School: specialized boarding school # 43
    Bulakbashi, Andijan, Uzbekistan

15 students, ages 9 - 18 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 9, 2007. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2007

Classes and Teachers: Mrs.Makhprat Abdullaeva/students of the 3rd, 8th, 9th, 10th,11th grades

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://bulakbashi10.connect.uz

1. Description of Our Community

Bulakbashi is a small and anciant village. It is situated in Bulakbashi district, in the north – east of Andijan region, 22 klm far from the city Andijan. It is the centre of Bulakbashi district. Its population is 107,3 thousand people and its territory is 18, 897 hectare . So the density of population in our village is high. Our village is located at the foot of the mountain which is called Shirmonbulak. If you pay attention the name of our village and mountain it has the word “bulak”. In English the word “Bulak” means “spring”. So the word “Bulakbashi” means “The head of spring” and the word “Shirmonbulak” means “Sweet spring”. Of course its fresh air and wonderful nature affects the character of our people. We can proudly say about our people's creativeness. The main job of the village people is farming, gardening and handcrafting. They are famous for growing vegetables and sweet fruits. In addition, our carpenters and embroiderers, smiths and dress makers are known not only in Bulakbashi, but in other parts of Andijan region. People from surrounding villages and cities come to buy or order things to our masters. We hope that people from other parts of the world heard about the national handicrafts of Uzbekistan and they are interested in learning the process and specifics of art handcrafting, which made Uzbek people famous.

2. Summary of Our Project

In our project we are going to show and tell about the preparation of cradles, scull cups and gold embroidery and famous handcrafts of our village. The following masters help us to complete our project:

• Cradle master, Pahlavon Olimov • Scull cup master, Matlubahon Koraboeva • Gold embroidery master, Barchinoy Sultonova • and ceremonies, traditions related to the works of Masters. As we know people are people everywhere, but each nation has its specific characteristics with its history, talent, culture, traditions and customs.

We think that the Art works should be distributed among people in the world and works of our masters from our village should not get lost. We want those kinds of works, which are equal to the art to be reserved for the future. We hope that through this website we are able to empower and unite the masters of Bulakbashi village and show beautiful cradles, scull cups and gold embroidery works. This website also can be used in the “Labor” lessons in schools to introduce to students the process of making cradles, scull cups and gold embroidery.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:none

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:1

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

There were lots of problems that we had to overcome: • Slow speed of the Internet • Only one computer room, which was always busy • Frequent lose of electricity • Special words in making cradles, scull cups, and gold embroidery How did we overcome these problems? It was hard to test the webpage with the slow Internet connection, but we were patient and tried again and again to test the webpage. It took long time to look for information and to have discussions over the Internet with the adult helpers of the project. We have only one computer room with 5 computers connected to the Internet. With more than 500 students using only 5 computes is not easy. The computer room is always busy with students desiring to work on the Internet. We had to wait for a long lines, or stay late in the evenings in school to work on our project. Unfortunately, frequent lose of electricity made the work little slower, but in order not to loose our time, we had to write some parts of the project by hand and then insert into the Word document. While we were working on the process of cradle making, scull cup and gold embroidering, we could not find words that would describe some parts of the cradles, scull cup instruments or other things. We had to take it’s picture and write the words definitions. Creating web site was not easy for us. We had to learn how to create it and work on Dream Weaver program. But we learned a lot from our coordinators of our project.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

We learnt more about our local national crafts culture, problems that craftsmen should overcome. In addition, we learnt how to cooperate and communicate with our school administration, community people and friends.

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

Our activities of developing web pages support the extracurricular activities standards in enhancing the computer skills. Our work on this project also fits “The year of raising awareness of students' and Educators' skills on using new Information Communication technology” theme that is announced by the Ministry of Education of Uzbekistan this 2007 year.

The research that we did falls into the standards of teaching English in the 9th grade. The unites include: communication, school and community, advertisement, production and service, globalization, the world of work, education, and government. The web pages of the project can be used in Labor lessons, in teaching culture and traditions of Central Asian people. Through the activities and conducting research, we got lots of use of the project. We made interview, photo taking, discussing, analyzing. We were able to practice our oral and written English; we enriched and enlarged our vocabulary. Besides, we learnt how to skim reference books and web sites very quickly to search what we wanted. It is good for learning deeply the specifics of our local and national culture and art and introduces the readers with them. We are sure that Internet helps to widen our outlook and it is very effective than traditional methods. Because it gives the students an opportunity of getting more information from the Internet. And using the resources of interesting websites with colorful, attractive animations help to increase their interest.

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

In order to do a web, we use the following software of making web page: Adobe Photoshop CS 8.0 , Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004, Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Professional Microsoft Word 2003, HTML.

For finding our information we use the Internet and also books which borrowed from our school and local libraries. For the pictures, we used our own digital camera FinePix A120 to take them. For scanning photos from books we use Scanner Epson Perfection 1270.

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

We have invited 3 masters from our community to the project because they are very famous masters in the area. First, we explained and told them goals of the project and what we wanted to do through the project. We are the people who only created website to demonstrate Bulakbashi master’s work into the world. We think that it would help masters to find the partners and to be able to show their product to the world. In our opinion, their work is considered to be an artwork they must be displayed in the bigger arena. In person, we talked with them about their work, difficulties that they overcome and we found them very hard working, kind people.

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

At the beginning of our project it seemed very simple, because Uzbek people know the results of skull cap, embroidery clothes and cradle. If we think carefully they are related to each other. But we don't notice. Why people discover cradle, skull cap or robe. Why we need them. How it is created? It's very simple questions but they have deep meaning. And all drew us to healthy living. When we were doing our project we drew our classmates' attention to the above mentioned questions then they were interested in what we were doing. And then they also wanted to learn more about our culture and artwork. When we took pictures after school and worked on creating web sites our classmates were interested in it and watched our work. When we were interviewing the masters, their family members and their neighbors were interested in our project and were supportive by providing more comments about the cradle making, scull cup and gold embroidering. We expecte that our project helps the community and people around the world to learn more about the national handcrafting of Uzbekistan and in Andijan. Because they heard a lot and might have seen or watched by television hand made products, but they didn't know how these products are prepared and what it was made of. With the help of our website they have a chance to solve this problem. Besides they learnt that in the remote region of Uzbekistan there are three skillful masters who help their people to make their life beautiful and colorful with their own work.

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

Certainly we got lots of advice from our Educational Internet Center administrator and our regional consultant. They always gave comments on our project and helped us to solve technical problems. And also we should be thankful to our friends and teachers from our school that helped us to create our web page. Besides, we also need to give a big thank to our literature teacher who helped us to explain the meaning of some words, and the masters who made an interview for us and demonstrated the process of work. Without their helps, our web page would not be so successful. Our school principal was very kind enough to provide give us extra access to the computer classroom. We are very thankful to UzSscinet Internet providers and GCE program that helped us participate in the contest.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

When we talked to our masters about the process of creating the skull cap, gold embroidery and cradle we realized that these kinds of artworks are created by giving so much attention and hard work. When we read and watch about the ready made products on TV or a book it seemed to us very simple and easy work. But during the interview with the masters and watching their works we realized that the process demands the masters to be very careful on each step if he/she wants to attract people and display his or her talent. In one word we really had a good lesson on our National handcrafting.