Students learn ...... to define Informatics;... to understand that problem definition and problem solving include different and partially conflicting perspectives, approaches and motives;... to enumerate different perspectives and schools of thinking from pre-scientific time to the present, and discuss the respective most important concepts, approaches and methods;...to motivate the necessity of ethics in practice, and to apply methods to methodically deal with ethical questions;...to discuss responsibility of informatics for the design of technology in respect to societal change:...to list important events and ideas from the history of information technology, and to critically discuss their relevance.
Ways of thinking in informatics provides an introduction and an overview of computer science from the point of view of their working and thinking ways, thus providing a kind of applied philosophy of science. The course is intended to arouse interest in further studies and to enable students to better classify the content presented in later courses. Students should be able to understand computer science as both a science and a practice, and to implement this knowledge as part of their further studies.
Die Vorlesung beginnt am Di, 02.10. mit einer Vorbesprechung. Aufgrund der zu erwartenden Zahl an Studierenden wird die Vorbesprechung an diesem Termin zweimal abgehalten:
Content is presented in lectures by different lecturers, and partially developed by students themselves. In self-organized work, students evaluate the work of fellow students using double blind peer reviewing. The evaluation is based not only on the performance of the exercises, but also on the quality of the reviews. A final group project has to be handed in at the end of the semester and explained in a face to face meeting.
