Harking back to your original question, critter - you can keep your colocasias going all year, if you want to treat them as house plants (and if you have room!) Mine slow down in winter here but always have some leaves going. I've heard people have a little trouble with spider mites and aphids when growing them indoors in winter so just keep an eye on the backs of the leaves.
But the Caladiums absolutely need a dormant period. Leave 'em outside until the leaves die back on their own (but don't let them freeze) then bring them in to a cool, dry place and you can either remove them from the pots or leave them. Let them dry out but not completely dry - as David said a cup of water once in a while is good. Mine are underground all winter and it does rain here (although not all that much) so the bulbs stay nice and plump. If you let them get too dessicated, they will come up really small, wimpy plants in the spring.
Last year I won some Caladium bulbs in the Photo Contest and they arrived in September so I planted them to see what would happen. They were gorgeous all the way until we got a really cold night in January of this year, then died back. No sign of them all spring and summer, but they are coming on now, after being dormant underground all summer. They are bigger than they were last year, if you can believe it. So I'm thinking the bulbs don't mind being warm or wet once they're dormant, in fact they like it. This is Florida Beauty, and the leaf on the far right is 14in. long. They are standing over 2ft tall, too.
