I am applying for a Mellon Teaching with Technology Fellowship for the summer of 1998 to develop an on-line workbook that will accompany *The Millionaire's Dinner Party* by M. G. Balme, a widely-used textbook in intermediate Latin which is an adaptation of part of the *Satyricon* of Petronius.
The workbook, on which I have already begun preliminary work, consists of vocabulary drills, grammatical explanations, pre-reading activities, cultural information, and ancillary materials (including grammar paradigms, integration of software already available at Southwestern, a bibliography, and glossaries). The completed workbook will be posted on the web and feature links to other sources for the study of Latin language and culture. Students will be able to work at their own pace and will submit exercises electronically, receiving immediate feedback. These exercises may also be displayed to the class as a whole, thus facilitating collaborative learning. The workbook will be available to colleagues and students at other ACS institutions, and I will eagerly solicit feedback from them.
Technical Support From the ACS Office
I will seek the assistance of Dr. Suzanne Bonefas, who as a classicist will be a wonderful resource for the project. She will be able to assist me not only by offering technical advice but also by providing feedback related to design and layout, as well as by suggesting links to other important Classics sites.
Technical Requirements of the Project
I will need FileMaker Pro 3.0 to maintain a database of vocabulary and glossary entries, WEB FM to broadcast that database information on the web, page-creating software, access to a server which can run CGI scripts, and a computer.
Institutional Support
Many of the technical requirements of the project have already been met. I have a desktop computer and access to a server, and, although our ITS personnel have not yet instituted CGI support, such support is currently projected for the Spring semester of 1998. In the realm of software, I have both Adobe PageMill and Claris Home Page. I currently need FileMaker Pro 3.0 and WEB FM. FileMaker Pro 4.0 is slated to include the capability of broadcasting database information to a web site, and thus WEB FM will be unnecessary when this version is released.
I also have expert help in the person of Ms. Virginia Lewis, the director of our Language Learning Center. With her nationally-recognized expertise in language technology pedagogy and her experience as a classroom teacher, she will be able to offer not only technical assistance but, even more importantly, valuable insights for development and design.
Integration of the Project Into the Curriculum
I will teach Latin III, which satisfies part of the language requirement and also part of the requirements for the Latin or Classics major or minor, in Fall, 1998. I will use the on-line workbook to supplement in-class work and give students the opportunity to review grammar, drill vocabulary, and prepare the readings on their own. The interactive exercises will also give students immediate feedback that will help them identify their strengths and weaknesses.
My colleague, Dr. Halford W. Haskell, is teaching Latin III this fall, which is a fortuitous anomaly since he normally does not teach this course. He is thus in an excellent position to field-test various elements of the workbook as they become available in a preliminary version. He declares that, in his view, the workbook has "tremendous potential" for intermediate students of Latin.
Mechanism for Assessment
In addition to the regular course evaluation, I will solicit from my students a specific evaluation of the workbook and its usefulness via a form to be turned in anonymously. I will also compare student performance on final examinations from previous semesters to student performance this semester, when they will have used the workbook. Finally, since the workbook will be on the web, I will also solicit comments from my Classicist colleagues at other ACS colleges, many of whom already use *The Millionaire's Dinner Party* in their courses.
Enhancement of the Applicant's Teaching
The electronic workbook will allow more class time to be devoted to appreciation of the cultural and literary value of the text, since students will be able to review grammatical material independently. Such cultural and literary analysis is the truly intellectual part of a course, where students and teacher interact with and learn from each other. This is the kind of collaborative learning in which we need and want to be engaged in our classes, and it is one of the characteristics students look for in a small liberal-arts college. Another advantage of independent student review is that it will allow me to work with students individually and to tailor the course to their specific needs.
Enhancement of Student Learning
Students of all levels of competency desire grammatical reinforcement in their second-year Latin courses. Moreover, students of any language come to their second year of college study with widely varying backgrounds. They appreciate systematic review of grammatical material, yet at this level class time is better devoted to discussion of the cultural insights provided by the text as well as its intrinsic literary value. Fortunately, students at this level are familiar enough with Latin grammar to be able to review successfully on their own. The interactive exercises in the electronic workbook, with their immediate feedback, will facilitate this review.
Another common characteristic of second-year language classes is a diminution of students' initial enthusiasm as they sense the approaching fulfillment of their language requirement. This enthusiasm is renewed, however, when students know that their instructor is using cutting-edge materials in his or her classroom. The on-line workbook will fuel this enthusiasm.
*The Millionaire's Dinner Party* is a great read, and it does offer good post-reading questions and activities. Nevertheless, it benefits from being supplemented by pre-reading activities, vocabulary exercises, and the grammatical explanations and drills contained in the electronic workbook.
Plan for Evaluation
See above.
Dissemination of the Results to Colleagues at Other ACS Institutions
The workbook will be posted on the web and will be fully available to colleagues at other ACS institutions for use in their own classes. I will actively solicit their feedback.
Consultation with Other ACS Faculty
I wish to consult with Dr. Kenny Morrell of Rhodes College, who has a great deal of expertise in using WEB FM to organize and maintain web pages. He will be able to help me get up to speed on learning the program and using it to turn exercises into interactive forms and to link vocabulary, paradigms, and grammar explanations to other on-line resources. In addition, he has offered space on his server for the workbook in case my institution finds itself unable to support CGI scripting.
http://www.southwestern.edu/~carlg/French_Web/maison.html