WELCOME TO BRATISLAVA

Transcription

1 WELCOME TO BRATISLAVA Middle Years Programme /2010 Gymnázium Jura Hronca Supervisor: Mrs. Markusová

2 Table of contents Introduction... 3 Process... 5 Analysis... 9 Conclusion...14 Bibliography Appendices: Appendix I Appendix II Appendix III

3 Introduction In March 2009, I was standing face to face to a Personal Project. This is the project which scared me from MYP 2. It is hard to choose an appropriate topic with a goal. It costs me a lot of thinking to choose the one, the best one for me to study and the best one for the others interest. It could be my hobbies, music or something connected with friends. But then, I got a great idea. As I am living in Bratislava for whole my life and I am able to orient, here, it would be very good to write a guide for MYP children from abroad. As they are new in the city, it would be very great to make the guide for them because they didn't know Bratislava as we know. And this is how the story of my Personal Project starts... Goal of the Project: Afterwards, I agreed on this topic. My goal is to show foreign MYPs that Bratislava is maybe small city, but it is still attractive as other capital cities in Europe. It is because many people don t know about Slovakia much, there aren t reliable sources about Slovakia, for example movies as Hostel or Eurotrip are showing people total different face of Slovakia as Slovakia has. A large number of people think that Slovakia and Slovenia or Czech Republic are the same. We know that these three states are different from each other. I want to change their prejudice about Slovakia. Also, I wanted to point out the best attractions and sights in Bratislava which have to be visited. My final product is in written form, so foreign MYPs can borrow this brochure and can learn new information about city in which they are living. AOI: Areas of Interaction are one of the most important layers of our project. Each of us has to have chosen AOI. After meeting with AOI leaders, I decided to go through Community and Service. The reason that I chose it, it s because I fulfill all criteria/questions that have to be completed. I help community of people foreign 3

4 MYP- to orient and find new facts about Bratislava, Slovakia. Community and Service is my main AOI, but then I chose other one-human Ingenuity. I was talking to a leader of Human Ingenuity, because I also created something. He gave me some advice how it can look like, what can be there etc. And he also told me that I can go through this AOI. So, I decided to have CAS as the main AOI and Human Ingenuity as secondary one. 4

5 Process In my opinion, a good project needs good time management. I had to think about every step I took in this project. I can say that I m proud how I managed this project because it wasn t easy. I think it could be worse if I didn t think about plan before and without Process journal, where I noticed every step I went through (appendix I). Brainstorming: The first thing which everybody always does before some project is brainstorming. As I knew about Personal Project before MYP 4, I paid attention to every element which occurred in my life. I had many topics which I could cover in my mind, but I let them be after few days because I didn t see a point or goal in them. Geography is my favourite subject for many years. My grandfather is a cartographer and I have some successful geographical Olympiad in my pocket. That s why I started to think in this way, the way I totally love. The first idea was something with maps as my grandfather is the cartographer, but then the proposal was defeated because I don t know what kind of map I will do and I haven t got enough skills to do it. Of course, I would learn many new things, but I don t think that I would be a cartographer or some job similar to this one. The second idea was a brochure of some country or a city. I wanted to choose some frequent and well-known city and write the brochure about it, but this proposal was also defeated because it would be useless. And then, I got it! I will write brochure about my home called Bratislava. Gathering the information: My guide is kind of unique as it is for children in 11 years to 16 years, so there aren t topics as in normal guide. I had an imagination about content of my guide. In my opinion, children who are 11 have different interest as children who have 16 years 5

6 old, so I sent questionnaires all over the world what will be their expectations to have in guide. The difference was not only in the country, but also in age. I got various answers, some were totally identical with my imagination, and other answers surprised me. Then, I created a content of my guide and also a plan which include steps I will take in coming months. My mother worked for Bratislava City Museum a few years ago, so I have many books [14], sheets of paper full of facts and brochures [11] to gain the most important information about each sight/attraction I want to have in my guide. Of course, I used them because these sources are reliable as it was made by Bratislava s municipal government. This municipal government creates official web page about Bratislava which I used to use as a reserve when I didn t find any appropriate information about sight in sources which my mum gave me. Sometimes, I didn t use any source because I knew about the sight much information (eg. Kuchajda). I got an inspiration form a movie I saw on television. It was about US High School where basketball school teams from whole US played kind of national league. There were many people who cheered these teams. Each team had own mascot. When I saw this mascot, I started to think that it would be original to have own mascot for my guide. Writing: I decided to manage my work like this: First I had to write all articles, then I had to design whole book. It seems logical to me, because I didn t stress about not writing all articles one week before delivering it on deadline. I have to say that this writing of articles was really slow work, because sometimes I wasn t able to write one sentence, it can be my laziness. My articles were short or long, it depends what it is, the history or interesting facts, for example there are many interesting information about Primacial palace(long article) than about Zlaté Peisky(short article). I divided these articles to 6 groups by location. What can be a surprise is that fact, that I didn t write 6

