for us. Perhaps I'm alone, but I feel any technological instruction I received failed to include a creative element. I learned to use the system, not create my own, or even understand the mechanics behind the system.

• The proper response to a stupid technology is to make a better one, just as the proper response to a stupid idea is not to outlaw it but to replace it with a better idea.

I wonder if this is like evolution. People think that natural selection somehow perfects living things. It doesn't. It creates organisms that are adapted enough to survive and reproduce. Improvement slows drastically after it reaches a bare minimum (except for the random chance of mutation). The same might be true with technology and ideas. Stupid technologies may persist if they're good enough to get by on. It could be very difficult for better technologies to succeed if people have adapted to the stupid ones. We should also look at the first rule to make sure that the costs of stupid technologies aren't costing us too much while we work on new technologies.

• Every technology is biased by its embedded defaults: what does it assume?

Yes! All technologies make assumptions about what we need, what we like, what's best for everyone. We are constantly taking them for granted. This is partly because our thinking is so flexible. We can adjust to their assumptions without realizing it. Keep alert and be critical!

• Nobody has any idea of what a new invention will really be good for. The crucial question is, what happens when everyone has one?

I bet our technology and social studies teachers could help us out here. Applications and effects of new inventions have often had unintended results. What examples from history could demonstrate this to our students?

• The older the technology, the more likely it will continue to be useful.

A close second for favorite tech-literacy lesson. I think we sometimes fail to respect the filter of time. The tried and true are just as relevant, or even more so, than the latest trend. But maybe that's just the classicist talking.

• Find the minimum amount of technology that will maximize your options.

Another lesson in frugality. Administrators (and any consumer) should plan ahead and think how to get the most bang for the buck.
And the more streamlined our technological resources are, the fewer unavoidable side effects we have to deal with: the fewer things to break, the fewer things to become obsolete, etc.

I found these literacy lessons relevant and interesting . They were broad enough to be applicable to all sorts of technologies and webtools, and they also required critical thinking skills.

Periodicum opportunum

NY Times Sunday Magazine Education Issue

I had forgotten that the Times does this every September, devotes a magazine solely to education. Fortunately for me and my classmates, this year their focus is technology and learning.

I have enjoyed what I have read so far. I may devote a future blog post to a specific article. For now, I simply wanted to share this with everyone. I would love to know what everyone else thinks is interesting. Happy reading!

Obstantia frustra est

The learner is like a Star Fleet captain. She has powerful tools at her disposal to aid her learning: a super computer with instant access to all collected knowledge in her quadrant of the galaxy, and a faster than light speed ship to take her wherever she needs to be to learn new things by direct discovery. She's a team player. Her crew is a community of talented, learned, creative individuals who are ready and able to contribute to the mission. Many of them are also good friends who provide the captain with social and emotional support. She's also part of an even larger network, the United Federation of Planets. She can be in touch with peoples from all different cultures, each with its own learning and perspective. They can inspire her and bring fresh insight to her own explorations.

But sometimes there are great challenges. A captain might find a species so strange and different from her own that the universal translator can no longer function. Her ship might fly through a spatial anomaly causing the engine to fail and subspace communication to go offline. Her crew might suddenly become infected with an alien virus. She might become stranded on an alien planet, separated from all her technological tools as well as her crew. Sometimes, she must make profound moral choices, and there is no one who can make them for her. A Star Fleet captain's work requires years of training, deep personal knowledge, the ability to reflect, flexibility, creativity, openness to others' ideas, communication skills, and self reliance. But she is prepared for any new encounter she must face.

Now many of you probably aren't sci-fi nerds, and you might not have seen much Star Trek. You may need a concrete example to better understand my metaphor. Let us consider my personal hero, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise.



The character is a true Renaissance man. Of course he can pilot a starship, conduct diplomatic negotiations between two warring planets, lead scientific research missions, and bring out the best in all of those serving under his command. That's just standard Star Trek captain stuff.
But Picard can also direct a Shakespeare play. He can read ancient Greek, speak English, French, Latin and Klingon. He sometimes publishes articles on xenoarchaeology. He can be your Cha'DIch in a Klingon trial. He sings Gilbert and Sullivan tunes. He can make wine. He can fence and ride horses. And his moral compass never fails.

He exemplifies what the Germans call selbst bildung, self-education. He is a lifelong learner, constantly developing his own well-rounded personal store of knowledge. And good thing too. When he's out exploring the final frontier and a crisis hits, more often than not he's on his own.

