HTW Berlin Fachbereich 4 Internationaler Studiengang Medieninformatik (Master) Didaktics of Media Corona Winter Term 2021/22

Welcome to the Web Technology focus of the Master's program in International Media and Computing!

And since this is the fourth Corona semester, it will continue to be a bit of a wild ride. My schedules are usually tentative anyway, but this will be another crazy semester. We are supposed to be in presence, but I understand that many of you may have issues that prevent you from attending. One will be if you are not vaccinated. I have grandchildren I do not want to infect. If you are not vaccinated, I kindly request that you attend only at a distance. I will be offering the course in a hybrid manner. This means that the sessions will be held at the HTW but also broadcast via Zoom. It will be difficult to keep the students from a distance involved in the discussions, but we will try our best. This is, after all, a course in the Didaktics of Media.

Please make sure that you keep up with the Moodle room and this public syllabus and schedule (which are also linked in Moodle).

Since eLearning, edutainment, OERs and MOOCs (whatever they are, we will learn about them) are such a large part of learning media that are produced today, we will be looking at various aspects of web-based instruction. We will also be looking at the difference between emergency remote teaching (that is what has happened these past three semesters) and proper distance education.

This course is very different from courses you have taken in your Bachelor's program. I don't stand up and tell you what to think, we don't just read a book together and discuss it. Here we will be investigating various topics in the area of didaktics (I will explain my spelling the first week) and you will be called on to experience eLearning yourself, to look for information, and to discuss your results in class. I want to prepare you for your Master's Thesis, which will be much more of an individual research thesis than your Bachelor's thesis was.

The class meets every Monday afternoon from 12:15 to 14:45, starting October 4, 2021. It is a 3 SWS / 5 LP course. We will have a short break somewhere in the middle.

Now where? If we are allowed to meet in person, we have C 537 reserved. If not, we will be in my Zoom room for this class. The link is in Moodle. If we do hybrid, both will be on. I will be doing hybrid the first few weeks at least.  Yes, I use Zoom, and we will be discussing the didaktics of distance education with special regards to video-based instruction in depth this semester.

We will be using a collaboration room in Moodle for parts of this course. You can use your HTW account to log in, if you are registered for this course in LSF you should already be able to access the room.

• Tentative schedule
• Moodle room
• Literature and Links List
• Collaboration Room
• Exam results

Grades

The following activities will contribute to your grade

• 10 points: Learning diary: A learning diary must be kept every week, it can be kept on- or offline, but it is necessary to reflect on what you learned on this topic every week.
• 5 points: You will need to visit the Online Educa Exhibition between December 1 and December 3, 2021 if it takes place in person. This is one of the top conferences on e-learning, held every year in Berlin. Entrance to the exhibition is free. Please visit five exhibitors and write at least half a page about some educational tool that company offers. Feel free to praise or criticize the tool, but remain polite. If the OEB is cancelled on account of Corona, you will have to use the Internet to research for five different kinds of educational tool that the potential exhibitors (listed on the page) or other edutech companies offer. We have no lectures on that week to compensate for the time you invest in attending.
• 32 points: Four sessions of taking an eLearning unit yourself, describing the experience, and giving feedback to four fellow students on their own descriptions. Eight points per session, 0-4 are given by me for the quality of your presentation and 0-4 for the feedback you give to other students, one point for each feedback given. If I feel you are just writing "Nice, dude!" I won't give you the point for that feedback round, though.
• 25 points: Developing an e-learning unit together on a topic about Info 3.
• 30 points: On-line Exam
• 1 point: Show and Tell - at the beginning of each session there is time for a show and tell (5 minutes) for one of the students to present something interesting they recently found that has to do with E-Learning. Prof. Weber-Wulff will be presenting the first week.

The exam will be taken in Moodle. Moodle will choose a selection of questions for the exam. Every student will have a different exam, so it will not help to sit next to each other and peek at your neighbor! The exam will be taken on-line (but in a lab) on or about February 7, 2022, 12:15–13:15, with a discussion afterwards.

The number of points earned will result in a final grade according to the grading scale. You will note that the points listed above add up to 103 points. 95 are sufficient for a 1,0 in this course.

Taking eLearning units

I have a list of potential e-learning units available, you are encouraged to find additional units on any topics that interest you. This can include video-based, audio-based, or any sort of online instructional unit. The unit should represent approximately 90 minutes of learning.

You need to fill out a special form found in Moodle with your report (in addition to what you note in your learning diary, which will perhaps be more detailed) and upload it to Moodle by the evening before the class, and present it to the class (approx. 5 minutes) during one of our sessions. We will discuss the experiences that you had using the units. You are to choose at least four of the presentations and give your fellow student feedback on the presentation and report. You get one point for each feedback you give your peers up to 4 and 0-4 points assigned by me.

Communication

There is a forum in Moodle called "Official news" – this is for announcements to the entire group and I force everyone to be subscribed to this. There is also a forum "Questions and Discussions" – please address questions (and answers!) about this course to this forum only, as we have people from different semesters taking the course.

My social bookmarking is done on Pinboard, there are various tags there that you may find useful. I tweet at WeWuWiWo, occasionally I post eLearning links there.

 








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Prof. Dr. Debora Weber-Wulff

Questions or comments: 
<weberwu@htw-berlin.de> 



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