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.