Mallory led me to an edublog called "Hurricane Maine" that I thought was worth exploring, not least of all because it had a section on technology. I really wanted to focus in on the tech aspect of this exploration of edublogging, as separate from my content areas. In the tech section, I found a post containing a video by Larry Rosenstock of High Tech High School, in which, among other things, he talks about teaching by means of computer/video games.
Rosenstock's take on it is that there has to be some value in it, as kids are so highly motivated to play the games, despite the adversity they offer the gamer. However, from there he proceeds to say that the only games that kids in his school are allowed to play are ones that they themselves develop at the school, and that are non-violent and educational. Here is my response (which is in the approval process, and I suppose may or may not appear on the site, especially since I biffed and misspelled Rosenstock's name! Oops):
"Thanks for this post. I have come across other materials concerning learning through video games, and I am interested in the idea.
"Below is my transcript of what Rosenstock says about this topic in this video. He says it after observing that kids will sit for hours and days playing video/computer games in which there are many setbacks and disappointments, playing on and on nevertheless. Here's what he says: "…isn’t there something that we can take away from that pedagogically, if we were to change the nature of the transaction? Um, and so there’s a lot of opportunity there. So, at High Tech High, from the beginning, we’ve said that you can’t play video games unless you made them here, and they can’t be violent, and they have to be educational." "I want kinds, again, producing not consuming; I want kids making, making those things."
"I'm really glad he brought up the topic, but I wish he had gone into more detail. I wonder a number of things, such as: what does he consider "educational"; and what does "violent" mean, exactly. I have a suspicion that games that fit his rubric of what is educational and that are also cleansed of all kinds of conflict that he might consider violent might seem a tad dull, especially to boys. I'm pretty sure that every video game I ever enjoyed (I am male) involved some kind of violence, whether a less intense, cartoonish kind, or a more realistic kind.
"Finally, I understand his desire that the games be created at the school, as this involves the kids in producing, not just "consuming." However, it seems to me that this approach might be quite limiting. What level of programming would really take place? Would it satisfy the students' hankerings for the sophisticated kind of programming they are used to outside of school? Why not satisfy both objectives by allowing the kids to employ outside-produced games that are both highly sophisticated and extremely customizable, and so allow for a lot of user input and creativity? Surely games that prioritize children’s personalization and in-game creativity shouldn’t be dismissed as strictly “consumption.”
"I think that by disallowing games that have been produced by professionals with many years of development under their belts, not to mention degrees, or for that matter games that might be produced by, say, educators, we may perhaps be fatally limiting what is available to the kids. I say "fatally" because the effort to introduce gaming to kids as Rosenstock suggests sounds, with all due respect, like it might be slightly DOA. I wish he had said something that would prove otherwise.
"I am very interested in the topic, but I don’t know that I want to embrace his limitations." [End of comment]
It's also not the most glowing response, however much it's an honest representation of my reaction, so we'll see if it makes it.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Sticking my Toe into the Classics Edublogosphere
The syllabus asked that we reflect in our blog about our reaction to a particular edublogger’s post. We are also supposed to post at least one response to a posting by an edublogger, either on his/her blog or on Twitter. I thought I would blog, here, about both my reaction to an edublogger’s post, and about my response to it.
The site I chose to focus on had much to do with my main content area, Latin. It is called eLatin eGreek eLearn (http://eclassics.ning.com/). I found it after a lot of searching one night back in July. I don’t know if it technically meets the criteria of an “edublogger” site, but it was one of the best sites I could find in my discipline. It is much more than just a place to blog. It’s more like a classics nexus where people can: establish groups focused on shared areas of interest; chat; originate and engage in discussion threads; post videos and pictures; and more. The site was not established by an educator, per se, but by the Director of eLearning at Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Andrew Reinhard (Bolchazy-Carducci produces a lot of texts and tools for classical studies). Incidentally, in his profile (http://eclassics.ning.com/profile/amasis), Andrew says that we can also find him “on World of Warcraft on the Feathermoon realm as Philabovis, the affable level 80 Tauren hunter and leader of the Carpe Praedam (Latin Language) guild.” (One inside joke, here, is that Philabovis means roughly “bull-lover”, and Taurens look like minotaurs.) Also incidentally, he has been gathering signatures so that Blizzard Entertainment might port World of Warcraft to Greek and Latin. Gee would love this guy!
The blog post that I chose to respond to was actually by a member. Many members are teachers and professors (in fact I found one of my former professors there and we have “friended” each other on the site), but the fellow to whom I responded is not a teacher yet. He is an M.A. student in “2nd-6th Century Jewish studies, Hebrew/Aramaic” who says he can “speak Latin in a stumbling manner.” His post was about 19th century translations of the so-called “Imperfect” tense in Latin, and how they go about trying to differentiate it from the “Perfect” in translation. Trying to stay within the parameters of his post, I responded with a grammar-bookish post using a 19th century Latin grammar as my source, namely Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar. This was my maiden blog out in the real “blogosphere,” and I was blogging under my own name, so I was being extra cautious; I double checked everything, spell-checked, and made sure that I could back up what I said. In the end, I have to say, I felt pretty good about my post.
