STUDENT OF THE WEEK – week 48

Have you ever wonder who DKKers really are?!…

…Following our posts, you will get to know us more and more week after week!!

Week 48: Benjamin Antman!! Yes, we do have also male students at DKK in case you wondered after the first 3 students of the week! Benjamin is a second year students coming from Sweden. Read the following interview to know a little bit more about our great Ben!

Interviewer [I]: Hi Ben! tell us about your self in 160 characters.

Benjamin [B]: I’m a guy with his head up in the clouds, and a love for disorganization and provocation (or frankness, however you may see it). I’m very interested in the human condition and the discourse it creates. I’m calm on the outside but my inner dialogue is always active which is a reason for why I might not always follow the school schedule; the inner dialogue isn’t as polite to stop when I need to sleep. Science and reason has again become a small hobby of mine. I enjoy the great questions in cosmology and astrophysics, which happen to provoke religious debates, which I happen to like. It’s hard for a guy with his head up in the clouds to tell something about himself pretty much because he’s seldom coming out of the clouds to look around and see how other people see him, but! I hope you have learned something of interest.

[I]: A bit more than 160 characters, but this tell us more about your personality:) Let´s go on with the interview: which is/was your favourite course/assignment you were following at DKK (year 1 and 2) and why? Can you give us an example of what you did?

[B]: My favorite assignment was probably the final essay in Digital Rhetorics 1 where I wrote about the game “Psychonauts” with terms like commutation testing and analog and digital oppositions. The game had a lot of humour in it and in turn the essay became quite humorous as well. The fact that I got an A on it helped as well. My best course was probably Digital Rhetorics 1 as it was so unusual and even engaged me in class discussions.(image over: screenshot from Benjamin´s assignment about the game “Psychonauts”) 

 [I]: Which is your motto?

[B]: Nothing is certain, unless being certain helps you through the day.

[I]: Can you make a question to the next week´s Student of the week?

[B]: What would you like to do in five years?

Thanks Ben for the collaboration!

Have you some suggestions on WHO should answer Benjamin´s question on next week´s interview?

Leave a comment!!

STUDENT OF THE WEEK – week 47

Have you ever wonder who DKKers really are?!…

…Following our posts, you will get to know us more and more week after week!!

We are finally back with the “Student of the week” posts, after a little break. I know the suspense  is killing you, so I will not annoy you with some boring introduction. Let´s go directly to the point and introduce the student of the week 47: Cynthia Salkovic, first year student.

Interviewer [I]: Hi Cynthia! Tell us shortly who you are!

Cynthia [C]: I´ m a fun, loving person and I like making people laugh. I believe that, in order to understand a person, you have to try and see or look at things from the person´s perspective. Especially in a multi-cultural environment like BTH.

[I]: Can you tell us something funny about moving to Sweden?

[C]: Food! I was really craving for my home food, but now I think I have found my way around. I do make my home food here with the Swedish ingredients, kind of bricolage.

[I]: How does it feel after having spent the first semester at DKK?

[C]: It feels great, I am even more enthusiastic about what we will be learning in the second semester.

[I]: Which assignment are you most proud of, and why?

[C]: I am proud of all my assignments so far, I like this particular one from language studies, because of the sensitive nature of the chosen topic. The assignment was to write about an upcoming event and I wrote about Breast Cancer Awareness Marathon Race.

See my assignment at: http://www.cynsalsblog.blogspot.se

Thanks Cynthia for the cooperation!

Would you like to suggest the next student of the week? LEAVE A COMMENT!

See you next week with a new student of DKK!!

STUDENT OF THE WEEK – week 44

Have you ever wonder who DKKers really are?!…

…Following our posts, you will get to know us more and more week after week!!

And how to miss the interview with our second-year-student Shajin Chen?!?

Interviewer [I]: Hej Shajin! Congratulation for being the second student of the week at DKK 2012. Tell us about yourself in 160 characters.

Shajin [S]: I’m a person that is very confident, sensitive and full of enthusiasm in life. I like organize travels, communicate with different people in the way of either deeply heart expression or full of humor and laughing.

[I]: What are the main differences between living&studying in Sweden and in China?

[S]: There are too many differences, but I can pick only the simple ones: University studies in China are more intense in theory studies and focus on written examination in case to pass each course, while Swedish studies tend more to group assignment and different studying in project achievement. The atmosphere between teachers and student is much more relax here in Sweden than in China. Well, life in China…I would say it is much more colorful since we have stronger culture elements and the wonderful food culture, but I can’t deny that I love the equality and mutual respect between people, as well as the social security of Sweden.

[I]: Which is/have been your favourite course you were following at DKK (year 1 and 2) and why?

[S]: My favorite course so far is Project Leadership in Management that is going on in my second year. Because this kind of practical knowledge was what I wanted from the beginning and which I thought it is very important to have.

[I]: Which is your motto?

[S]: My motto is : Be myself, and keep moving.

(c) Ada auf der Strasse

A big thanks to Shajin for the cooperation!

See you next week with a new student of DKK to discover!!

STUDENT OF THE WEEK – week 43

Have you ever wonder who DKKers really are?!…

…well, starting from now you’ll get to know all the students thanks to our “Student of the week” series!!

The student who have the big honour of being the first student of the week is Emma Larsson, first year student at DKK! Read more about her  in the interview we made!!

Interviewer[I]: Hi Emma, tell us who you are in 100 characters.

Emma[E]:  I’m 22 years old and originally from the west coast of Sweden. I live in Karlshamn, I like playing video games and baking cupcakes. (108 characters…..)

[I]: How does it feel to be the first student of the week of DKK 2013?

[E]: I’m honored!