7 these articles by groups. When I was writing them, I chose that article I feel good about it that day and of course, how long it can take. So, this can be another reason why I wrote them approximately 4 months. Articles about sights weren t only one written piece of work in my guide, another piece of work were a dictionary, basic information about Bratislava, about history and annotations. These 4 subchapters were written during last month (the 4 th one). I had an outline before writing it, this outline was created at the start of my work. Creating: I m not good in programming, so I accosted my friend and GJH student Tomáš Meszároš to help me with creating a mascot. He was very glad and he wanted to help me. I told him about my requirements which reflect Slovak culture, behave and the look. Firstly, he drew some drafts how it can look line on a paper, then he sent me them via and I decide which can be used. I agreed on 3 of them which were edited in Adobe Photoshop where the final version was created. He sent these 3 final versions to me again, and asked me if there is something which could be improved in few days. When these 3 pictures appeared on my screen, I totally love it and I didn t find anything to be improved. I really thanks for Tomaš s willingness to help me, because I wouldn t be able to create something like this (appendix II). During summer holidays, I took pictures of Bratislava sights in 2 days. I chose this season as the best one, because a day is sunny and perfect to take the pictures (appendix III). After all writing, the next big work was to design my guide. I flipped through other guides we have at home, to get an inspiration. First of all, I decided what font will I use for titles and for the text, what will be the size of font, structure of article- what information will come as the first one, running order of additional information. When I thought clearly about it, I started to think about cover. I drew a draft of my work and I really liked it. This picture has to show us that it is designated only for children. 7

8 I have done my project 2 weeks before delivery. After all this work, the big problem occurred. My computer and also out notebook didn t want to save my document-my guide-. I was kind of nervous, because I woke up earlier as I usually do and it didn t save my project. My worst fears were realized. Whole document was cancelled by Microsoft Word. So I have nothing. Fortunately, I have some drafts of articles in separate folder, so I started to work on it one more time. I finished it in the same day. Next day, I walked to Fax Copy where my guide was printed, and put into special bond. 8

9 Analysis This was the most interesting piece of work I have ever written, because everything was up to me. There were several problems, which I would change in future and definitely, it would improve a level of my guide. Analysis of Research: Research was mostly influenced by questionnaires. As I asked questions which was really connected to the content, I tried to comply all points which were referenced in questionnaires, because I will be very happy if everybody learned something new from my guide. I think, questionnaires were really useful to do good and interesting piece of work. I think that whole research was one of the most successful parts in my project. I tried to choose sources which are reliable, current, fair and written by someone who is actually an expert in given topic, who knows and understand what he is writing. Of course, I checked sources if there are the same or at least similar information, and sources I had used was the same or similar. The true is that I didn t use many sources for writing, because 70% of my sources are those who are connected with pictures. Analysis of Planning: I decide to create a plan of my work before the beginning. Sometimes, I didn t follow each step or I didn t do my job as accurate as I wanted, so it wasn t as I planned. That s my mistake, but whole plan actually helped me because I knew what has been done, and what has to be improved or finished. At the start, creating of my plan was little bit chaotic, because I didn t know what will be the first thing I had to do, but afterwards everything was fine as whole planning, which acted a big role in my project. 9

