Panel title: Classics, Computers, and
Pedagogy
Organizer: William A. Johnson
Sponsored by: Committee on Computer
Activitie
List of Participants
#1. Ross Scaife, University of Kentucky. Diotima,
in Practice and in Theory.
#2. Kenny Morrell, Rhodes College. Technology,
Collaboration, and the Small College
Consortium.
#3. Suzanne Bonefas, Associated Colleges of the South.
MOO: Virtual Spaces and
Collaborative Learning.
#4. Andrew Wiesner, University of Pennsylvania.
The Vergil Project: A Case Study
in Early Internet Scholarship.
Classics, Computers, and Pedagogy
With this panel, the Committee
on Computer Activities (CCA) continues its series of
thematic sessions focusing on the intellectual challenges
and opportunities made possible by technological
developments. For the 1996 convention, we wish to direct
attention to intellectual issues surrounding the use of
technology in pedagogy.
Last year's well-attended (ca. 90 participants)
session on "Classics and the Internet" spawned a series
of conversations, beginning with the public discussion
following the papers and continuing to this day. Several
members of the audience were struck by the ways in which
the technology of the Internet might be used to help with
the problems of teaching Classics in small programs. A
direct consequence has been the creation of the Classics,
Teaching, and Technology Subcommittee of the CCA, a
group of people working actively to promote progress in
this area. Since the December meetings, the subcommittee
has set up an electronic
list for the sharing of problems and collaborative
proposals, has established a web site for dissemination
of information such as syllabi, and is formulating an NEH
grant to support a group of Classicists in small programs
who are interested in exploring how distance learning
technologies might be used to enhance the learning
experience.
In hindsight it was then perhaps inevitable that the
proposed focus of the 1996 panel would be the impact of
technology on pedagogy. The panel will try to accomplish
two goals. First, we wish to give the membership an
overview of some exciting recent work in the area of
computers and pedagogy. Panelists will draw on their own
experiences and expertise to discuss a representative
array of new technological applications. Practical
discussion will range from the use of virtual classroom
technologies (Panelist #2), to collaborative internet
sites designed to embrace students of Classics far beyond
the academy (Panelists #1 and #4), to the use of
technology in facilitating collaboration among Classics
teachers (Panelist #3). But our second, and more
important, goal is to promote a conversation that goes
beyond practical acquaintance with data and software, and
tries to grapple with more difficult and fundamental
issues. Thus Panelist #3 will speak to the ways in which
the potential of electronic collaboration begins to
challenge the traditional organization of Classics
departments; Panelists #2 and #4 will talk about how the
use of technology can redefine the ways in which we
interact with students; and Panelist #1 will talk about
how a collaborative, electronic, and ever-changing
product can be at odds with traditional concepts of
research and pedagogy, with obviously problematic
implications for faculty promotion and tenure. We hope,
in short, to foster a thoughtful discussion of the
potentially fundamental impact of technology on the
relations between teachers and students, teachers and
teachers, teachers and institutions.
The Committee has formulated the panel both through a
public call for papers and through private solicitation
of people known to be working in this area. All abstracts
were submitted directly to me and refereed anonymously by
the members of the committee. Note that we did not
formulate the panel by ranking the papers and accepting
the top five or six. Rather, I asked the committee to
judge submission on the single criterion of excellence.
Only those papers judged excellent by a plurality of the
committee, and not judged poor by anyone on the
committee, were accepted. Papers judged neither poor nor
excellent were rejected. As it happens, the four
abstracts which make up this panel were all unanimously
judged excellent by the Committee. As you read on, I
think you will see why. The happy balance among the paper
topics is fortuitous.
(1) Diotima, in Practice and in Theory (Ross
Scaife, University of Kentucky). Panelist #1, a principal
in the collaborative web site known as Diotima: Materials
for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World,
will give a practical assessment of the collaborative use
of internet technology, and will speak more broadly to
the question of the relationship between such work and
traditional notions of scholarship and pedagogy.
(2) Technology, Collaboration, and the Small
College Consortium (Kenny Morrell, Rhodes College).
