1. Description of Our Team
Our team is made up of four students, Kira (17 yrs), Alyona (18), Amy (18) and Dae Uk (18). We are four senior students in the Tashkent International School. We had two coaches, our Computer and English class teachers Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Timke. We were also given a great deal of assistance from our computer class teacher assistant. We came together in computer class to complete the project. We thought that the project looked very interesting. We wanted to complete the project because the topic of peace and democracy was relevant in Uzbekistan, a country where this theme is a major issue. We were able to divide up the tasks of the project through each other's strengths. For example, Alyona was given the tasks of compiling the surveys as she enjoys the mathematical aspect of the data. Amy and Kira wrote well, and Dae Uk liked doing the background research. In addition, the computer teacher assistant was able to show us how to bring the project together using HTML. But we all worked together to ensure that the project was honestly represented from each of our perspectives and ensure that each individual sub topic was divided up among us equally.
2. Summary of Our Project
Our project fits in the category "Peace and Democracy" and is called "Uzbekistan: Opaque Reality." This project provides an overview of the history of international human rights and the Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Its main objective, however, is to describe the status of human rights in Uzbekistan, the country where we live and study. This project provides a brief history of Uzbekistan's becoming an independent state and of the implementation of human rights here. It also tells about the violations of human rights, such as women's rights, children's rights, the right for fair elections, labor, freedom of speech, and the treatment of the imprisoned in Uzbekistan. In addition to that, our project provides information on the judicial reform that's taking place in Uzbekistan and its efficiency. It also tells about the status of human rights in Uzbekistan in general. Our project contains information obtained through interviewing diplomats and human rights officials. Also, our class has conducted three types of surveys: for foreigners living in Tashkent, local citizens and our students. Our web page displays the text and the analysis of these surveys.
"Uzbekistan: Opaque Reality" provides a background on international human rights and their importance to society. It also tells about the status of human rights in Uzbekistan, its development, implementation, and violations. An Asian country, Uzbekistan faces certain problems in reinforcing European and American political standards. Our project is about the work that's being done to establish these standards, human rights - the most important of them, and the controversy this work brings about.
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: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
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
Power fluctuation is common problem in Tashkent, so we had to save our work every 5 minutes. Also our internet is not always available, so we had to use our time wisely.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
First of all we had to come up with the areas of violations of rights we wanted to research and once we made the list we chose the most important and interesting. Next was to find people and organizations to interview. Here we met a problem because many people, after the interview, asked us not to use their names because they were afraid of the consequences. We decided to conduct a survey in order to have a picture of how well people know the situation in Uzbekistan. This was the first time we designed a survey and our Economics/Psychology teacher Mr. Daughtridge, helped us design it according to the commonly used protocols regarding the administration of surveys. For our class this was the first time we were working on a web project by ourselves. Our computer teachers Mrs. Thomas and Mr. Andrew devoted their time to help us with it. Also Mr. Andrew helped us with the design. There was a little problem with language; since for the majority of our class English is not their first language and some of the people whom we interviewed spoke Russian so we had to translate their responses. The biggest problem was that a lot of people were afraid to respond to our survey or answer some of the questions.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Our class was able to learn in great detail about the realities facing Uzbekistan today in terms of Human Rights. We gained an understanding of Uzbekistan's cultural, religious, economic and political history and development as well as the government's interpretation and practice of Human Rights..
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Our Doors to Diplomacy Project encouraged and developed school values, and the twelfth grade class was able to learn skills in many areas of our curriculum. We achieved an interesting and informative Web page with the aid of our English class for proofreading and guidance, and our psychology class for statistical analysis. In general the class was able to grasp a better understanding of human rights development in our local community. In addition, we were able to work as a team and we learned how to encourage, support and respect one another. We learned to work efficiently and effectively and were also able to establish our strengths and weaknesses. Through the investigation process of the project we developed respect and understanding for the people we interviewed and each other and most important, we gained a great deal of appreciation for the work that has been done in human rights and what remains to be addressed.
In English class, we gained a greater understanding of note-taking, documenting, recording, proofreading and received a great deal of guidance and support from our teacher. In our Psychology class, we learned about research methods, protocols, interviews and surveys. Also, with the assistance of our teacher, we were able to learn how to analyze our surveys after summarizing, in order to produce informative and accurate results. In our Computer class, we compiled the web project, with the assistance of Mrs. Thomas and Mr. Andrew. We learned the technological aspects of the project; scanners, printers, digital camera, how to critique web sites, HTML and the total design process of Web pages.
Our project provided the opportunity of enrichment through communication skills for interviews, photography to capture our experiences and the chance to work together to produce something of which we can be proud!
|