Why do I post about Latinum here on Textkit? Latinum has its origins in Textkit - and is an outgrowth of long discussions here about Latin audio, both before, and after the podcast was started. Many members here have an interest in the podcast, because they were involved in an armchair capacity in its genesis. Not every post is of interest to everyone. Move on if it does not interest you. Input from users on Textkit influenced many aspects of what is on Latinum, and how the audio is presented. (e.g. Latin-English-Latin, repetition with the Latin read slowly, the Latin text reiterated more quickly, audio vocabulary files, memorisation files for learning poetry, pronunciation questions…etc etc)… Latinum has pretty much been the central part of my life for three years - and yes, I do post about it here - far less frequently than in the past, when the podcast was under development - the project only exists because of an element of obsession, which I freely admit to. Latinum would not exist without it. Yes I have talked a lot here on textkit about Latinum, and Schola, and the Tar Heel Reader sites -they have been a big part of my life for the past 3 years.
It is, as Hampie suggests, the main theme running through my discussions here: namely Latin education projects online, one of which, of course, is Textkit itself.
My primary interest, is providing more access to Latin learning online. There are now more and more options available, which is wonderful. Textkit has historically served as one of the few successful access points, and before Google books, was of vital importance for providing access to digital texts of out of copyright books. If Textkit could host audio, that would be wonderful, but it can’t afford to. Latinum only exists because of the fortuitous existence of mypodcast, which must operate the podcast at a roaring loss.
There are many people here on textkit who contribute frequently or occasionally who are involved online in aspects of Latin education - Avitus with his wonderful course, and of course, here on Textkit, Adrianus and others do a great job of providing hands-on assistance, with what amounts to free tutorial assistance to users.
I have been involved in getting a number of Latin projects off the ground over the past 3 years - for most of which Textkit has functioned as the nursery in one sense or another - the Tar Heel Reader site was not, but the need for a large body of ‘baby books’ in Latin had been identified previously. Laura Gibbs discovered the medium, and the Tar Hell site and those books that have been edited with the gold badge, are now intensively used by Latin teachers all over the world, especially those teaching Latin in a primary setting. This site is regularly discussed on Latin best practices and Latinteach - it provides something that was missing, a large body of illustrated readers in Basic Latin. That there are now over 400 Latin titles on the Tar Heel Site, most written by Latin teachers, indicates there was a real need for this. I put a lot of work into that at well. This is something that could be very useful to beginners - certainly,many Latin professionals now make extensive use of it. I also started up Schola because of discussions here on Textkit about the deficiencies of the GLL - something that would be more open, with pictures, with a real time chatroom, and video chat. Schola now has enough members to function like a ‘real’ social network, and is a place where Latin is very much alive. Not all students are motivated by just being able to read texts. Some want to write, or play with their Latin. So, Schola too, in a sense, is a child of Textkit, though somwhat more tangentially than Latinum is. Certainly, without Textkit, and discussions with members here, it would not exist.
The DVDs which seem to be the source of the objection, also serve another function - Latinum is hosted on a free server, that may or may not make it through the recession - putting everything onto DVD and making it available elsewhere online is a backup, in case something goes wrong with mypodcast, will mean the material stays available. Mypodcast came close to the brink a few months back, which led me to look at other options for making sure the content stayed available. I could not afford to host Latinum on a paying podcast hosting service, it would cost several hundreds of dollars a year to host, if not more, because of the bandwidth it uses up. If the free option vanishes, I will have to look hard at the options, as reconstructing Latinum elsewhere would be a daunting task. There is actually much more free stuff on the podcast than on the DVDs. As Avitus can testify, it is very disheartening when something you have thrown a large chunk of your life into, suddenly becomes less accessible through actions beyond of your control - whether though a book going out of print, or a website not functioning properly. The GLL is also afflicted with a problem of this nature.
Re Latin audio, I fully accept that not everyone needs audio input to learn a language - but there are many people who can learn a language no other way, or for whom having an audio element helps drive them forward. That is why there used to be regular discussion here on Textkit about Latin audio. There still is, but the nature of the discussion has changed. The need for audio and online provision is why Avitus built his course (which is much more of a ‘course’, with lessons a tutor, and coursework) , and why I built Latinum. Latinum has consumed most of my life outside of work since 2007,and I have spent a few hours on it every day until quite recently. I have met people who have used it to learn Latin from scratch - including one person who now teaches a spoken Latin course somewhere in Scandinavia. Obviously,the number of people who have become speakers purely because of Latinum is small - but that is not its goal. As another example of the connection between Latinum and Textkit, is the audio version I made of D’Ooge - I have no real interest in D’Ooge as a textbook, but several textkitters asked me to make an audio book course from D’Ooge, which has a dedicated user area here on Textkit so I rendered the entire book into audio, http://latinforbeginners.mypodcast.com/index.html and that also has its own site, which far fewer people use than the main Latinum site.
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