Panelist #2, a member of a small program participating in
a local consortium, will discuss both theoretical and
practical aspects of the consortium's efforts to use
technology to improve richness of resources and
curricular offerings, with special focus on how such
technological collaboration may affect the traditional
definition of Classics and Classics departments.
(3) MOO: Virtual Spaces and Collaborative
Learning (Suzanne Bonefas, Miami University of Ohio).
Panelist #3, a leading experimenter in distance learning,
will discuss how the use of MOO and other internet-based
technologies can be used to enhance the teaching of
Classics, with emphasis on the benefits, pitfalls, and
promise of the "virtual classroom".
(4) The Vergil Project: A Case Study in Early
Internet Scholarship (Andrew Wiesner, University of
Pennsylvania). Panelist #4, one of the team responsible
for the collaborative web site known as the Vergil
Project, will discuss the unique character of an
internet-based site focusing on a specific author, with
particular regard to the possible consequence of such
projects for both research and pedagogy.
Panelists will moderate brief discussions following
each paper.
William A. Johnson, Chair
Committee on Computer Activities
Panelist #1
Diotima, in Practice and in Theory
Ross Scaife, University of
Kentucky
This presentation will explore the practical as well
as theoretical aspects of the collaborative web site
known as Diotima:
Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the
Ancient World, which has been under construction
since the late spring of 1995. Diotima's contents
include:
-
- syllabi and course descriptions
- extensive and systematic bibliographies linked
wherever possible to on-line reviews and publishers
- an anthology of translated passages
- model links to the resources in the web version of
the Perseus Project
- extensive pointers to on-line scholarship and
other educational internet projects
- a Latin reader ("De Feminis Romanis")
- and there is also an associated listserv
mechanism
A brief description of these constituent elements,
meant to familiarize the audience with the nature of the
project, will be followed by a very concise overview of
plans for future development. The presentation will next
outline some of the ways in which teachers and students
in a range of settings have actually been making use of
Diotima and other related or similar web projects. Here
the emphasis will be on the assessment of what works and
what apparently doesn't, so that members of the audience
may learn about how they might themselves benefit from
this site, as well as any pitfalls to avoid.
In the second half of this presentation I intend to
present my detailed evaluation of some broader
theoretical issues, including 1) the evolving
relationship between scholarly internet sites and what we
may consider the norms of traditional scholarship and
pedagogy, and 2) the potential significance of projects
like Diotima to the Classics profession in a time of
transition for the American society to which we and our
students belong.
The URL for Diotima is http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/gender.html
Panelist #2
Technology, Collaboration, and the Small
College Consortium
Kenny Morrell, Rhodes College
In the spring of 1995, faculty members in classics
from a consortium of small colleges met to foster ties
among Classicists in the region by sharing information
about curricula and focusing intensively on the
organizational and pedagogical issues that are unique to
the colleges and small classics programs in the
consortium. Emerging from the conference was a strong
desire to develop a series of collaborative initiatives
that would support the needs of the individual programs
by drawing on the collective resources of the consortium.
Conferees concluded, for example, that collaborating on a
set of adaptable, computer-based teaching materials would
not only help to solve the problems associated with
selecting and obtaining texts for students but could also
streamline the process of designing courses. Such an
archive of teaching materials would include: a library of
digital images, free of copyright restrictions, from
which faculty members could draw for use in lectures and
multimedia study materials; a set of modular units on
various aspects of the ancient world, which would exist
in a number of formats, including simple text and HTML
(hypertext mark-up language) versions, for use in
different contexts; and an archive of syllabi, lecture
notes, assignments, and examinations, which faculty
members could draw upon not only for use in their classes
but also to inform themselves about approaches used at
other campuses.
