Online Presentation Thursday, June 25—3:30–4:30 CDT (4:30–5:30 EDT)
"LUMINA, a New Student and Teacher Friendly Learning Tool for Latin for the New Millennium. Presenters: Don Sprague and Amelia Wallace
Join the online presentation, use this access code:204-163-229

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All of us at Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers join our classics colleagues in condemning racism, learning from our mistakes, and committing ourselves to listening and learning.

Statements from the National Classics Organizations:

Our prayers and thoughts are with you and your students, your families and their families as we navigate these troubling times.

 

As we celebrate Independence Day, let us resolve to work together to root out racism and to make this a better America for all our brother and sister citizens.

 

Teachers have told us what a wonderful learning tool LUMINA for Latin for the New Millennium has been, especially as COVID-19 forced teachers to pivot to distance learning. We encourage you to consider subscribing to LUMINA for Latin for the New Millennium for the 2020–2021 school year. To learn more about LUMINA, check out this overview. For firsthand experience with the functionality of the platform, explore this link.

LUMINA for LNM is teacher-friendly! It works with an LMS (Learning Management System) that supports LTI. If your school does not provide an LMS, Bolchazy-Carducci can host your classes on its Moodle. And, we’ve improved the usability for teachers! Each school will have its own Lumina LNM Level 1 or Level 2 course in the B-C Moodle. Within the course the school will have separate groups for each class in the level. This provides the teacher with options to set learner attempts: number of times a student can try an exercise, which score is recorded, and discarding any incomplete attempts when grading.

 

 

 

In the months since schools first began to close their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, I have had countless conversations with teachers about how different tech tools can help them accomplish their instructional goals. When teachers need to record a mini-lecture, create a quick explanation, or articulate a set of instructions, Loom has been the tool that I have recommended most often. Loom is a simple screen casting tool that is quick to learn and makes sharing videos with students really easy. It works on a Mac or a PC either via a desktop app or a Google Chrome extension, and there is an iOS app too.

 

Loom’s simplicity is a big draw for teachers. It takes only a couple of minutes to download the desktop app and create an account. Verified teachers and students over the age of 13 are eligible for the pro account at no cost. The pro account allows the creator of the video to add mark-ups to the video using a pen tool. This feature is particularly useful in drawing a viewer’s attention to a specific area of the screen. When creating a video, teachers can choose to record the screen, themselves via the camera, or both.

 

The teachers and students with whom I have worked have really found the screen plus camera option to be effective. Students regularly mention that they like “seeing” their teachers on the screen explaining the material to them. Loom has many applications in the Latin classroom for both students and teachers. Teachers can use Loom to introduce a new construction, talk students through a complicated passage, and offer a short lecture on a historical event, author, or work of art.

 

I believe that Loom has great potential as a tool for students too. Students can prepare videos to share their learning on a particular topic or explain their thinking as they grapple with a tough passage. Any video created using Loom is shareable via a link. Both teachers and students love that there are no huge video files to struggle with. To learn more and get started, go to loom.com. Be sure to visit the help center and type in “teacher” to set up an upgraded account.       

As teachers and students adapted to distance learning in order to flatten the spread of COVID-19, our professional classics organizations have also adapted. They have reimagined their annual meetings as virtual meetings complete with virtual exhibits. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers is pleased to participate in these virtual conferences.

 

Congratulations to the pioneers at CAMWS, President Anne Groton and Secretary-Treasurer Tom Sienkewicz, who led the way with a successful meeting that ran May 26–30, 2020. See the CAMWS report below.

 

The American Classical League’s 73rd Annual Institute will take place virtually June 22–26, 2020, the days originally scheduled for the meeting at the College of Charleston. ACL is scheduling “virtual office hours” each of these days. So, in addition to participating in the virtual exhibit, B-C reps Amelia Wallace and Don Sprague will be available to chat and address questions from 1:00 to 2:00 pm each day. In addition, on the afternoon of Thursday, June 25 from 4:30 to 5:30 pm, they will host a Latin for the New Millennium affinity group meeting that will include a presentation on LUMINA for LNM. Please plan on joining us!

 

The Classical Association of New England has scheduled a virtual meeting during the week of July 13–17, 2020, the days when the cancelled CANE Summer Institute had been scheduled.

 

For details and links, please see the separate conferences listing.

