Inspiration

My Inspiration experience was an interesting one. I definitely think that it's a useful classroom tool, and teachers should be versed in how to use it, but I'm not sure how I can use it efficiently in my classes. As you can see from the example I created above, classical studies is a bit more complicated than your average unit of study. That was the simplest web I could think of, and it's not even complete! I had to leave out several major gods simply because there wasn't room for them on the chart. And when I start to think of the Julio-Claudian family tree, the mind boggles. Grammar isn't much better--there are four conjugations, five declensions, and so many odd adjective forms that it makes seasoned Latinists want to scream. I fear that an Inspiration chart on any of these topics would be more likely to make students crazy than actually help them.

PodBean

PodBean could potentially be a great advantage for a foreign language class, even in Latin, where pronunciation isn't necessarily a priority. The ability to hear and translate Latin is just as important as the ability to see and translate Latin at the university level, and starting a student on spoken translation as soon as possible would place him or her at a great advantage. I could also have a class make podcasts of their reading for the week to check on their progress in learning to pronounce, which would also be to their advantage. I can't think of a lot more uses for it in a Latin class, since most of what we do is light in conversation and heavy in written work, but those two options would be enough in themselves.

Digital Scavenger Hunt

Picasa Slideshow

Picnik and Smilebox

Picknik is likely to be a 2.0 tool that I use a great deal, both personally and in the classroom. I really like to have a good photo-editing tool, and while the Windows version isn't terrible, it doesn't hold a candle to Picnik. The ability to spice up a photo can be essential for a class, especially for teachers using simple Powerpoints or other basic tools that might not be particularly stimulating visually.

Smilebox, meanwhile, isn't quite my thing. Although I might find the invitation, newsletter, and greeting templates fairly useful, I prefer to let photos speak for themselves most of the time, and I very much prefer physical representations of photo albums and scrapbooks to digital ones. I might assign my students a newsletter format presentation, for example, but I feel that I would be unlikely to use it regularly in the classroom.

Wordle and Timetoast

Wordle is an amazing tool for finding themes and major characters in a writing sample. If I were an English teacher, I would have my students use this tool all the time. And although I could theoretically use Wordle with Latin classes, I noticed a potential problem when I pasted some Latin text into the creator box. Latin words actually change spelling based on where they're placed in a sentence--nouns and adjectives change form when they change case. When I created my Latin Wordle based on a sample from the Latin historian Tacitus, I saw the name of the same barbarian king listed several times as key words, simply in different forms. So although I could still probably use this tool for simpler Latin sentences, as soon as I get into subordinate clauses and the like, the Wordle would probably be too cluttered with different cases of the same word.

I've found myself extremely disappointed in Timetoast, a tool that I thought I could use a great deal in the classroom. Since a large part of Latin literature depends on a knowledge of Roman history, I was hoping that my class could create timelines about major events in the periods that we read about. Unfortunately, though, Timetoast does not allow users to post events that fall between 100 BCE and 100 CE, which is a major time of change in the Roman world. Again, I'm extremely put out by this turn of events, because I absolutely love the idea of this tool. Hopefully, though, I may be able to find a similar one that works better.

Delicious and Glogster

Before Firefox decided to stop supporting the Google toolbar, I used Google bookmarks religiously. My ability to access my bookmarks from any computer was a real plus. As far as I can tell, Delicious is almost exactly the same, except that a lot of websites have a Delicious link so that people don't even have to go to the trouble of the major bookmark organization process immediately. Even better is the ability to follow others' stacks. Now I don't have to build a bunch of categories on my own; I can use the stacks of other Delicious users to help me! I think I can definitely say that Delicious will be one of my new homepages.

Glogster, I have to say, didn't impress me as much. Although the look of Glogs may be more original than that of traditional blogs, there isn't much appeal for me in the blogging tools in general (and I do realize the irony of this). I can say, however, that if I should assign my students a project that would require a presentation tool, I will think of Glogster. The format would likely be very appealing for high school students, and if this medium is more likely to engage them in their work, I'm all for it.