This presentation will first discuss some of the
specific challenges, identified by the conferees, in
moving electronic resources into the classroom. For
example, many faculty members feel strongly that to
develop successful strategies for incorporating such
materials into the curricula, they must first become more
proficient in the use of available technologies. In
general, the participants find it difficult during the
course of the fall or spring semesters to learn more
about the software they currently use, experiment with
other applications, or explore the resources on the
Internet. Their experience is not unlike that of most
faculty members in all disciplines, but for faculty
members in traditionally small programs, which seldom
have more than three or four faculty members, the amount
of discretionary time seems even smaller. A second
challenge concerns support. The great fear voiced by more
than one conferee was having inadequate technical help in
coping with the hardware and software problems that would
undoubtedly arise both in preparing courseware and using
it in the classroom.
The presentation will then focus on the results of a
pilot project that has received funding as part of a
large grant to the consortium to build the "intellectual
infrastructure" necessary to use technology more
creatively and effectively. The project calls for
representatives from each institution to meet for an
intensive six-day workshop in June. The objective is to
meet the challenges outlined above by raising the level
of computing expertise, building a web-based archive, and
laying the foundation for further on-line, consortium-
wide collaboration.
Finally, the presentation will look beyond the
immediate goals of the project, to discuss the
implications of such a computer-based, collaborative
approach with regard to the basic role and design of
classics programs. At the very least, a "virtual
department" promises to expand the scope of scholarly
discourse for students and faculty members at small
programs, but it may lead to more fundamental changes.
While a greater richness and diversity of on-line
materials and resources might limit the willingness of
certain institutions to expand some programs by adding
faculty, such resources may also make it possible or
easier for other institutions currently without expertise
in the Greco-Roman world to establish new types of
programs in classics. The disciplinary boundaries
themselves may also become more fluid and less distinct
as the identity of faculty members, usually defined by
the courses they teach or a departmental affiliation,
changes to reflect "hybrid" approaches and a wider range
of cross-disciplinary involvement.
Panelist #3
MOO: Virtual Spaces and Collaborative
Learning
Suzanne Bonefas, Miami University of
Ohio
In this presentation, I will discuss the integration
of a number of internet- based technologies into Classics
courses, including MOO, theWeb, newsgroups and email list
discussions. Using actual student projects, I will
illustrate how such technologies enhance student interest
in Classics and related disciplines, as evidenced both by
their level of engagement and the sophistication of their
work. I will also discuss the potential of these tools
for collaboration on a number of levels: among students
(who may not even be attending the same institution), as
well as among researchers, faculty members and
non-academics. Such efforts may be part of a strategy to
combat the declining enrollments and increasing costs
presently plaguing higher education.
A MOO is a virtual "space" where multiple users can
log on simultaneously and interact. MOO users may also
manipulate textual "objects" in various ways, as well as
construct the space itself. A number of MOOs have been
designed for educational purposes, since they require
students to write extensively as part of their MOO
experience. They also permit relatively inexpensive long
distance collaborations, where users may interact in real
time.
Our MOO emphasizes aspects of MOO-ing which cannot be
achieved in a traditional classroom, particularly the
reconstruction of sites which no longer exist in their
original states, and the interaction which took place in
those places. Although MOOs are traditionally entirely
text-based, we have also incorporated a World Wide Web
interface, where images can be made available, as well as
links to other resources on the internet. Thus our MOO
functions as a publicly accessible resource as well as a
teaching and learning venue. Furthermore, MOOs can play
an important role in distance education, since
collaborators need not be in the same location to
participate in the project but can log on remotely from
almost anywhere in the world.
Our pilot MOO projects involved the reconstruction of
ancient and modern sites by graduate students in Classics
and Religion (in Classics, the sanctuaries of Asklepios
at Epidauros and of Athena Pronaia at Delphi). The
students soon became intimately familiar with both the
sites themselves and the nature of the evidence for them,
since such re-creations involve the painstaking piecing
together of evidence from sources such as site plans,
actual remains and archaeological finds, ancient
descriptions from literature and inscriptions, and,
ideally, actual autopsy of the site. "Builders" find that
they must be well-versed in archaeological, architectural
and literary matters, and ideally also sculpture and
epigraphy, depending on the nature of the site.
