There are so many websites out there, and yet not too many of them focus specifically on Latin and teaching Latin. I think that Latin teachers are often expected to be as dusty as some of the texts we teach, living somewhere in the 1st century instead of the 21st. In reality there are some great on-line tools that every Latin teacher should subscribe to – or at least check out to see how they can supplement all the traditional tools.
Most Latin and Greek teachers are familiar with Perseus. This on-line tool originally created by Tufts University is a great reference to find original texts (and translations), word frequency, alternate forms, and more. There are art & archaeology, culture, and mythology resources. Teachers (particularly of advanced levels) should explore Perseus to get a better sense of how they and their students can take advantage of its vast resources.
There are several on-line dictionaries out there, but not all of them are very user-friendly. TeachPaperless recently recommended that I use University of Notre Dame’s Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid. I’ve now linked this dictionary to my class pages because of its simplicity and accuracy.
To keep track of Latin in the news and other classical tidbits, I subscribe to LatinTeach, “a blog dedicated to the teaching and learning of Latin and the Classics.” Recent posts have shared professional development and courses available to Latin teachers and links on the anniversary of the founding of Rome. When my colleagues ask me where I found the latest Classics news to share, more often than not it’s from LatinTeach.
Two such Classical resources that might be particularly useful to Latin teachers of all levels are Pompeiiana and Latin Via Fables. Teachers might remember Pompeiiana, the newsletter created by Bernard Barcio, that was mailed to schools once each month during the school year for nearly 20 years. These included comics, puzzles, games, articles, and news updates for students of Latin. Recently the rights to these publications were granted to Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers who are now releasing the original newsletters online one issue at a time. Clearly the most timely material, such as movie reviews or song title translations, is out of date. But in Pompeiiana there remains a broad range of activities that are still relevent today.
Latin Via Fables is a Ning created by Laura Gibbs, the author of Aesop’s Fables and Latin Via Proverbs, among other titles. This resource for teachers includes discussion groups, quizzes, vocabulary and many other tools that make reading the fables more valuable as a teaching/learning tool.