10 Analysis of Design: If you have my guide in your arms, the first thing you notice is a background of my guide or better to explain, the cover. I had idea to draw the background as simple as it is possible. The reason why I wanted to do so is that this guide has to have a touch of child. It would be perfect to show iconographic Bratislava castle, Nový most and two faces of friendly and happy children in front of other pictures drawn. I wanted to accost my cousin, she is 10 years old, so it would match my requirements. I knew that I have enough time to create the background as I wanted, but I kept it for future use and it looks like this. There is one colorful title without any pictures. Definitely, I would improve this next time and I would try to do it as I wanted at the beginning of my work. The next thing I would improve is location of mascot. I remember when I told to people what is the function of my mascot at Mini-fair. I didn t fulfill what I said that mascot would be located everywhere, where interesting fact takes a place. This mascot should present the interesting fact in big bubble. As I didn t use it as I wanted, there weren t a place for other use, so I used mascot at the start to welcome readers in my guide and at the end of my guide to thanks for using my guide. I m really glad that both pictures of my mascot have different faces, so it isn t the same all the time. I am sad a bit, because Tomáš did nice job and it looks like I didn t appreciate his job an enthusiasm he set to work. To conclude design section, I am mostly satisfied with design of my work except these 2 parts of my work. Next time, I will know that it would be better to spent more time with design. I assumed that it would be easier and less time consuming than writing. That s true, but I didn t spend as much time as I should to finish all tasks perfectly. 10

11 Analysis of Writing: I had enough time to write my articles as good as it is possible. Definitely, I did one big mistake: I didn t write them in some order. It was really confusing when I was writing these articles, because I didn t know which article had been written. I marked those which were written, but I have a big number of papers, so there were often hidden somewhere and I had to find them every time. I wanted to write something new. That s why, I forgot to write article about Michalská veža or other sights which I included in my plans. I solved unwritten articles that I put a photo of them into my gallery. Analysis of used AOI: I am satisfied with my AOI, because they are really connected to my topic. Homo Faber is shown mainly in the design of my work, because my Personal Project is not something special and unique, but also design caused me a lot of thinking-what will look good. I think, Homo Faber is mostly characterized as something I create on my own. My project was made by me and I was the only one person who made decisions about it. I hoped that the cover will look nicer, because I had some drafts, but it didn t make a success of my work as I kept it for future. It would be more connected with Homo Faber if I had the final version of those drawings for cover. In my opinion, Homo Faber was the second AOII chose for my project, and there was allout effort to connect my project with Homo Faber the most, but I think that I did only 75% job. My main AOI was Community and Service, this AOI was more successful than the previous one-homo Faber. I preferred this AOI more than Homo Faber, because C&S took a part in most of my work. It is connected with my project well, because I try to help new people to get a better orientation in Bratislava and to learn some new information about general facts about Bratislava. So I served my brochure to 11

12 a community of people- new MYP children from abroad. Definitely, C&S was a good choice, because there aren t that good and suitable AOI as Community and Service was for me. Achieving of a goal: First of all, I had to write that I chose my topic on the basis of if is my topic realistic and if the topic has a clear goal. I didn t choose something which doesn t fulfill these requirements. I achieved my goal and I am very satisfied with my work. There are a couple of things which need to be improved in future, but I recognized where a mistake is and what are my weaknesses. In my opinion, I achieved my goal, because I have a printed version of my work, so it isn t in a computer only, and I have most of the stuff I wanted to put in my guide. All work what has to be done is done, all pictures I wanted are inside of the brochure, all requirements I had are fulfilled. The reason why I achieved a goal was a plan of my work, and Personal Project thoughts whirled through my mind all the time. It s because I consider the Personal Project as something big, and as I still hadn t got a final work in my arms, I was still thinking about this project, and what had I to do to have it finished. The work I did wasn t something written in a week, I parceled things out and that s why, my project is successful. These steps I took were according my plan, so without plan it would be much harder to achieve my goal. Another reason can be that I chose suitable topic for me, which I am interested in and I understand what I was writing about. Evaluation of Product: I didn t pass my brochure through some kids in my school, so I cannot publish others comments at my work, but I tried my best and I think that everything was for the 12

13 best. Of course, there were some mistakes, but nothing is perfect so I will try correcting those mistakes in my next project. To evaluate a quality of my work, I think that information inside my guide are relevant, interesting and reliable according to sources I used. I didn t bother with some historical dates, only some of them which I supposed as important and interesting ones, because children aren t interested in history dates much. I tried to choose facts which really appealed to a reader of my brochure. Design is unique by the mascot. Then, there isn t something unusual about design and graphics, because I chose the simplest way, the way I feel comfortable about. 13