Then, the next morning, Laura Gibbs commented. She teaches “online courses in mythology and folklore at the University of Oklahoma” (says her profile), and Greek and Latin are her “hobbies.” Steering things immediately away from the dusty 19th century grammar books, she boldly stated that “we need a Latin grammar that is actually based on linguistic science, rather than forcing Latin to look like English” and “[i]nventing non-categories like ‘historical perfect’” [something I mentioned in my post] “in order to justify the choices we make when translating Latin into English…” She continued to explain that, since Latin descends from Indo-European, “which was a language system stronger on aspect than on tense”, Latin should be taught in such a way that the aspectual characteristics of verbs receive more attention. Her post got significantly more technical from there.
Now, I have to say, in some ways, I think I agree with her, insofar as I am knowledgeable enough to do so, but even up through my M.A. in Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin) at Wayne, we didn’t delve into Indo-European linguistics much. What she says has the ring of truth to it, based on my understanding of ancient Greek, but it did kind of leave me feeling a bit deflated and slightly adrift. Am I missing the boat since I haven’t studied linguistics and this Indo-European aspectual background of Latin more in depth? Would it allow me to make things clearer to high school students trying to understand Latin grammar by means of endless lists of bookish sounding terms, essentially unchanged since their being fleshed out in the 19th century grammar books? After all, it would be more consistent with how many of us understand ancient Greek. I do suspect that an aspectually-based understanding of Latin verb usages might be simpler, but I don’t know if a grammar based on this method exists. If it does, it certainly isn’t standard.
In the end, I think that this post, and Laura Gibbs' sophisticated answer to it, planted a seed for me. I will be on the lookout for ways to inform my own understanding of the Indo-European backdrop to Latin and Greek (to the degree that it has been reliably reconstructed, since we have no actual remnants of this theoretical language), so that I can improve my own understanding of both Latin and Greek grammar in a comparative linguistic way…oh, in my spare time. I guess that will have to be my “hobby.”
The site I chose to focus on had much to do with my main content area, Latin. It is called eLatin eGreek eLearn (http://eclassics.ning.com/). I found it after a lot of searching one night back in July. I don’t know if it technically meets the criteria of an “edublogger” site, but it was one of the best sites I could find in my discipline. It is much more than just a place to blog. It’s more like a classics nexus where people can: establish groups focused on shared areas of interest; chat; originate and engage in discussion threads; post videos and pictures; and more. The site was not established by an educator, per se, but by the Director of eLearning at Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Andrew Reinhard (Bolchazy-Carducci produces a lot of texts and tools for classical studies). Incidentally, in his profile (http://eclassics.ning.com/profile/amasis), Andrew says that we can also find him “on World of Warcraft on the Feathermoon realm as Philabovis, the affable level 80 Tauren hunter and leader of the Carpe Praedam (Latin Language) guild.” (One inside joke, here, is that Philabovis means roughly “bull-lover”, and Taurens look like minotaurs.) Also incidentally, he has been gathering signatures so that Blizzard Entertainment might port World of Warcraft to Greek and Latin. Gee would love this guy!
The blog post that I chose to respond to was actually by a member. Many members are teachers and professors (in fact I found one of my former professors there and we have “friended” each other on the site), but the fellow to whom I responded is not a teacher yet. He is an M.A. student in “2nd-6th Century Jewish studies, Hebrew/Aramaic” who says he can “speak Latin in a stumbling manner.” His post was about 19th century translations of the so-called “Imperfect” tense in Latin, and how they go about trying to differentiate it from the “Perfect” in translation. Trying to stay within the parameters of his post, I responded with a grammar-bookish post using a 19th century Latin grammar as my source, namely Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar. This was my maiden blog out in the real “blogosphere,” and I was blogging under my own name, so I was being extra cautious; I double checked everything, spell-checked, and made sure that I could back up what I said. In the end, I have to say, I felt pretty good about my post.
Then, the next morning, Laura Gibbs commented. She teaches “online courses in mythology and folklore at the University of Oklahoma” (says her profile), and Greek and Latin are her “hobbies.” Steering things immediately away from the dusty 19th century grammar books, she boldly stated that “we need a Latin grammar that is actually based on linguistic science, rather than forcing Latin to look like English” and “[i]nventing non-categories like ‘historical perfect’” [something I mentioned in my post] “in order to justify the choices we make when translating Latin into English…” She continued to explain that, since Latin descends from Indo-European, “which was a language system stronger on aspect than on tense”, Latin should be taught in such a way that the aspectual characteristics of verbs receive more attention. Her post got significantly more technical from there.
Now, I have to say, in some ways, I think I agree with her, insofar as I am knowledgeable enough to do so, but even up through my M.A. in Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin) at Wayne, we didn’t delve into Indo-European linguistics much. What she says has the ring of truth to it, based on my understanding of ancient Greek, but it did kind of leave me feeling a bit deflated and slightly adrift. Am I missing the boat since I haven’t studied linguistics and this Indo-European aspectual background of Latin more in depth? Would it allow me to make things clearer to high school students trying to understand Latin grammar by means of endless lists of bookish sounding terms, essentially unchanged since their being fleshed out in the 19th century grammar books? After all, it would be more consistent with how many of us understand ancient Greek. I do suspect that an aspectually-based understanding of Latin verb usages might be simpler, but I don’t know if a grammar based on this method exists. If it does, it certainly isn’t standard.
In the end, I think that this post, and Laura Gibbs' sophisticated answer to it, planted a seed for me. I will be on the lookout for ways to inform my own understanding of the Indo-European backdrop to Latin and Greek (to the degree that it has been reliably reconstructed, since we have no actual remnants of this theoretical language), so that I can improve my own understanding of both Latin and Greek grammar in a comparative linguistic way…oh, in my spare time. I guess that will have to be my “hobby.”
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