School: Istvan Szechenyi Ket Tanitasi Nyelvu Kozgazdasagi
    Bekescsaba, Bekes, Hungary

4 students, ages 19 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 21, 2005. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2005

Classes and Teachers: Vera Bacskai

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://w3.szikszi.hu

1. Description of Our Team

Our team consist of four member – and I suppose to be the team leader, so I would like to introduce my team: Vera Bacskai –coach (our teacher), coaches, coordinates our team Janos, 19 – team leader; responsible for team reporting (Project Narrative, Final Entry Notice…) and management Miklos, 19 – responsible for design and programming Zoltan, 19 – responsible for gathering economic information Zsolt, 19 – responsible for public relations The three of us (Janos, Miklos, Zoltan) had already participated in competitions in connection with international relations (mainly the European Union). After our English teacher notified us about this opportunity, we began to organize our team with an extra member (Zsolt), so we were ready to enter this competition and we asked Vera Bacskai (our economics teacher) to be our coach – so she registered us. Afterwards we divided the task among ourselves (I have already mentioned it above) and began the work. We are at the final semester of school, which means that next year we are going to study on university or college and we thought that we would take the chance and enter a competition together as a team for the very last time.

2. Summary of Our Project

The question, which starts us, was: is there any system, rule or theory, which steers the seemingly chaos-like international relations? Two branches were come apart from this question: how can we bring this whole out from chaos? and: Can we find the way (even theoretically) how the world could improve? This was the one that gave us the impulse to work keenly. We read over all the stuffs we have learnt about economics, and on the searching for something useful, we dropped upon the name of David Ricardo. And he was the one we have been searching for!

His work was really diverse, however something sticked out right at the beginning: he was working for the same thing as we. To find systems, rules and theories that would help to understand the world, help to fix its problems - and make it better. We do believe that the greatest scientists have the same goal as this, and we can say that Ricardo was the greatest one of his age. So this page can be esteemed as our notes taken of the work of David Ricardo. We were on to make his findings clear, to model it and to teach it without the ordinary meaning of 'teaching'. We also want to show you, that economy is not a 'strange fruit' but a way to understand the world and sometimes to improve it. But what about these days? The theories of John Nash gave us the impression, that Ricado's efforts do have the carrying-on. It does not fully fit to the sphere of economy (that is why we needed to expel it), but it is for the same as all sciences point on: a better world.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:21-50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:2-3

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

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

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

Actually we did not have much problem with computers and Internet, because we could work with them both at home and in school.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Zoltan had the idea to make the web project about comparative advantage, but the first problem was that the rest of the team did not understand the theory. So he had to explain the purpose of the theory via Ricardo’s model. After having gathered all the essential information for out web project, we began to build our webpage. Though Miklos was an advanced Photoshop and Flash user, the rest of the team had some difficulties with the use of these software. He gave us an instant training so we could all help Miklos with the design. It was also a difficult task to make the game but after uniting Miklos’ advanced Flash knowledge and Zoltan’s basic programming skills we managed to create it.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

First of all I would like to thank the GSH staff for enabling us to enter such a great competition which offers us a huge opportunity to learn new things about the world that we are living in. Participating in the Door to Diplomacy gave us a great chance to experience the work of “ambassador” as we had a wide range of tasks to do. We arranged a meeting with our school leaders (deputy headmasters) who also approved our entry in this competition and offered us free web space on our school webserver, where we could upload our web project. Than we got in touch with our local media, which helped our promotion in our community. We hope that our project will allow students across the globe to understand better the importance of international cooperation, through David Ricardo's model of specialization.

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

Our curriculum contains special business subjects: economics and international business relations. Our project is about international cooperation which covers our curriculum on several points e.g. Ricardo’s model (economics – division of labour, specialization). So our project lets our schoolmates understand these economic and business matters better and also enables them to reach a wider view of the importance of cooperation on an international level. But to be able to provide our schoolmates with substantial information on this topic, we had to collect essential information for ourselves to understand the whole concept of Ricardo’s model concerning specialization, Zoltan held a presentation for us , so we could all understand the mechanism and the importance of the model, and let us make a conclusion without which this kind of cooperation, economic development would not be possible. Than we began to collect extra information relating to our project e.g. biography of David Ricardo, and we arranged a meeting where we discussed all the information we had, and set up the outlines of our project. We did majority of our research work on the Internet, which was a great advantage for us. We did not have to look through lots of books, we were able to use the Internet as a medium of information – we could accurately reach the required information for our project profile – this saved us a lot of time.

