About this blog

This is a blog designed for the purpose of sharing my general findings concerning digital technology and language, and includes some general themes from the wider field of technology in society. After all, without language society is not possible; furthermore, technology has always had a formative effect on society.

This blog is primarily intended as an adjunct source of information for an undergraduate course module "SML209 Computers and Languages", that I teach in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Film, at Queen Mary University of London.

So what is the 'Computers and Languages' course all about? Here is a short overview and some pointers to things you can explore in preparation for the course

First of all, let me try to define what this course is all about. In a nutshell, the course explores some of the areas in which computing overlaps with (or meets) language, language learning and literature. It's important at this stage to clarify what I mean by 'computing' - a brief investigation into the meaning of this word defines it as, "to determine by calculation; to reckon; to count" (Webster, 1913), and is derived from the Latin 'computare' meaning 'to count'. However, more modern usage of the word 'compute' includes the meaning of "to use a computer" (Merriam-Webster, 2011), and it is in this sense that we use the term in this course. So, this course concentrates on how we can use computers for language studies, linguistics and comparative literature.

So, what sort of things will we cover on the course?

1. Due to the predominance of the Internet and World-Wide-Web (here's a little task for you: find out the difference in meaning between the terms 'World-Wide-Web' and 'Internet'), we will look at how the World-Wide-Web has evolved over recent years, enabling people to access and create content (by which I mean texts, images, audio and video material).

2. General current developments in the wider field of technology studies; for instance, the ways artificial intelligence and machine learning are having an impact on society and human behaviour. 

3. Some of the ways websites work and are structured. An essential part of this entails learning something about HTML (HyperText Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and if we have time, JS (JavaScript); these are the fundamental components of all websites.

4. We'll also look at how to create content for the web, including still images, audio material and video material (moving images), and we'll make use of an excellent online authoring tool named H5P (which stands for HTML5 Package).

So by the end of the course you should have good understanding of some of the fundamental issues in digital technology today; a basic knowledge of how websites work and of how they can be used for educational purposes; and the basic tools and skills needed to create your own website.

To get you started, here a few key resources for you to explore:

1) Here is a fun and interesting interactive Google Book entitled 20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web. Go to the table of contents and read the first 5 things: http://www.20thingsilearned.com/table-of-things. Can you find answers to the following questions?

i)   In what way is TCP/IP a language?
ii)  Why is it safer to have your data in 'the Cloud' than it is on your laptop?
iii) Give an example of a 'web app' that you use.
iv) What is JavaScript and how is it useful when you submit web forms?
v)  What do web programmers use to define the layout of their pages and to make them beautiful?
vi) Which major new HTML <tag> has been introduced in HTML5?

2) On this course, you will learn a lot of HTML. To get a head-start, start the w3schools HTML Tutorial: http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp


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