There was a time he was plugged into a vast learning network. Connections between nodes were never down. Aggregated information flowed freely. But that didn't go so well.


Picard was assimilated by the Borg, a collective of cybernetic organisms who travel through the galaxy assimilating peoples and their whole cultural knowledge. This destroys all individuality in the process of course, and the Borg don't mind killing a lot of people to get the job done.
Picard became Locutus of Borg. He no longer could choose what to share, how to apply his knowledge. Everything he knew, everything he experienced, everything he was became part of the collective and was used to kill hundreds of Federation citizens.

Since I've already given away so much of the episode I don't feel bad telling you that in the end his fellow officers find a way to disconnect him from the Borg and remove his cybernetic implants. It took him a long time to heal emotionally from the experience but he does recover. He goes on to be a brilliant Star Fleet captain through four more seasons and four feature films.

*****

Our class read an article by George Siemens, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age.I do agree with some of his theses. Yes, the "ability to see connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill." Sometimes people keep specializing and specializing and stop seeing the connections. It's the connections that illuminate knowledge. The connections make information relevant and meaningful.
I also agree with what he says in his video The Impact of Social Learning Software on Learning: “It really boils down to our ability to have a dialogue with other individuals. And when we have that dialogue, we ourselves grow in our knowledge, and we grow in our own understanding and our own ideas sometimes." I know I've experienced that in my own learning. Communication forces us to articulate what we mean. Dialectic with those who have more knowledge, or with those who disagree with us can teach us so much more than we can learn on our own. There are tremendous benefits to being an active member of a community of learners. As teachers, we have to teach our students effective communication skills, provide a place where dialogue can take place, and direct our students toward other forums where this knowledge is happening.

And yet,
there is so much that I disagree with. One quote in the article really bothered me:
"The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe."

On a literal level, I fundamentally disagree. I care very much whether the water coming out of my pipes is safe and pure. No fancy faucet fixture is going to make me OK with drinking toxic contaminants.

And on a metaphorical level, I can't help but think of the Borg. Their organizational effectiveness is flawless. Their efficiency unparalleled. Their "pipes" are perfect.
Captain Picard was sometimes less connected to new developments than I am today. I'm updated by Facebook, and podcasts, and news sites about all sorts of events, and can comment on them on Facebook or my blog immediately, while Picard has a lot of debriefing to do when he returns from remote corners of the galaxy. But it was OK to be disconnected. He could focus on one job at a time and use his full concentration. He wasn't constantly distracted when he had to save the ship or make an ethical decision.
As Locutus he was completely connected. The millions of voices of the collective were always with him. The group knew so much more than he could ever know as an individual. But what came down the "pipes" of this process was significant. The collected knowledge, the constant updating, the efficiency and the connectivism of the Borg were used to perpetuate violence.

I think we can learn from the connectivist theory of learning. But I'd rather have a learner who may not always be up to date, but is unique, an autodidact, and can think and act for herself regardless of her situation.

Doctrina futura

For my class on educational webtools, we were given links to several videos about education and technology. Watching them was in a way a difficult task. As I mentioned before, learning about technology and teaching makes me realize I have all these luddite prejudices when it comes to education.

I know there's a personal element. I bristle at calls to bring the internet in the classroom because I often lament afternoons, nights, days lost surfing and searching the web with very little to show for it. And I also recall my most memorable learning experiences: discussing a short story with our desks pulled around in a circle with my favorite English teacher, dissecting a fish and getting to stay late so that we could try to remove the brain, barefoot nature walks identifying trees by their bark in environmental science, pulling up a chair in my Greek professor's office with nothing but a text and a large dictionary between us, studying for a psychology final with a good friend sitting half buried in our notes. When I hear criticism of education, calling it useless because it doesn't involve modern media, I feel all the beautiful moments that make me want to be a teacher and a life-long learner are being belittled.

But even when I try to be more objective, I find connections between advocates for technology in the classroom and the manifestos of Futurists and the like. The Futurists were an Italian (and Russian, I believe) art movement. They took "out with the old, in with the new" to its extreme. Nothing old was worth saving, only the fastest and newest technologies were worthwhile.

I actually think their art is very interesting. Here's Boccioni's Dynamism of a Soccer Player currently located at the MoMA in NYC.

And at the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo you can see this example, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash.

While I like their art, philosophically they supported the violence that came with technological advancement. The movement ended when the jingoistic among them were killed during World War I.

