Tech Thursday March 25 Ronnie Ancona Enhancing Latin 201 with Instructor and Student Created Audio using Wimba Voice Tools

Part of 2009 FITT proposal Professor Ancona will use Wimba Voice Tools, a feature of Blackboard, to facilitate the audio recording of spoken Latin. Voice Tools provides an audio recorder that is integrated into Blackboard, making it easy to record audio and upload it to Blackboard. Professor Ancona will use Voice Tools to record herself speaking Latin and to have her students submit audio recordings of themselves speaking.Wimba Voice Tools

Latin 201 is a fourth semester intermediate-level Latin class in which students begin to study Latin poetry. The class involves the reading of selections from Ovid’s epic of connected tales, Metamorphoses, as well as the study of Latin meter. Students increase their reading knowledge of Latin through attention to issues of grammar, vocabulary, figures of speech, and meter, while learning to appreciate Ovid’s poetic techniques and the value of the Metamorphoses as literature.

Why record? Speaking and listening are skills essential (along with reading and writing) to language learning even for a “dead” (no longer natively spoken) language like Latin.

Students learn to: Pronounce Latin correctly Read the poetry metrically Read the poetry with sense and expression

My recording – the model Up-to-tempo reading Very slow meter-emphasizing reading to ease understanding of the meter Up-to-tempo reading for second time

Student reading After practice with reading slowly and carefully with attention to meter, students should record up-to-tempo and with expression.

Results Students have access through Blackboard on their own time to a model for reading Latin poetry. Increases opportunity to hear Latin read correctly and metrically. Allows for student to record him/herself, listen, erase, and rerecord, thus creating a better product through feedback. Product develops active aural and oral skills for understanding and appreciating Latin poetry. These complement and enhance the reading skill, which is primary for most Latin study.

How? I record through Wimba podcaster. Students record through Wimba Voice Board. Let’s demonstrate: –Beginning of my Daphne and Apollo recording –Two samples of student recordings (not final products – two guinea pigs who happily volunteered to record a tiny chunk weeks early)

Some Uses of These Techniques for Others Any foreign/second language class could use these tools for purposes similar to mine. In addition, instructor recordings could be used for practice dictation. Any English class could use these tools for student or instructor dramatic recorded readings. Recordings in English or in other languages could be played in class and critiqued. I’m sure you in the audience will think of uses for these techniques in your own teaching that I haven’t imagined yet…