My Interests

My name is Brianna Baca and I am a freshman student at The College of New Jersey. I am currently enrolled in two psychology classes, an Italian class and a creative computing class. I am pursuing a psychology major and am looking into a business minor. My interests are extremely varied and include everything outdoors. I love to go camping, hiking, rollerblading, snowboarding and biking. I love to play basketball and field hockey, and I love the ocean. Being that I live only 10 minutes from the beach I am in the sun all summer long. I love to read mystery, suspense and certain off the wall novels. I also love listening to music, going to the movies, and hanging out with friends. One of my most favorite things to do is dance. Eventually I hope to become a psychologist after I have traveled the world and served time in the peace corp.

My History With Technology

My history with technology is a simple one. I was born listening to music. My parents played different audio cassettes to me when I was a child and I grew up watching VHS tapes. When I was around 5 years old my family had a Gateway Computer. . I used to play simple games on it like Chips Challenge and Solitaire. About a year later my sister and I were given a Nintendo 64 for Christmas When I was in 2nd grade I received a Giga pet for Christmas, a digital toy that enables you to manage your own digital pet. Starting around the same time I began listening to CD’s and watched TV a great deal. A little later, DVD’s were released and my household stopped purchasing VHS’s. When I was a freshman in high school I received my first cell phone. Shortly after, I was exposed to a laptop that my dad had purchased for work purposes. During high school I became familiar with mp3 music players, specifically Creative Jukebox and Zune.

During high school I became familiar with the programs Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and was able to efficiently navigate the Internet. In high school I also purchased a Windows XP laptop and am still learning the secrets of all the programs. The summer before my freshman year in college I had a job with the Federal Aviation Administration Technical Center and worked with SFDH’s and Crib’s, two different kinds of equipment that help computers communicate with radar systems. Also this past summer I started to create a website for a nonprofit organization I am a part of, the South Jersey Cancer Fund, but because of college my mother took the website over. I don't have much experience with web design but look forward to learning as much as possible!

TOP

Human Creativity and Cognition

When first thinking about the words human creativity and cognition I simply thought, “well that’s just when people use their minds to create new things, basically new ideas that they may be having.” But when I read this one online source of the definition of creativity, my thoughts expanded. Creativity: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.

Human creativity and cognition is so much more than just a new idea. It is the ability to transcend popular thought; the ability to think outside the box, to not be inhibited by boundaries. It is taking a chance on something new. When I materialize this concept into an image I see a whole work force laboring away in the brain, organizing, expanding and pushing its limits. Human creativity and cognition very much applies to the two programs going to be used in this class: Dreamweaver and Alice. In order to successfully work and manipulate these programs one must be able to push their own limits as well as societys'. I better understand how important creativity and cognition can be in computing.