Next is a post about playing Settlers of Catan through the medium of interacting in ancient Greek<\/a>. Here\u2019s an excerpt:<\/p>\n I\u2019m a big advocate for playing games in a target language. I think it creates a language focus which isn\u2019t the language itself, so that you are communicating about something else, not about language, and that creates a need to use the language actively and passively to express, and negotiate, meaning between speakers. For some time I\u2019d been interested in doing (Settlers of) Catan in Ancient Greek. It\u2019s a great game, which isn\u2019t highly dependent on verbal ability \u2013 you could play the whole game in silence if you wanted to, but it offers a limited set of vocabulary and expressions needed for core gameplay. Last term during my Patrologist classes, I\u2019d thought of getting my conversational Greek students to play it, but I\u2019d run out of time to prep and execute it. Not so this term! Catan is easily played online, which makes it also a great game for distanced, online video-chatting learners. We ran a game today, and I think it worked reasonably well. We used the site <\/span>http:\/\/colonist.io<\/span><\/span><\/a>, which works reasonably well. It helps to get players familiar with both the game and the website beforehand. Players can play against bots, so they can get in a bit of practice before you do it in-language. I\u2019ve put together a cheat sheet of core vocabulary which you can use if you too want to play in Ancient Greek, I hope it will be of use to you! And, if I\u2019m free, I\u2019m always up for a game myself.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n There is an article by renowned New Testament scholar Beverly Gaventa in\u00a0Christian Century<\/em> about teaching Greek to her 8-year old grandchild<\/a>. Brian LePort shared a classroom activity he uses to teach textual criticism<\/a>. He also shared this:<\/p>\n https:\/\/readingthebiblewithigen.home.blog\/2020\/12\/01\/the-hermeneutics-of-study-bibles-made-for-children-and-adolescents\/<\/p>\n This article about what some call \u201cescape room games\u201d<\/a> made me ask\u00a0about ideas for how that kind of elaborate puzzle-games, as well as MMORPGs and RPGs more generally, not to mention customized game pieces and paraphernalia we might have students receive in the mail (in some contexts campus mail would be ideal), and other such things can be used for educational purposes.<\/p>\n A game die was found at Beit-El (aka Bethel) in the West Bank<\/a>. Or could it have been used for mantic practices\/divination? Here\u2019s a photo from the article:<\/p>\n There is more about the die and ancient gaming on the website of <\/a>Biblical Archaeology Review.<\/em><\/p>\n Only tangentially related, let me include some items about AI and other technology that came up in this post or is potentially useful for educational purposes. One is the chatbot<\/a>, another is the topic of \u201cdigital wellbeing.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Also relevant, directly and\/or indirectly:<\/p>\n A Game Designer\u2019s Analysis Of QAnon<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2020\/12\/Beit-El-game-die.jpg\")
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