by Marc Knecht, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

I should like to explain here how I use the computer generally, and how in particular, I came to see a use for PowerPoint as a tool for teaching. To start with, I saw no attraction for a Classics teacher in computer technology, but I came eventually to realise that it can add value to education, if only because Latin students do not always associate their studies with the use of the computer: they are surprised to see a link between ancient studies and the modern world. This surprise is taken a step further when they see that their teacher has dipped a toe in the ICT water. In fact, all aspects of our work can be enhanced by this combination, perhaps especially motivation.

I should like to help any of you reading this to put behind you any anxiety you may have about using the computer. The computer is not something terrible but a useful medium: we can use it to fill the heads of our students with relevant knowledge, things we ourselves find useful and which have helped to make us what we are. Once I used to rant and rave about computers in front of my classes, but now I see the futility of this and I use PowerPoint presentations with conviction, as part of my teaching programme. The worm has turned.

In my own ICT quest, all I needed was a son who patiently broke down my resistance, who spent time with me as I played with his first computer (bought with his own carefully saved cash, since I had steadfastly refused to help in the investment). In a short space of time, I was convinced.

For me, it all started with word-processing. I used WordPerfect, which seems to me much more accommodating than Word (even Bill Gates admitted that Word is a difficult Word-processor to use, in 2003). It was really quite simple to update and revise my course materials now, after once having to do everything in long hand.

Gradually I became interested in inserting images into my new, digital lesson materials. I was very proud of this to start with (always a child at heart) and I suspected that my students would enjoy seeing the images at home, which they had seen in class as slides, projected on a screen. Any absent students would also be able to catch up on the cultural materials used in the lessons. The early attempts were fraught with problems as I struggled manfully, manipulating images, photocopying, printing and spending a fortune on ink cartridges. There had to be an easier way, though it was to be a few years before I found it, by accident, naturally.

In 1999 a 'multicultural day' was held at school (what a great way of spending time!) when a colleague appeared holding a digital camera. She took pictures of the various multicultural activities and finally shot off to the office computer once her disk was full. I followed her, and with beating heart I saw the images appear which she had just taken. They came up on screen, were saved with appropriate file names and inserted into the mock newspaper which the final years students were working on at the time. I saw my chance: taking pictures and using them to support course development! Course content could be given to students digitally, so they could print it out for themselves in colour!

A month later, I went off to Rome with 100 disks, the school's digital camera and a group of students. The group had endless patience with my new obsession - a new, digital Rome - and they worked in groups to block the way as I tried to shoot a fountain or a monument. A non-Latinist in the group asked me what I was going to do with the pictures: I explained that I wanted to use them as part of my course development. He then asked me why I wasn't using PowerPoint. I thought he was pulling my leg, because I hadn't heard of PowerPoint and because the others sitting around the table were starting to laugh, but he assured me that he was serious.

In our Sorrento hotel resided a computer with PowerPoint 97 installed on it and the student gave me a demonstration: inserting images, resizing, cropping, then inserting text. Once again I was sold on technology, this time on PowerPoint. I know, I am easily persuaded: I am a man.

I was, however, a little disappointed with the quality of the first 2227 images of Rome and the Bay of Naples. These were around 50,000 bytes each in size and grainy when inserted into PowerPoint. In 2000 I was able to borrow a much better digital camera which created much better quality images. These were around 200,000 bytes in size and the camera had a 16x zoom lens. I was able to use this for a couple of years in various trips to Italy, and then eventually I bought my own digital camera. Now I can produce excellent images at around 500,000 bytes for my PowerPoint work.

These days, all my secondary level classes receive their materials for the coming school year in September. They all get a CD-ROM to take home with them with a label, illustrated by an image taken from the course materials, and the jewel case also has an insert with images printed on it. I hope to motivate the students through using a medium which they are at home with, in the hope that their understanding and knowledge of morphology, syntax and style will grow by using the computer. All of this makes reading Latin easier, for set text work and unseen translations.

Each text we study on a course has been developed with text analysis in PowerPoint. From this, they can call up information about vocabulary, verb ending analysis, morphology, syntax (within the chosen sentence) and style. They can also attempt to answer questions about the text and complete extension exercises, where cultural aspects can be developed and references can be illustrated, sometimes by reference to the Fine Arts. I have been more than satisfied to see my students develop skills of interpretation and understanding about Rome and the Roman world. This has certainly supported their textual studies. I am a happy man.