After the graduate students had completed their
groundbreaking projects, the foundation was laid for
bringing on larger numbers of students. In the second
phase of the project (Fall 1995), MOO projects were
assigned to undergraduates enrolled in Classical
Civilization courses. These students, working in groups,
"built" both Athenian public buildings and ancient Greek
houses. The graduate student builders have meanwhile
continued to enhance their own sites (which became
teaching resources for the lower level courses), and have
also served as mentors for newer builders.
In the third phase of this project, we extended the
potential for collaboration even further, with a
long-distance team-taught course on Athenian Democracy.
This course is being offered simultaneously at two
different institutions, with the MOO being just one of
several technologies to be employed. Students will use
the MOO both as a place to meet and plan group projects
as well as a medium for some of the projects themselves.
For small Classics programs, such technologies offer an
opportunity for students to be exposed to new
perspectives from both "visiting" faculty members and
other Classics students, whose small numbers often lead
to isolation and frustration, according to exit
interviews at my institution.
(Note: for further information, see http://moo.muohio.edu/.)
Panelist #4
The Vergil Project: A Case Study in Early
Internet Scholarship
Andrew Wiesner, University of
Pennsylvania
The Vergil
Project was conceived as an archive of information
located on the World Wide Web designed to serve the
broadest possible community of people who pursue
interests in things Vergilian. Eventually the Vergil
Project aims to provide an electronic text of the
Vergilian corpus and a commentary associated with the
text via hyper-text links. At present the Vergil project
makes available on the WWW the text of the Aeneid and
commentary on book one. It is the aim of this paper to
describe these resources and discuss their possible
implications for research and pedagogy in classical
studies, and to describe the community of
users/collaborators for whom the project has been
designed.
The Text: The point of departure for the
electronic text is the model of the standard critical
edition. One task of the Vergil Project has been to
address perceived shortcomings of this model stemming
from restrictions imposed by the conditions of paper
publication. Specifically, the Vergil Project is
concerned to remedy the poor representation of the mss.
tradition in the standard critical apparatus, and the
problem that the codex form permits the editor to
reconstruct only one text from the variants represented
in the mss. tradition. In response to these limitations,
the Vergil Project has constructed a database containing
the textual variants from all the major mss. and
important modern editions. Software has been written to
variously construct the text of the Aeneid from this set
of variants. One still has access to the authoritative
texts of, say, Mynors or Geymonat, but at the same time
other texts are readily accessible. It is hoped that the
database will foment discussion of issues of authority in
text editing that the printed critical edition has had a
tendency to silence.
The Commentary: The traditional line-by-line
commentary, again as a result of restrictions on space
imposed by print technology, aims at the needs of a
special audience, and selects accordingly from the array
of available Vergilian scholarship. The Vergil Project
seeks to convert the commentary of this limited
perspective into a resource for teaching and research
aimed at an audience of varied interests and abilities.
Like the text, the commentary has the structure of a
database, the contents of which are associated via
hyper-text links with the text of the Aeneid. At present
the database contains images, bibliographies, glossaries,
thematic essays, grammatical and metrical aids, and the
text of the commentaries of Servius and
Conington-Nettleship. Theoretically, the growth of the
database is unlimited. As it grows in size and complexity
challenges arise for associating its contents in a
meaningful way with the text of the Aeneid. This paper
addresses some such challenges that have arisen so far,
and the solutions that have been adopted to cope with
them.
The Community: It is important to acknowledge
that the gulf between the real status of a project such
as this one and its imagined utility can be quite wide.
With this in mind, and considering the early stage of
development of the Vergil Project, it seems best to
emphasize the process of creating the resource. The
essential idea behind the Vergil Project is that this
process should involve the collaboration of Vergilians of
all types. Accordingly, contributions to the databases
are encouraged from each member of the community of users
the resource would eventually serve. This paper suggests
ways in which the High School AP student and the
specialist alike can benefit from the act of
collaboration while helping to advance the project toward
its goal of inclusiveness.
This paper concludes with reflections on some problems
unique to the production of electronic resources,
problems that are too often glossed over in the euphoria
of the new technological wave.
For further information on the Vergil Project, see
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu:80/~joef/courses/project.html.
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