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

All of us had a desktop PC at home, and three of us also had Internet connection. This was a great advantage because we could do the majority of our work at home and did not have to spend long hours in school. We got a great opportunity from our school leaders that we could upload our web project on our school server – so that we could represent our school. The website was mainly designed by Miklos who did an excellent job, he made lots of custom-designed elements like icons and used them up during the building of the web project. I think that the most important – the fundamental tool was the Internet. We did most of our research work on the Internet. It had saved us time and gave us the opportunity of learning new things of economics and international affairs. We also did some research by using books (mainly Ricardo’s one). Once we had the bases of our web project our coach evaluated it and gave us some hints along which we could complete it. We used the following software to build our web-pages: MS Word, Adobe Photoshop 7 and Dreamweaver 2.

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

I think that our topic is very important, because of the global economic challenges we have to face. That’s why it was a bit hard to decide how we should inform the widest possible range of people about our web project. It was my task (Janos) to find the best way of medium for this task. We wrote an article about our project and gave some extra information about the GSH Doors to Diplomacy competition, but this newspaper is only local one which only covers our county. I thought that we should go back to the origins of our project – the base of our research work – the Internet. My idea was to notify as many people as possible, the medium was given, the only question was: how? Finally I found out that we could create some kind of a newsletter which we could send to all of our friends who would possibly be interested and who would notify their friends, and we could reach the required effect. I consulted with Miklos and he also found it realizable, and he designed it. Now we are at status of waiting for their comments on our web project.

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

We have consulted with our classmates, they were interested in our web project and we got good feedbacks on our work. It was a very pleasant feeling granting us the experience that we did something useful, which could serve their education. I asked one of my friends to write a comment on our project about the impact it made on her. Her comment made me feel that it worth creating this website. So I would like to share her comment with you (she is my classmate, Maria Tenkei): “At first sight, the website is extremely decorative. The colours are pleasing, the letters are good to look at. The navigation buttons of the website are easy to penetrate, the links are accessible without any difficulties. The whole site is well-built. The referred topics are clearly expounded in details. Even I myself-who is going to have an entrance examination to a university on economics-found new facts which I have never heard. It is more lifelike than reading about it in a book. It can give remarkable information to a nonprofessional as well. This site draws the attention to the process of world economy. The game helps a lot in understanding, as it makes you comprehend Ricardo's theory. To sum it up it is a well-built, quaint website, which not just entertains but gives you information about the real life as well.”

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

We got help from our school network administrator Peter Timar, who helped us to upload the web project on the schools server and gave us useful advice about the Internet. We got help from our schoolmates: we often consulted with them on the project, they gave us precious advice and feedback and we hope - thanks for their help - everybody can well understand our project, especially the students. Actually our greatest help was granted by our coach, Vera Bacskai. She helped us every single time we needed her help, and made us understand sometimes hard economic problems. She always emphasized the importance of cooperation – I think which is the general purpose of this competition, the cooperation within the teams and the importance of sharing knowledge “without frontiers”. She always gave us hints and advice with which we could correct and modify our project. Her work was priceless for us, so we would just like to say: Thank You for Your Precious Help!

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

During the course of the creation of our project we had learned lots of things both from each other and from our coach. It enabled us to understand the importance of cooperation which is the base of our world. This year we are taking our final school leaving exams which decides which universities are we qualified enough to attend. So one of the most important exam is the economics exam – by participating in this competition we had the chance to revise some of the topic which are essential for this exam. We also learnt that without the “specialization” in our team we would not be able to work as efficient as we did – so this was the pure evidence of the fact that Ricardo’s model of specialization does work in reality and not just in theory.