Note well. I am in no way saying that people who promote digital learning are violent or pro-war. I think people consistently cite technology as a way to bring people together for cooperation and I support them in their efforts, 100%.

But when I watch these videos, like Did you know? with its almost ominous background music, many of them describe the rise and economic development of India and China, shortly before or after discussing the uncertain job market of today's students. When you combine that with a call for the fastest, newest, best technologies, doesn't it sound like a competition? My question is, is it a healthy competition?

*****

One video stood out to me:
Educational Change Challenge by educator and blogger Darren Cannell.

When he discusses technology and learning, he talks about it in terms of "understanding student culture." I like this anthropological approach. To effectively communicate with our students, we have to be able to use their cultural tools. We have to do what anthropologists call "participant observation." With the spirit of Terrence's sentiment

Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto
I'm a human: I reckon nothing of humanity is strange to me

you learn the culture by doing it.

It's like being able to speak a second language. The more I learn about current practices of remixing and sampling of art and media, like the millions of montages on youtube created by kids just like our students, the better I can explain Roman poetry and art.

No, really.

Romans often took older works, sometimes Roman sometimes Greek, and took their conventions, language style, and even direct quotes for use in their own poetry. Classical scholars refer to it as "intertext." And Roman sculpture recombined elements of native Italic, Classical Greek, and Hellenistic Greek sculpture, and mixed and matched all the different elements for different effects. 19th and 20th century scholars took this to mean that Romans weren't as clever or creative as the Greeks because they couldn't come up with their own ideas. Sometimes I think this idea still holds in standard social studies curricula. But today we're realizing that the Romans saw this as the peak of artistry: to take something beautiful that has stood the test of time, like Homeric epic or Polykleitos' sculpture, master their technique, and then strive to make it even better.

I think this stuff is fascinating, and if I learn about contemporary examples of remakes and remixes that my students are listening to, or watching, or probably making for themselves, I'm going to be better equipped to demonstrate the relevance of Latin and Roman cultural studies to my students.

Colloquia utilia et gaudia

How many of you have seen a TED talk before? I can't remember where I first heard of them, but they're conferences at which some of the best thinkers and creators of our time come to talk. The videos of their lectures are then posted for free on www.ted.com You can find lectures on so many topics: technology, morality, economics, chaos theory, art, education, biology, entertainment, psychology, I could go on. Even if you can't find one specifically for classroom use, you'll be able to find one that informs you professionally or inspires you personally.

This weekend I found one for the math teachers. Useful to all teachers of course, but this one is particularly about how math needs a make-over

I found it fascinating because his presentation basically throws the whole idea of scaffolding out the window, and in a way I'm convinced. Obviously patient problem solving and general mathematical reasoning are their own skill sets, but I think we can all learning something from him. Maybe more help isn't what are students need, just more engaging tasks and more time to practice them.

I also found Dan Meyer's blog It seems to be a way for him to discuss what he does in his class with others concerned with math education; it doesn't seem to be a class tool for his students. Reading the posts and the comments left by colleagues, I think he's created a very useful medium for himself. I particularly enjoyed the posts "WCYDWT: Dirt" (inspired by the film Holes) and "Making Multimedia Earn Its Keep"

de securitate et moribus

Mark Zuckerberg may think that privacy is no longer a social norm, and you may agree or disagree with him. But as teachers, the safety and personal security of the young adults and children in our classroom comes first. Even if in the future there were a radical shift in privacy norms, we have a duty to protect our students and, perhaps more importantly, teach them how to protect themselves when using the internet.

When it comes to safety rules and guidelines the more explicit the better. Don't be vague. Take time to discuss specific scenarios and practices with your students. When you say "be safe" students may have their own concept of what is safe practice that differs with what you and the school community believe is safe internet behavior. Be crystal clear.

I also think we should be clear about other practices becoming of responsible internet denizens. Perhaps it's quaint, but we as teachers may be in a position to help establish manners and etiquette in the digital age. Behind the anonymity that the internet provides, many creators of web content fail to employ social graces that create civil and meaningful discussion. This is no way a prejudice against the young. This is merely my own observation of and frustration with typical internet discourse. I think we have the right and the responsibility to insist on consistently respectful web communication. Or am I just old fashioned and overreacting?

Here are some guidelines I would insist on for my class. I look forward to reading the rules my fellow teachers have devised.