[I]: How does it feel after having spent 2 month at DKK?

[E]: I feel like I’ve learned a lot and I’m excited to learn more!

[I]: Which assignment are you most proud of and why? 

[E]: We haven’t really had that many assignments yet, but I guess the one I am the most proud of so far is the Cultural Studies-assignment. The assignment was that we were to (in theory) re-curate an exhibition based on a few of the pieces from the Naval Museum in Karlskrona. Me and three other classmates (Jonas, Yuka and Helena) made an exhibition with the theme “fear”.
The reason why I am the most proud of this assignment is because we worked really well together and I was impressed of how much we actually managed to do in just one week.

“Fear” by Emma, Jonas, Yuka and Helena.

Thanks Emma for the cooperation!

…Are you also wondering who will be the student of the week 44?…. See you in a week!!

Let’s get it started!

Last days of holidays and we are going to start over again!

See you all soon on our first meeting on September 4th at 10 am in room 2.

more info can be found here: http://www.bth.se/dsn/dkk.nsf/sidor/info-fall-2012

Pori Seminar #4

Howdy everyone! 

In short words, we’ve had alot of information lately dealing with Pori students apart from the presentations we’ve all had.

There were so many presentations that I’m going to take those which interested me the first. One was ARGs (Alternate Reality Games), which I’ve mentioned before. The fact that people can physically partake in an event through games tied to the virtual is fascinating. Especially where the participators play with the border between virtual and physical which elevates the fun experience. She only went into describing the event, but even then the potential with creating discourse between the virtual and physical and marketing it is an intelligent idea.

Another one which caught my interest was by Jaakko, he had investigated the relations between computer and human and showed the human-like ways we identify with it. The products get older quicker than us so it’s often a short-term relationship when it comes to computers, cell phones and other electronics. Some are faithful until the end, like nerds; others who aren’t as tech-savvy by a new one much sooner, and “dump” their old machines.

On Thursday, the last full day before our departure to Karlskrona we, after class, visited the biggest boardgame-company in the Nordic countries and we learned how the games are commissioned and created. This, I heard was a way to introduce other games than digital ones and get a new perspective on game theory. We got to see how the games are packaged and sent. We even got a Angry Birds game which the company had made  (Angry Birds is a big thing in Pori).

Svenska/Suomalainen club is a posh club for nice dinners and conferences and we were invited by the foundation for swedish finns which paid for a very nice dinner where we dressed up nicely and discussed topics like movie-theory and digital culture. We had even had a film-professor visit and speak of his thesis on inspiration from the cold war brought into the movies of that age.There was salmon, mozzarella salad with balsam vinegar, potato salad. A finnish band stood for the electronic music while we talked.

My presentation, “The Art of Virtual Kidnapping”, was presented on Thursday. It had been ruled as being the most “scary” presentation since day one, haha. I talked about the stigma when applying words such as kidnapping to a virtual environment, and what effect it had on people’s actions and reactions to the concept, made to provoke a disruptive discourse of human dependence on GPS in these days. 

The Facebook page I was supposed to present I forgot of course, nonetheless I went over the announted time when presenting the individual journeys made by my project’s participators. It showed me that these guys wanted me to present everything before stopping me for questions. And there was alot of talk about the borderline between what behaviours we share between going through the virtual environment and walking through the physical environment. I also picked up on the omnipresence the virtual world supplies us, which could be a new area of psychology altogether, among other things. It was warmly discussed and received and some of them asked me to construct an application to do the same as I had presented my Facebook group as a prototype. Talan was really excited as well so let us see how this will fare as a thesis project!

Shajin will present her presentation story shortly, for now I bid you goodbye.

Regards,
Benjamin Antman

Pori Seminar #3

20th August, 20:14

Resting at the hostel after a long introductory day, Shajin did her presentation today and she’s very relieved to have finished that. She wasn’t notably nervous when she presented and with her naturally being a good presenter and performer (in my opinion) she made it into a memorable presentation for some in the audience. Her presentation was mostly meant to provoke and reflect on the way in how we see the term augmented reality and she indeed got a long discussion going during- and even after seminar hours.

Before we began presenting we had a short sightseeing through the university area and were told about it’s history.

The remaining presentations that day were:

Katrine Hövsgaard Nielsen & Nina Mörch Pedersen, “Designing for Sensory Experiments: Exploring the Relevance of Intelligent Textiles in Snoezelen”/ Copenhagen: interactive environments and prototypes which were interactive pillows with diods sensitive to touch to enhance sensory input for therapeutic purposes. This was a very interesting presentation because I found out several hospitals in the nordic countries already have an interactive room and with the help of Malmö hospital the interactive pillows were constructed.

Then we had a lunchbreak, we had gotten food coupons by Vaula (the organizer) so we ate for free in the University’s café.

Saara Ala-Luopa/ Pori: was before Shajin got up to present, was about ARG – “Alternate Reality Game”, a game where you construct an alternate world (Batman’s world, Superman’s world, etc) by not only constructing fake news-, TV-, blog websites which fit with the alternate world; ARG also makes the players the participants in the alternate world, interacting through SMS and email with the characters and travel over large distances from one place to another to participate in uncovering the plot of the game.

Last one out was Shajin.

After class we had a quite entertaining journey with the small city train (made in Lyon, apparently) and the guide was very optimistic, and fun, even though she didn’t notice it at times… She was into saying the word “famous”, so a lot of things in Pori became “famous”.

After the entertaining train ride we finished the scheduled day at Saikku, the Pori student house. Although I was too stuffed on the lunch so I and a few others sat outside and had a drink while working up our hunger.

I’m going off for a shower now, and for those who read this; thank you for reading.

With regards,
Benjamin Antman