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CO 67.1 [Fall 1989], pp. 22-23: New ACL Committee; Compatibility Issues; Perseus, MacLang; APA Bulletin Board
WHERE TO BEGIN?
Welcome to the first sailing of a new column dealing with computers
in the classical classroom. In this space I hope to discuss with
you the impact and opportunities created by these newfangled gadgets.
Although computers have existed for several decades now, only
recently have they made their way into virtually every one of
our schools. We, as teachers of the ancient Western world, may
never again be immune to their influence (as much as some of us
might wish it to be otherwise). As with any other contrivance
of technology, there are both positive and negative aspects to
the computer. It is my hope that we might all learn to maintain
a skeptical eye toward vague generalizations about its omnipotence
and find the appropriate applications (if any) for our own particular
situations.
This column also coincides with a new stage in the activities
of the ACL's Committee on Educational Computer Applications, which
was established in 1987. For the past two years, the committee
(consisting of Glenn Knudsvig, Rickie Crown, and myself) has been
at work on several specific objectives to assist ACL members in
assessing the appropriate use of computers in their classrooms.
Through newsletters and workshops, we have been developing an
evaluation form to help teachers critique instructional software
for the Classics. (If you would like a copy of the current draft
of the form, please send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope.)
We have also tried to create a development network for the future
publication of software which addresses the expressed needs of
our members. This column will (for the time being, at least) replace
the committee's newsletter and act as a new, expanded forum for
its activities and announcements.
More than anything, however, the purpose of this column is to
answer your questions and provide up-to-date information about
the ever-changing array of computer materials and related resources
which might be of particular assistance to teachers of the Classics.
Therefore, the column's direction will rely heavily on the interests
and questions generated by you, the reader. No question is too
simple when it comes to computers. At workshops, I often find
that the question one person is anxiously afraid to ask is the
exact same question on many other minds in the room. So, please
do not hesitate to ask!
I will also be happy to pass on your own specific recommendations,
based on hands-on experience with particular types of software
or hardware. I do plan to concentrate on applications oriented
toward instruction, rather than research, unless the research
tools have strong potential for student usage. Let me know what
your priorities are for discussion topics; some possibilities
are wordprocessing in Greek and Latin (with macrons), hardware
intercompatibility, public domain software adaptable for the Classics,
authoring systems, and networks.
CLASSICAL COMPUTING PRIMERS
There are two specific sources of information that I would
like to draw your attention to right away. These can give all
of us a common base of reference from which to work, and they
may often answer some of the simpler questions right away. They
are Gerald Culley's Teaching the Classics with Computers, available
from the American Philological Association (send $1.50 to the
APA, c/o Dept. of Classics, Fordham Univ., Bronx, NY 10458-5154),
and my own Survey of Latin Instructional Software for the Microcomputer,
available from the American Classical League's TMRC [item B319,
$2.60 for ACL members, $2.95 for non-members, postpaid; and see
the TMRC listings in this issue for computer software available
from ACL. Ed.].
For those of you who are still wondering where exactly these creatures
called computers sprang from, I would highly recommend a historical
perspective offered by one of our own. J. David Bolter is a Classics
professor with a Master's degree in computer science. In his book,
Turing's Man (Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press,
1984), Bolter describes clearly, in non-technical language, the
logical continuum between the original Plato and the twentieth-century
PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operation) manufactured
by the Control Data Corporation.
THE COMPATIBILITY ISSUE
The bulk of the software discussed in the first two booklets
above is compatible with the Apple II series of microcomputers.
This is probably due to the fact that Apple was the first in the
microcomputer field and largely responsible for making computers
affordable for schools below the college level. As a result, about
80% of the computers at the primary and secondary levels are now
Apple II compatible.
Colleges were actually slower to pick up on microcomputers, since
they had been using large "mainframe" computers and
terminals since the 1960s and did not see the attraction right
away. When they did finally decide to try out the smaller "personal"
computers for student and administrative use, they tended to stay
IBM-compatible, because IBM had such strong influence at the mainframe
level. Colleges which have teacher-training programs usually have
an Apple II lab to prepare teachers for the typical primary and
secondary school labs. Other early microcomputer manufacturers,
such as Tandy, Atari, and Commodore have been able to survive
only by becoming in some way IBM-compatible.
Today a majority of college-level microcomputers are still IBM-compatible,
but Apple's graphically-oriented Macintosh series (which is not
compatible with the Apple II) has been making growing claims to
lab space on college campuses. Classicists have been particularly
curious about the Macintosh because of its facile handling of
alternate character sets, such as Greek.
NEW RELEASES
Perhaps the most ambitious software development project now
in progress in the Classics is being executed on the Macintosh.
The "Perseus Project," as it is called, is preparing
multimedia curricular materials to support all kinds of classes
dealing with ancient Greek civilization. The new standard Macintosh
program, HyperCard, is being used to organize "stacks"
of textual and graphic information which is intensively interconnected
for easy cross-referencing. Further connections are being made
to the slides of artwork and archaeological sites collected on
videodisk. The program will also make use of an on-line lexicon
and automatic parser. The first program version is due to be released
in the fall of 1989. For further information, write to Greg Crane,
Dept. of Classics, 319 Boylston Hall, Harvard Univ., Cambridge,
MA 02138.
MacLang is a Macintosh authoring system which provides a number
of built-in foreign language fonts and skeleton formats for several
types of drill-and-practice exercises. The program was developed
by Judith Frommer at Harvard University's Dept. of Romance Languages;
it is being published by Research Design Associates (P.O. Box
848, Stony Brook, NY 11790). The cost is $99.95 per copy or $249
for a department site license.
If you are an electronic bulletin board fan, you may be interested
in a new one set up for classicists by the American Philological
Association's Committee on Computer Activities. The system provides
an on-line newsletter for all kinds of information of interest
to classicists, as well as the capacity to critique colleagues'
works-in-progress. Materials for posting can be sent to Jeffrey
Buller, Dept. of Classical Studies, Loras College, Dubuque, IA
52004. The APA newsletter board is contained within HumaNet, a
scholarly electronic network for the humanities. A free HumaNet
simulation disk may be requested from Richard Slata, Dept. of
History, North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC 27695. Specify
IBM or Macintosh version.
IBM ADVERTISING IN LATIN?
Barbie is not the only one being handed Latin printouts to
read (see Facetiae, CO 66 [1989]: 129). I was amazed to find another
barely hidden infusion of Latin text into popular merchandising,
this time in InfoWorld, one of the major computer trade journals.
An advertisement by IBM and Microsoft for their new operating
system, "OS/2," displays a hand-drawn graphic of a computer
printer with a fresh page popping completely covered with Latin
text. A human face superimposed on the page blocks out about half
of the print, making it fairly unintelligible. What's going on?
Is there a graphic art instructor somewhere fulfilling buried
frustrations by telling students that old Latin textbooks are
great for cutting out samples bits of unreadable text? (See next
column for more information on this issue.)