Introduction to Studying Multimedia Authoring Systems

This course is introduction to MULTIMA study program. I expected something more complex, but the course is quite easy. You can acquire 3 ECTS credits for some work with Moodle and Blogger. Truly I'm enjoying it.

For passing I must do:

• to be present on 3 classes (see my timetable);
• to write an opinion to Information Networks Usage Policy at the University of Vaasa;
• to find out and to discuss about some blog about studies (I chose this one);
• to create blog about studies here in Vaasa.

As you suspect, this is that blog. I can't let you here links to discussion about usage policy or founded blogs, because there are on Moodle and you need university account.

Introduction to Multimedia and Hypertext

This course is about history and technologies concerning to multimedia. Everything important is on lecturer's page. But if you want to read the notes you need password. I don't understand why this documents aren't on Moodle like stuff related to Introduction to Studying Multimedia Authoring Systems. Whatever it is...

This course is for 3 ECTS credits and we must pass through 2 writen assigments and exam.

This is main topics of this course:

• basic terminology, history and fundamentals of hypertext;
• GUI, www;
• Hyperfiction.

Finnish course

Today we had first lecture of Finnish. This course is only for 2 ECTS credits, but it serve for survive in Finnish. (Like it's name says - Survival Language Course for Exchange Students.) It shall learn basics of Finnish language needed in everyday life. The benefit of this course is that we have to only active participate in lectures. But we decided to write final exam for grades. As you can see in my timetable Finnish course will be every day in the morning (but finnish mornings are really like nights) for two weeks. We might choose with two variants: this intensive 2-weeks program or longer (and not so full-range) alternative. I chose the first one.

The rising was surprisingly quite easy, but this was only for the first time... Course was in Tervahovi and it takes 2 hours. Interestingly, lessons here starts 15 minutes later. Next time I will sleep longer :). Our lector - Anne Ahlqvist is accurate a very kind. She have experiences with teaching of exchange students, but Finnish language isn't easy. It deffers from Indo-European languages a lot. Finnish belongs to Finno-Ugric language family. Finnish is a synthetic and an agglutinative language. This means that words in Finnish have many parts inside them that make up meaning. In Finnish there are 15 cases. A case is an ending added to a word that helps describe its purpose in the sentence.

And this is some text written in Finnish:

Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.

And it means:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

It's a fragment from Declaration of Humans Rights. As you see, the text looks difficult. And I don't even mention that Finnish language have different spoken form.

My courses and timetable

I have 5 courses here in University of Vaasa (beside my courses from my home university):

• KSU5010 Survival Language Course for Exchange Students (Finnish);
• VIES1300 Introduction to Studying Multimedia Authoring Systems;
• VIES1006 Introduction to Multimedia and Hypertext;
• VIES1301 Introduction to Electronic Publishing;
• VIES1303 Project.

And this is may timetable:

		Week
		02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22
M o n d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
T u e s d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
W e d n e s d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
T h u r s d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00
F r i d a y	08:00-09:00
	09:00-10:00
	10:00-11:00
	11:00-12:00
	12:00-13:00
	13:00-14:00
	14:00-15:00
	15:00-16:00
	16:00-17:00
	17:00-18:00
	18:00-19:00
	19:00-20:00
	20:00-21:00

As you see, my timetable is not so exhausting. I will get under control all of courses here and courses at my home university.

Computer course & Library visit

Today was the computer course. We met in the morning in one of the computer labs of Fabrikki building. The purpouse of this was to familiarize with computer technoligies using by students and teachers of University of Vaasa. We made the acquaintance of Wompat, which is online courses timetable arranger, WebOodi, that serves for exams booking, Moodle, that is e-learning portal, University webmail, setting up IMAP protocol for e.g. Thunderbird or Outlook mail clients to reading school mailbox and how to subscribe to esn list, which is mailing list for exchange students here in University of Vaasa.

Then we walk to the city library with tutors (it's different from university library). It is big building with lots of publications. But the most interresting thing for me was robot for books sorting, that people are returning. You can see how it works on short videoclip below.

Vaasa excursion

Today was sight-seeing tour around Vaasa's surroundings by bus. It was free journey organized by University of Vaasa for new exchange students. It was great opportunity to learn something about Vaasa city and it's neighbourhood. We had very jokeful tourist guide that makes fun from boring facts and we were lucky with weather. Because the weather in this time is usually very cold in Finland. That makes finnish people little sad. But I'm glad.

What have I learned about Vaasa?
First notices about Vaasa (or Mustasaari - in Swedish Korsholm, which is fractured archipelago here in Ostrobothnia) is dated to 14th century. The city was founded in 1606 by king Charles IX of Sweden. In 1613 the town was renamed after the Royal House of Vasa.

In 17th century citizens lived upon tar trade and town was growing. But in 1852 breaked out the big town fire and mostly wooden Vaasa was almost destroyed. Then in 1962 started building new town named Nikolainkaupunki (in Sweden Nikolaistad) about seven kilometers from burned town. Nikolainkaupunki was systematically designed to prevent from fire disasters. After overthrowning of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917 was city renamed to Vaasa.

During the Finnish Civil War in 1918 Vaasa was capitol of Finlad for about four months. Now Vaasa is the city of universities and industry.

Vaasa have three universities:

• University of Vaasa - headquarter in Vaasa (naturally);
• Åbo Akademi - headquarter in Turku;
• Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration - headquarter in Helsinki.

Main employers of Vaasa are:

• Asea Brown Boveri - production of industrial and power electronics and automation equipment;
• Wärtsilä - manufacturer of large (diesel) engines and power plants;
• Vacon - electronics company that manufactures AC drives and frequency converters;
• TeliaSonera - dominant telephone company and mobile network operator.

Something about neighbourhood:
During the bus excursion we visited some places near Vaasa in Ostrobothnia. We saw parts of the archipelago belong to the UNESCO World Heritage Site named Kvarken. It was added in 2006. We also visited Finland's longest bridge named Replot bridge. It connects the island of Raippaluoto (in Sweden Replot) to the mainland. We had opportunity to walk around the ruins of Saint Mary's Church from middle of 14th century. It was destroyed by town fire.

University of Vaasa

Today we had interresting information meeting about University of Vaasa for exchange students. I got knowledge about it and I decide to publish it.

The University of Vaasa have four faculties:

• Faculty of Business Studies - they focus on business finance, financial markets, consumer behaviour, leadership, international economics, european integration and so on;
• Faculty of Technology - their area of research is about dynamic mathematical modelling, energy technologies and new information processing methods;
• Faculty of Humanities - taking interest in culture, literature, intercultural communication, language for special purposes, multilingualism, translations, multimedia systems and so forth;
• Faculty of Public Administration - they concetrate on comparative public policy, public management, evaluation and welfare state and profitability of public services.

I offer you some historical informations:
The university was established in 1966 as School of Economics and Business Administration in Vaasa by Council of State. In 1977 the school became a state institution. Then in 1980 started education in Humanities and in 1983 studies in Social Science. Technology studies began in 1990 with cooperation with Helsinki University of Technology. In 1992 the school was organised into four faculties like now. In 1994 the school moved to new place on Palosaari.

Concerning to university campus:
The new campus is in the neighbourhood of Palosaari near by old cotton mill. Each building have own name. Such as main bulding - Tervahovi, academic library - Tritonia, univestity laboratory - Technobotnia or reconstructed old cotton mill - Fabrikki. The campus is near sea an full of park areas.

Map of University of Vaasa (you can use draging to move the map)