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by Bart Mertens,
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A very personal case study about ventures into 'ICT land', written by Bart Mertens (BE), a Flemish classics teacher.
Computers have been making my life as a teacher more easy since a few decades now. Word processors (first WordPerfect, later Word) made it more easy to prepare lessons and tests. We got rid of making corrections made on stencils an using Tipp-Ex on pages to be copied. Correcting mistakes, updating texts, ... the computer made all this a more easy task. With Lotus 1,2,3 and a bit later with Excel, management of marks and of the school agenda became much more easy and perhaps even more correct.
After some time internet became a real revelation as a source of inspiration with practically no limits also for teaching Latin. To walk the Forum Romanum it was not really necessary any more to take a plane, you could do so from behind your desk.
There is one question which I have always kept in mind: how will all this improve the way I teach? Can manuals and workbooks be replaced by the computer? What is the added value of working with a computer in the class room or used by the pupil at home?
A first eye opener, some 8 years ago, was the software "Overhoor". A very simple programme that made studying vocabulary much easier and more agreeable. The programme still exists (http://www.efkasoft.com/overhoor/overhoor.html) and is now also available in an English version. I made the software available for my pupils on a disk (a prehistoric device by now) together with a list of words they had to memorise. I got positive reactions, also from the parents who felt...it made life a bit easier as the computer was checking if lesson had been learned.
My research on the internet resulted is some more interesting discoveries. Almost ready made for use in my lessons. Cd-roms with poetry of Martialis and Catullus (http://www.mh2.dds.nl/latijn/logincat.htm) with annotations by Leon Hermann. Beautiful material enabling pupils to read texts autonomous and on their own ritme (differentiation).
But I wanted more. I wanted to manipulate those lessons myself: make my own selection of poems, don't give the translation immediately to the pupils but only after a few clicks... I dreamt of creating something along these lines myself.
The lessons worked via Internet explorer. How do you make such a thing? On the school computers FrontPages was installed. I could not master this myself so I took some in-service training on FrontPage. As an exercise I build my own website with materials for my pupils. I learned about the possibilities of Hot Potatoes (http://hotpot.uvic.ca/). And all of a sudden I found myself my own website with over one hundred exercises. The free webspace my provider offered was no longer enough and I was allowed to use a part of the school server to go along (www.bimsem.net/latijnict).
Hot Potatoes offered more and better opportunities to memorise words as compared to "Overhoor". It is an excellent tool to study vocabulary. Using the JMatch module you can make "drag and drop" exercises which stimulate pupils to think about the meaning of words. Using a well-reasoned guess pupils search for the exact meaning of new words. With the same module "flash"-cards can be made which are also useful to memorise new words. Words which are known can be removed.
Studying variations and conjugations is made easier with Hot Potatoes. With the “JCloze” module you can make exercises to fill in for all possible variations and conjugations. The is one major advantage compare with traditional “written” study methods: filling in must de done really carefully. One incorrect letter and the computer considers the answer as wrong: ideal to give pupils a feeling for accurateness! Moreover with these exercises the pupils also acquire computer skills (select, cut, copy, paste) while at the same time they get familiar with the different components of Latin words. With JQuiz you can make multiple choice questions and with JCross, crosswords. Although for both options there is better software available but that is not free. The last module JMix was a module I used seldom in the past because I saw no immediate use for my teaching of Latin. But apparently it is never too late.
In recent years, I only teached Latin in the first degree. In our school, because it is also a boarding school, there quite a few French speakers. I now use JMix to create exercises to learn them the correct way to make Dutch phrases. Even some of our Dutch learners can benefit. By starting from the Latin phrases, the correct number of possibilities for the formulation of a Dutch phrase is seriously curtailed.
It did not stop here. After developing the website and making all those Hot Potato Exercises on Bim-Sem, the school in Mechelen where I have tought more than 25 years, gradually introduced an electronic learning environment. Our school opted (because it is free) for Moodle. Again, I gradually learn the possibilities and limitations for teaching Latin. Where the exercises in the website are optional, you can integrate them into Moodle in such a way that they can be evaluated by the computer. You can see how long it takes a student to complete an exercise and what thier results are. Based on that can give them individualized tasks and track their progress. Through "programmed instruction" you can create questions which are closed (including multiple choice, short answers) or which are open. The first type of question is corrected by the computer (and also ask a very great accuracy of the pupils), the open questions, you must still assess yourself. Model solutions from the workbook and model translations of texts imagine available to your students from the moment can be made available from the moment you as a teacher consider appropriate. Done with the paperwork of correction keys ...
Because I have become more and more convinced of the usefulness of efficient computing in the classroom, I went looking to further expand my horizons. The training offered by CIRCE ( www.circe.be) in Oxford gave me that opportunity. In addition to the training itself (including PowerPoint, Photoshop, Director ...) I very much learned from the many contacts with my colleagues. You not only get to know interesting people, but also the things they are doing. One of the interesting projects was the work of Sebastiá Giralt. He presented his website ( http://www.xtec.cat/~sgiralt/ianua.htm) on classical antiquity. Especially the flash pages ( http://www.xtec.cat/~sgiralt/Mazes/flash/labflash.html) impressed me: the wandering of Odysseus and Aeneas visiualised and an animated historical atlas of the Roman history ( I think a very unique project) ... It was sliced bread for my students, only it was in Catalan. After my return, I again contacted Sebastiá and I made a Dutch translation ( http://www.xtec.cat/~sgiralt/Mazes/roma/roma_nl/roma_nl.htm). The Chiron group at Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/groups/chiron/) also presented in Oxford opened for me a rich treasure trove of photographs. It has more than 180 members and more than 11,000 photos all related to the Greco-Roman antiquity.
These are but a few observations about the theme of Latin and ICT.
What does the future has in stock? My website is in need of a thorough refresher turn. Through Internet research and continuous training, I always discover new possibilities. The (computer) technology does not stand still.
Bart Mertens
January 9, 2008
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With the support of the European Commission within the framework of the Socrates Comenius programme.