14 Conclusion I learned many things not only about my topic, but also things I will use in future as well. As I wanted to make work easier by writing articles from different groups, it caused totally confused work, so I appreciate a work done by running order next time. I learned much new information about my city. It was general information, but also some reviews on the Internet helped me to do my work better. Now, I know what foreign children think about Bratislava, because this question was very mysterious for me for a long time. As I was doing my project through 2 AOI, I become more educated about these 2 AOI. Now, I understand more to a meaning what these 2 AOI means and what is their principle. As I am a student who meets deadlines in the school, I have to mention that it was sometimes difficult to meet a deadline on a meeting with my supervisor. I have to admit that I sometimes forgot to look to our papers and then, we had the meeting close to the deadline. I learned that it is a work for a long time as a Personal Project, it would be better to have an alarm for this kind of things ( meetings with supervisor or AOI leaders), because I hadn t write them in school diary. To conclude, I really liked my topic. I think, it was one of those topic, which I was really interested in and one of those who had a clear goal. In my opinion, I reached almost all requirements I had before the beginning except those which were mentioned in Analysis. So, I know my mistakes, now. I will try to fix them next time, and I know what the weakest points in this project are. I am satisfied with my work; I connected my project with AOI successfully. If I had to choose the best part of my project, I would choose articles, because there are much new information and I spent most of my time by writing them, and I proved my writing skills as well. 14

15 Bibliography [1] Sad Janka Kráľa. Available at: from home page [accessed ] [2] [2] Kuchajda. Available at from home page [accessed at ] [3] National Science Museum. Available: 10 October 2009] [4] Bratislava Restaurants. Available: 1.html. [accessed 30 September] [5] Divadlo Aréna. Available at: from home page [accessed ] [6] Galéria ÚĽUV. Available at: from home page [accessed at ] Slovak National Holidays. Available: [accessed 25 July 2009] [7] Amazing-Slovakia, Cruises Devin. Available at: from home page [accessed ] [8] Anawe. (2008). Bratislavský hrad. Available: [accessed 19 October 2009] [9] Anawe, Slovenské národné múzeum Bratislava. Available at: jpg from home page [accessed ] [10 ]Arch, SNG. Available at: from home page [accessed ] [11] Bratislavský samosprávny kraj. (2005). Región Bratislava. In: Región Bratislava. Bratilslava: Designland. pp 3. [12] Fischer s.r.o, Zimný štadión. Available at: from home page [accessed ] [13] Igor, Bratislava ako na dlani(pohľad zo Slavína). Available at: from home page [accessed ] [14] Janiaková, D (2004). Prechádzky po Bratislave. Bratislava: Perfect a.s.. ISBN: [15] Menard, J., Slavin memorial Bratislava. Available at: from home page [accessed ] [16] Pohorelsky, M., Samsung Arena. Available at: from home page [accessed ] [17] Pravda, Slavin memorial. Avilable at: Bratislava.jpg from home page [accessed ] [18] Probst, A. (2007). Kúpalisko Zlaté Piesky. Available: [accessed 7 October 2009] [19 ]Zlaté Piesky. Available at: from home page [accessed ] 15

16 Appendix I. Time-Mangement outline In this table is shown my process of my work very briefly. Everything is written in my Process Journal and I tried to select all most important situations and wrote them to this table. My most active months were April, May and October, where a big piece of work was done. March April May June July/August -Personal Project is introduced -My supervisor is selected -Creation of questionnaire -Questionnaires are checked by Mr. Carter -Questionnaires are sent to whole world (by my friends, Mrs. Hirnerová and me) -2nd meeting with supervisor: a discussion of a content -creation of the content -asking Tomáš Meszároš for a help -Mascot is finished by Tomáš Meszároš -Mini-fair -the 1st articles are created -pictures of Bratislava are taken -a cover September -a research took to find an appropriate restaurants in Bratislava -categorization of my articles October -all articles are written -last adjustments in writing -design -a final version printed in Fax Copy 16

17 Appendix II. Mini-fair Mini-fair was a moment where I had to present all stuff I ve done till Mini-fair. I was kind of stressed before because I didn t know what my classmates did if I had enough of work done. I had a PowerPoint presentation in English and Slovak language, all questionnaires shown in front of the PC, few articles written and pictures of mascot made by Tomáš Meszároš. 17

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19 Appendix III. My photos During summer holidays, I decided to take pictures of Bratislava. This activity was my idea because I didn t want to download all pictures from Internet and also it contributed to Human Ingenuity. I put few pictures of Bratislava, there. 19