Editors Don Sprague and Amelia Wallace—while of course saddened by the surrounding events necessitating a virtual conference—were delighted to represent Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers at this year’s Classical Association of the Midwest and South (CAMWS) annual meeting. Congratulations again to CAMWS for implementing a successful online conference! Many thanks especially to Amy Pistone of Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA) and Emma Vanderpool of Trickum Middle School (Lilburn, GA) for lending their technical expertise to this enormous enterprise, ensuring that sessions ran smoothly all five days of the conference.

 

As always, our representatives enjoyed the opportunity to engage with the wider field of classics via attending panels and round tables. During this time of social distancing, the ability to connect over classics online was particularly welcome. Amelia, a former Latin teacher, could not resist the various pedagogy panels on offer—including one that combined a look at life and education in ancient Egypt with some modern insights on language learning. One of the benefits of a virtual conference is that panels can be recorded and made available for viewing at a later time. We appreciate that we can revisit CAMWS 2020 even after its completion.

 

While we greatly missed chatting and connecting with our classics colleagues in person, we found new ways to approximate this favorite aspect of conferences. Amelia especially enjoyed digitally “meeting” Latin educators while presenting brief daily demos on LUMINA, online guided practice to accompany Latin for the New Millennium. Of course, our editors are always here to answer any of your questions about Bolchazy products, whether print books or digital resources. Email Amelia with queries about LUMINA content; feel free to email Don or Amelia with any other questions.

 

Thank you to all CAMWS attendees who visited the Bolchazy-Carducci online booth in the virtual exhibit hall. In addition to browsing a selection of our books online, booth visitors were invited to enter a drawing to win a $50 gift certificate. Congratulations to our drawing winner, Evelyn Adkins, assistant professor of classics and director of undergraduate studies at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH)! If you too would like to win big like Evelyn, be sure to stop by our booth at conferences (virtual or otherwise) and follow us on social media to stay up-to-date on all of our promotions and contests.

 

As in previous years, this year’s CAMWS meeting was also a time to celebrate the many achievements of our classics colleagues. Kudos to the recipients of this year’s ovationes: Randy Todd of Samford University (Birmingham, AL), Vassiliki Panoussi of William & Mary (Williamsburg, VA), and Ephy and Peter Howard (Troy, AL). May we all be able to celebrate, collaborate, and connect next year in Cleveland, Ohio at the 117th CAMWS annual meeting.

 

Evelyn Adkins of Case Western Reserve University won
the special CAMWS virtual drawing for a $50 gift certificate
to Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.

Alexander the Great mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii.

Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Overview of the Roman ruins at Vindolanda.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons 3.0

 

Dionysos wearing the mitra and holding a thyrsus

with Ariadne playing the kithara; detail from the

Borghese Vase. Public domain photo courtesy

of Wikimedia Commons.

 Classicists rue NYT Spelling Bee bloodletting.

dōmio: An interesting play creating a verb from domus.

Check out the review of the movie bringing Ovid

into twenty-first-century Detroit.

Yes, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has its roots in the

Romans’ rape of the Sabines. Who’d have known?

Image in the public domain courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 Lumina: Online Guided Practice to Accompany LNM

Lumina online content offers new resources to support LNM, Levels 1 and 2. The interactive guided Language Fact sections provide immediate feedback to students as they preview or review each chapter of Latin for the New Millennium Level 1 or Level 2. Mouse-over vocabulary lists allow a new format for vocabulary mastery. Infinitely replayable crossword puzzles engage students in derivative work. Automatically graded quizzes free up student-teacher interaction time for translation, oral/aural work, discussion, and other learning activities. For a brief overview of the program, check out this video.

 Artes Latinae: A Self-Teaching,

Lumina offers a revamped Artes Latinae. This fully interactive online program teaches all of Latin grammar in two courses. Purchase the program at a special discounted price of 25% off! For a brief overview of the program, check out this video.

Based on the program developed by Dr. Waldo E. Sweet of the University of Michigan for Encyclopedia Britannica, Lumina: Artes Latinae is an easy-to-follow course that includes all the tools a student needs to achieve a firm command of Latin. The course was carefully crafted and refined to suit the needs and abilities of a broad spectrum of students. Lumina: Artes Latinae meets existing foreign language requirements for high school graduation.

Contact us for an individual consultation on either program: bridget@bolchazy.com.

 

about Julius Caesar

 

 249 pages, ISBN 13: 978-0-86516-533-5   $12.00   $6.00

 
about Catullus 
The Key
 
about Cicero 
The Lock
304 pages, ISBN 13: 978-0-86516-535-9   $12.00   $6.00
 
about Ovid 
Betray the Night
316 pages, ISBN 13: 978-0-86516-712-4   $12.00   $6.00