iPodi Lateiactum

The History of Rome Podcast

I am very much an aural learner. It's made my life as a student easy while lecture or dialogue comprise a substantial part of the classroom experience. However, I fear it may hinder me as a teacher. Most people aren't aural learners. My varied and creative spoken explanations of the material may be meaningless to those who construct knowledge in other ways.

But if the little white growths in people's ears these days are any indication, people of all ages enjoy aural stimulation. I should admit at this point that I just got my first iPod today, an old second hand job from a friend, and am thus possibly the least qualified person to discuss how we can use this technology in the classroom. But despite my tendency to be a hopeless troglodyte, I've successfully found an appropriate podcast to use in class.

Here's how to work the link above. If you click on the link it will take you to the website with all podcasts past. If you click on the main title of the lecture you will get to the page with the short description and posted comments. If you click on the title in smaller font the audio file will begin playing. Oh by the way, I'm a Mac user. That's what happens when I click the link. I have yet to try this on a PC.
If you want to download episodes to play on your iPod open iTunes and go to the iTunes store. Search "The History of Rome." The first item that comes up should be Mike Duncan's free podcast (the icon is a kind of off white faded map motif). Click on that. Now you should see a full list of past episodes and you can download as many as you like.
I would say click "subscribe" but it's most unfortunate that I've discovered this podcast at a time when the podcaster has decided to take a 5 month break. However, there's plenty of past episodes to choose from that should keep you entertained for a long while.

The podcaster Mike Duncan identifies himself as a political junkie with a love of Roman history. So far I sampled his most recent podcast "Take My Wife... Please" about the reign of Claudius, and also "I am Spartacus!" about... Spartacus. The episodes were about 25 minutes each. He's a very amusing narrator. I chuckled to myself quite often (but don't we all whenever we hear about the Romans?) and certainly learned a thing or too.

See I didn't come to Latin by means of or for the sake of the history. The language itself intrigued me, and it's prose and poetry captivate me still. But I know many people for whom the Latin is their way to access the history of the Romans or people of Medieval Europe. So here is my first caveat. I am not any kind of authority when it comes to the accuracy of the history. I do notice that Duncan's degree was not in history or the Classics per se. That doesn't necessarily mean anything he says is incorrect by any means. However, I would not use this as a sole source for information, and I also hope to communicate with the history buffs out there to verify the accuracy of Duncan's podcasts.

The other caveat I would have is that the struggling learner could be confused. We've all experienced a situation in which we're the odd man out in terms of knowledge. Everyone seemed to be an expert on a topic that's Greek to us (well, not Greek to us, many of us Classicists know Greek actually, you know what I mean though) and everybody could laugh and make jokes about the subject and while we became even more lost. For the student who has a lot of trouble with history, who hasn't had access to what some would consider "common knowledge," and who's nervous about the whole situation, the sarcasm of the podcaster may be confusing. We should be aware of this possibility.
However, I don't think this is a likely scenario. Humor may in fact be a great way to make a student feel more at ease about the material. These podcasts may transform dry lists of foreign names and dates and turn them into that story that makes history so meaningful to so many.

The other minor thing I might worry about with recommending this podcast is that some people aren't going to listen to it. People often leave their iPod on all the time merely for background noise. If they're not accustomed to actively listening to what's on their iPod, they may find themselves in trouble if they decide that leaving the podcasts on while multitasking will unconsciously teach them everything they need to know about Roman history. Those who treat their ear buds as a kind of semi-permeable membrane will have to retrain themselves to listen in a new more engaged manner.

Post Scriptum: I will continue to attempt Latin titles for my posts. If they are totally unintelligible, or if you get the gist of them and have a better suggestion, please leave constructive criticism under comments.