NMTS Course Overview

General information

Course meetings

The class will meet every Tuesday, 10.15-11.45 in room IG 3.201.

The first meeting will be on October 16, 2012. Please see the course schedule for more information on the particular meetings.

Contact

Manfred Sailer
E-mail: sailer@em.uni-frankfurt.de
WWW: http://user.uni-frankfurt.de/~sailer
Office: IG 3.214
Office hour: Tuesday, 2–3 pm
Telephone: 069 - 798 32534 (secretary, Ms McKenzie)

If you are a student from the University Frankfurt, please contact Manfred Sailer to register for the course at OLAT.

If you are not from Frankfurt but are interested in the class, please contact Manfred Sailer, so that you can receive material that will not appear on these wiki pages.

Course description

The teaching of formal semantics is especially apt for integrating New Media because its content is relatively abstract, therefore visualization and concrete examples can help make it more accessible. We will develop material for an Interactive Whiteboard as well as e-learning material. This will be integrated into a wiki that accompanies a new textbook in semantics, which is used in the semantics introductions in the IEAS. The e-learning material will include wiki-pages, podcasts, and interactive online exercises.

The class meetings will alternate between a) sessions in which we introduce tools and methods for using New Media in teaching semantics and b) sessions in which we discuss the content to be represented.

This class is particularly suited for students with an interest in new media, but also for those who would like to learn more about semantics.

Schedule of the course

This is a tentative outline of the course. It will be updated as we move on in the semester.

1. October 16, 2012: Introduction; working with mediawiki 1
2. October 23, 2012: Working with mediawiki 2; semantics 1
3. October 30, 2012: semantics 2
4. November 6, 2012: Using an interactive whiteboard 1
5. November 13, 2012: Semantics 3: Groups Ambiguity and Basic semantic relations
6. November 20, 2012: Using an interactive whiteboard 2
7. November 27, 2012: Semantics 4: Groups Implicature and Presupposition
8. December 4, 2012: Creating podcasts 1
9. December 11, 2012: Semantics 5: Groups Predicate logic
10. December 18, 2012: Creating podcast 2
11. January 15, 2013: Online exercises 1
12. January 22, 2013: Semantics 6: Groups Quantifiers and Sorts and types
13. January 29, 2013: Online exercises 2
14. February 5, 2013: Practice
15. February 12, 2013: Summary, evaluation, and term papers

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Course requirements

Work load

Note: 1 credit corresponds to 30 hours.

• L2/L5:
  • 4 credits (120h)
  • Teilnahmenachweis and short term paper (8-10 pages).

• L3:
  • 4 credits (120h)
  • Leistungsnachweis
  • optional: long term paper (15-18 pages) for additional 4 credits

• Magister:
  • written task (same as for L3)

Tasks

The participants will work in small groups to:

• contribute wikipages to the LRS wiki,
• produce a podcast (audio and, possibly, with slides)
• exercises and/or teaching material for an interactive whiteboard,
• exercises for the wiki and/or some other online exercise tool.

Teilnahmenachweis, short term paper, Leistungsnachweis

In addition to the material produced by the groups, each participant will write an assessment which provides the theoretical background of the semantic theory and provides comments on why the particular material produced is useful for a learner.

Each participant has to write such a short paper. So, if you worked in a group divide up the number of e-learning objects that you have created so that each one of you will talk about one aspect of the team’s effort.

Structure of the short paper:

1. Cover sheet
2. Introduction: A short introduction what your topic is and why it is potentially difficult to understand for students.
3. Describe your e-learning objects: Which objects did you create? Why did you chose the particular form? Which problems did you encounter? How is your e-learning object to be used? (in the case of files for the interactive whiteboard, for example, explain how the slides work (interactive tasks, hidden solutions etc).
4. Critical comparison to traditional teaching/textbook: Name some differences. Is there a surplus value by using New Media?
5. References (if you have any)
6. Declaration of scientific practice
7. Permission to using your e-learning objects

This short paper should be about 3-4 pages long. Together with the material that you have created for the wiki etc, it satisfies the length requirements from the Studienordnung.

Long term paper

A long term paper will typically consist in providing an additional set of exercises and a critical assessment thereof. Alternatively a purely theoretical term paper is equally possible.