Q1OlgaLiskin

Document Q1OlgaLiskin

1. Your Name

Olga Liskin

2. Your field of study?

Computer Science and Mathematics

3. In which semester of study are you?

8th

4. Why are you interested in taking this course?

I am pretty much interested in new media, especially in internet applications. I am impressed by the huge acceptance, application of and participation in new internet media such as the popular Web 2.0 projects. I am taking the course because I want to learn more about such applications and the basic ideas behind them. But I also want to get a more general approach from a more general perspective towards design and creativity of people.

5. What courses / work activities / background knowledge do you have which might be relevant to this course?

I have some background knowledge in software engineering which leads to user-based software development. In addition I want to take the User Interface Design course this semester which covers some topics that might be relevant to this course.

6. Indicate your own digital literacy / fluency:
6.1. Describe your programming experience (languages, projects)

Java, C++, Scheme, XML. I have participated in some software projects at university, one of them was an agile software engineering project.

6.2. What applications are you familiar with (e.g. Photoshop, Canvas, Dreamweaver,...)?

Photoshop, Blender, my favorite application is Eclipse.

7. Give a brief description of the most important book / article which you have read with respect to the topic of the course.

I liked Tim O'Reilly's article "What is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software" (available on http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html). It provides a good approach to the Web 2.0 topic. I think that especially part 2., "Harnessing Collective Intelligence", is important regarding the topic of this course as it describes and explains some of the most important phenomena within Web 2.0 that enable user contributions to the web.

8. What do you hope and expect to learn from this course?

I want to learn about and develop approaches to using new media 1.to encourage people in being creative and productive and 2.to enable and encourage collaboration among people.