School: Stanislaw Staszic 1st High School
    Chrzanów, malopolskie, Poland

4 students, ages 18-19 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 27, 2005. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): -

Classes and Teachers: Robert Daszyk/Joanna Joanna Bartlomiej Przemyslaw

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.1lo.pl

1. Description of Our Team

Our team members are: Joanna Kaleka (age 19), Joanna Gardon (age 18), Bartek Nowotarski (age 18) and Przemek Cwik (age 18). We are the pupils of co - educational state High School situated in Chrzanów in the south of Poland. The eldest of us will graduate from the school soon and go to the university in Cracow.

We joined together because of many reasons. We have been just working together in Polish President Competition called: ‘Internetowa Szkola Olimpijska’ which was held last school year. What is more, we have known each other for quite long so we really get on well and our work was full of pleasure and fun.

We have various skills so we hadn't any problems with dividing our work involved in the project. Girls wrote texts and translated them from Polish into English. Boys took care of all technical sides that the project required. We didn't find any difficulties in the division. We knew what we were interested in and who of us were keen on the Internet, art, literature or computer technology. We did our best, nevertheless some other people including our school teachers and schoolmates helped us with the project. English language teachers corrected our texts which we had translated before and Polish language teachers checked the Polish versions. Furthermore our coach Mr. Robert Daszyk gave us some interesting ideas connected with the issue and he also encouraged us to work hard all the time.

2. Summary of Our Project

In our project we would like to show all similarities in the art, e.g. between ancient and modern sculptures or paintings. There are no differences among art nowadays and art in previous centuries. We, that means the mankind, have still the same dreams, needs, ideas... We're still dreaming about true love, freedom, peace, and not to mention the fact that we still don't know how long each of us would live.

Both when we are like a bear with a sore head and when we are very cheerful we would like to express our emotions. In those moments, we start to create new objects of art. To sum up, it's unimportant if we're French, Polish or Japanese because everyone is an individual artist.

Furthermore we would like to encourage other students and people from all over the world to start being interested in the art not only due to its aesthetic value but also because of its diplomacy skills.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:2-3

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Our first and the most important problem was to reconcile daily school routine with work on the project. We weren't able to focus on the site when we would have taken an exam the following day. We often finished our classes after 3 pm so at homes we didn't have enough time to do all homework and beside this improve the page. Thus, we created the site and wrote and translated texts especially at weekends. However, we often had to catch up on what we missed while we focused on the site. In spite of this when our work progressed, obstacles slowly increased. Two of us hadn't access to the Internet at home so we had some difficulties with being in touch all the time especially while winter holidays (because we live in different towns).

We wanted our Web site to exist for more than just a week or month. We hoped people would still use the site even after the competition Doors to Diplomacy. It made us to do our best and think out catchy slogans and original ideas for the texts and the project.

Recently there has appeared a new technical obstacle. We couldn't find a necessary domain server for the site. We wouldn't manage to finish the site now if our head teacher didn't arrange us the server.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Our participation in Doors to Diplomacy wasn't accidental but we've believed that our work would be profitable. We and other students from various countries from all over the world will learn how to be diplomatic in relationships and how the art can join people; it helps them to understand others and their problems because we have the same human nature.

6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

The most necessary skill which we had to learn was co-working. That was related with issues like making ourselves understood by each another. Despite that we also had to be available for one another all the time. Moreover, work was divided into many stages thanks to which we could supervise progress. We have discover that building such a complex web page is more difficult that we supposed at the beginning. We are sure that we did our best. Eventually it was a very tough assignment.

We believe that our project site differs from others, sometimes very simple ones, that’s why it’s full of animations, models and interactivity, etc. The Internet is a unique tool to teach due to wide range of methods of impact on you. And we tried to use all these methods. World Wide Web is the only thing in the world where everyone may express his own emotions.

1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?

During creating our Doors to diplomacy project we have used computers mainly to communicate between one another. This was very helpful as we live in different towns. But also things like telephone calls, instant messages, SMSs and e-mails seem to be irreplaceable. From technical point of view we have designed our site with software like: Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, Autodesk AutoCAD, 3D Studio MAX. All of these programs have allowed us to build dynamic menus and 3D objects and models.

Our site has dedicated content management system written in PHP language and supported by MySQL database server. This made our site fully interactive.

Furthermore, our team gained knowledge from books, museums and interviews with artists from our region, which we have recorded on digital camera.

2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.

While we were designing our page all students from our school were mentally involved into it. They encouraged us all the time and, from time to time, they gave us their opinions about what they liked and didn't like on the page. The site address has been put on the school Web page. It was also accessible for everyone.

In addition to that, we co-operated with the local newspaper ‘Przelom’. It propagated the site, its address and, of course, the issue. Reporters are going to interview us in the following week. And then more and more people will know about the page.

Beside, there is a community section. There everyone can express his feelings about the topical painting inserted on the page. More over, we may exchange our opinions about it with the others and say what we like or not on the picture and comment on the topical issue.

Day by day, there come more and more site visitors who like the page and encourage their pals to visit it regularly.

We're going to still improve the page. We hope it will help a lot of people to learn something new and interesting and find necessary pieces of information. In that case, we will meet many new people. They'll propagate the site address among their kith and kin.

In that ways the importance of diplomacy, international affairs and the art will widespread and increase among various people from various cultures.

3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?

When we started our work on the project we weren't sure that it would be the best thing we've ever done. Although, thanks to the choice of the issue we learnt how to be more co-operative and work in group more fruitfully. The project isn't about differences among people but it talks about things which are common for everyone throughout the world and its history. Our Web page says that each of us isn't similar to the others but almost identical, so we wish it would be very helpful for the site visitors to get on better with people living in different countries. Also it'll widespread some new information about the art and its necessity in human life.

Moreover, when somebody visits the site he would inquire about famous philosophies, painters, sculptors or architects. There is more about important and original pieces of art, those well known and those just forgotten.

Our community section has also recently started working. Site visitors can express here their various opinions via Internet in part called ‘Your feelings'.

In essence, our site's shown necessary pieces of information about spiritual side of the art and allowed each of site visitors to say about their own opinion.

4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?

To start with, we were helped by the school teachers and also our schoolmates. Mrs. Monika Likus and Mrs. Malgorzata Medela helped us with English language translation (checked essays and shorter notes). Our texts were also read by Polish language teacher Mrs. Blanka Baranska. They directed us what we should have added or outlined. Thanks to them we could have improved our site to the end.

However, all the time we asked other students about their opinions of the site and its shortcomings. But the most required and fussy advisor was our coach Mr. Robert Daszyk. He sometimes criticized our plans and he said his solution to the idea. Sometimes we followed his advice but on the other occasions we firmly defended our ideas.

Moreover, we thank the head teacher Mr. Janusz Makuch who helped us to receive necessary domain service. As well as teachers, we owed a big help to our schoolmates. Andrzej Pendrys and Slawek Drazkiewicz who created presentations which varied the site and made it more interesting.

Przelom also propagated the competition among local people. We really appreciate this. It made the issue more known.

Finally, we realized that without the efforts of people from our school and community, our Web site would have far less appeal and we cannot forget to thank them for the time that they have provided to us.