Personal Safety
#1- Students will keep personal information out of blog posts. This includes:
~ surname
~ phone number
~ home address
~ school name and address
~ the names of other local areas (e.g. don't use a blog post to plan a meeting at a library or coffee shop)
~ city
~ any other information that could help someone locate or contact you in person.
#2- Do not share digital personal information such as
~ usernames
~ passwords
~ links to other blogs or social networking sites that share any of your personal information.
#3- Students will report any comments posted by unknown parties that are disrespectful, suspicious or make you feel uncomfortable. When in doubt, tell your teacher or parents.
Computer Safety
#4- Students will not download or install any software without permission.
#5 -Students will not click on any ads.
Academic Honesty
#6- Students will not share their password and username with anyone except their teacher or parents.
#7- Students will not log on using the account of another student.
Respect and Courtesy
#8- Think of the class blog as a digital extension of the classroom. Do not post any links that are irrelevant to the task at hand. This includes any material inappropriate for school.
#9- Using the class blog, treat your teacher and fellow students in the same respectful manner you treat them in the physical classroom.
~ No name calling or put-downs.
~ No offensive language.
~ No comments that are prejudiced against people of different backgrounds (ethnicity, country of origin, race, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation).
~ Respect everyone's views; don't use any hurtful language even if you disagree.
~ All criticism should be constructive.

#10- Because this is a classroom project (and your teacher isn't always up to date on current lingo), minimize your use of internet abbreviations so that everyone can understand, and we continue to practice "school language" conventions.

~Please discuss these rules with your teacher if you have any questions.
~Anyone who fails to follows these rules will not be allowed to participate in our blog project.
~ All students and parents will read these rules before signing the permission slip below. All students will hand in the signed permission slip before taking part in the blog project.

Consilia

Salvete omnes! Welcome to my blog about teaching and learning Latin in the digital age.

In my graduate school class on internet resources and teaching second languages, we've read Blogs/Wikis/Podcasts and Other Powerful Webtools for Classrooms by Will Richardson. I found myself alternately frustrated and inspired by the initial chapters. I will be honest that I have a lot of reservations about using technology in the classroom. Perhaps I will share these reservations in more detail at a later time. Lest I get carried away with my feelings about the downsides of webtools and learning, I want to express my doubts as succinctly as my friends the Romans would. In all things, including technological tools, let us remember the golden mean:

Nihil nimis
Nothing in excess.

So let us move on to some of the potential uses of blogs in the Latin classroom.

#1- The Digital Bulletin Board
Latin and the culture of Latin speakers is all around us. It can appear in a weekly column in the New York Times On Language. It can appear in the BBC and in your own backyard. There are tasty morsels throughout the media, including digital media. To share these new discoveries, enriching our understanding of Latin language and culture, a blog might be just the thing. One of the benefits of the blogs is that students may share fascinating finds just as easily as the teacher can. Here we have a community where everyone learns together, as equals, outside the walls of the classroom.

#2- Summer Book Club
I need feedback from my fellow educators, to see if this is at all feasible. I don't wish to encroach on the territory of English teachers, but I think we might all fight the good fight to encourage independent reading.
You see, everyone tells me that learning Latin is so important because it helps your English vocabulary, which is absolutely true. However, and perhaps I shouldn't say this publicly lest I endanger my professional prospects, the best way to improve your English vocabulary (according to my own high school Latin teacher) is to read. Read. Just keep reading. All sorts of things. Dissecting a word, like an animal in a lab, is very educational. But how will you know its true nature unless you spend some time observing it in its natural habitat?
So I envisioned assigning students reading over the summer. Not a terrible burden, a historical fiction novel set in Rome or the middle ages, or perhaps a short Roman play translated into English. With a closed blog, students could respond to the novel, ask their fellow students questions, and respond to those questions, while still fulfilling family, work, travel and extracurricular summer obligations. The instructor would have the option of either using the blog as evidence of students' reading, or take part in the discussion as well.

#3- Extended Classroom
I've come to this teaching certification/Master's degree program and a most fortuitous time. I'm so lucky to be taking classes alongside several other preservice Latin teachers. Our needs and challenges are different than those of teachers of other subjects, and even of teachers of modern second languages. Collaboration with my fellow Latinists has been absolutely essential to my professional development and a tremendous pleasure.
With the connective power of the internet why should that collaboration end just because we've all gotten fabulous, well-paid jobs throughout NY state? As teachers, we could have our own blog and continue to share ideas, advice, and commiseration. Or our students could work on group projects together from separate geographic locations.

I look forward to hearing the comments of my classmates and fellow teachers. Until next post, valete!

VS