Who said it isn’t art?

Today, Badalona(a city very close to Barcelona) has organised a fantastic event for graffiti lovers. About 50 artists have taken part in a competition intended to dignify this type of painting which is seriously in danger of extinction in our city. People passing by could vote for the best graffiti painting while it was still in progress. Believe me, it was very difficult to choose the best one, as many of the them were absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!! Just have a look at the pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Barcelona used to be a dream city for graffiti artists around the world. Famous names such as Miss Van, Pez, Skum, Debens, Señor Kern, Sixe Art, Kram or Flan have painted some of the walls of our city. However, Barcelona’s City Council has passed a new by-law which aims at cracking down on graffiti. They say they want to stop taggers who just scribble their signature, but the result is that at the moment it is absolutely forbidden to do any kind of graffiti unless you have explicit permission by the proprietor of the building.

In my opinion, good graffiti makes the city more colourful and it is a fantastic way to express not only personal feelings but also political or social messages. Many cities are famous for their murals: NY, Belfast, Berlin. Why not Barcelona?

GDAŃSK

Gdańsk is the city at the centre of the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Poland. It is Poland's principal seaport as well as the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. It is also historically the largest city of the Kashubian region. The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay (of the Baltic Sea), in a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdynia and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (Trójmiasto), with a population of over 800,000. The Old Town (Stare Miasto) is where the main attractions are concentrated and the best place to enter this area is from the Upland Gate.

The Golden Gate (Zlota Brama) marks the beginning of the Royal Route. Dating back to the 16th Century this gate would have been part of the city walls but today only the gate still stands (as does Florianska Gate in Krakow). Dluga Street (Ulica Dluga), which formed part of the Royal Way, is arguably the most picturesque street in Gdansk. Dating back to 1331 Dluga Street was the home of Gdansk's elite town officials, bankers, ship magnates etc. The street still has an air of "money" about it as the beautifully decorated buildings can testify.

Neptune's Fountain in Gdansk's Old Town

As you walk down Dluga Street the Main Town Hall can be found on the left hand side and it dates from the 14th Century. Once home to the famous astronomer Hevelius the building is now open to the public and is worth a visit if only to see the beautifully restored rooms (the Red Room is particularly stunning). Neptune's Fountain is nearby and this beautiful fountain is considered to be the symbol of Gdansk. It is located in front of Artus' Court (an impressive 16th Century mansion). During WWII the fountain was hidden from the Nazis and only returned to it's rightful place in 1954. Executions also used to take place in this square centuries ago.

Old building on Dluga Street, Gdansk

At the end of Dluga Street is the Motlawa river which leads to the Baltic. Here you will always find a variety of vessels moored, not to mention all the amber shops and nautical themed shops. Turning left you are confronted by the sight of the medieval crane or Zuraw. This was originally built in the 14th Century and subsequently rebuilt in the 15th Century after a devastating fire. The crane was used for loading cargo ships and was also used for ship construction.

Walking towards the crane, the second street on the left is St. Mary's Street (Ulica Mariacki) and is arguably the most atmospheric street in Gdansk. The architecture is reminiscent of Amsterdam with ornate steps and guttering adorning each house. Some of the best amber in town can be found on this street. At the end of the street is St Mary's Church which is believed to be the largest brick church in the world-it can hold upto 25,000 people ! If you're feeling fit enough you can climb one of the towers to enjoy stunning views of the city and surrounding areas.

St Mary's Church in Gdansk

Alicja Kuck, Aleksandra Strot

Saint Jordi

Last Thursday, we had a fantastic day of Saint Jordi.

The school had been previously decorated with the art works by students in 4th of ESO. As you can see in the pictures, they painted a fantastic dragon and drew plenty of pictures with symbols associated to the festivity.

In the morning, we enjoyed the celebration at school with different activities: a poetry reading, a short play, songs by the school choir and by the guitar group, dancing etc. Also, something which is really traditional: the ceremony in which everyone knows the winners of our literary contest. Participants had written either poems or short stories in Spanish, Catalan, French or English. By the way, some of the students who usually collaborate on this blog got a prize. Maybe they want to share their compositions with us.

We also read a sentence from La Plaça del Diamant by Mercè Rodoreda, a very important Catalan woman writer, in all the languages spoken at school. There were 18 different languages!!!!!!!!!!!

We were free in the afternoon (that really makes a difference!!!) and it was fantastic because the weather was sunny and warm and we could spend quite a few hours strolling to see the roses and book stalls. Did you buy or got any books as a present? Any roses? Or both?

If you want to get a glimpse of the beauty of this celebration in Catalonia, just have a look at the images of this Flickr group named "Day of Saint Jordi.. a book.. a rose.."

Poll Creator

Why not vote about whatever we want? Now you can with: www.MyPollCreator.com, It's easy, free and you don't have to spend a lot of time on creating HTML code, they do it for you! Just register on the website and start making the poll.

Would you like to have polls in the blog?
Yes, they are really usefull No, they are totally useless I don\'t really care What is a poll?
	Results

Congratulations again!!!!

Dear Polish and Catalan boys and girls who collaborate on this blog,

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

We’ve learnt that we are in the list of blogs which have reached the final in the state competition of blogs organised by Asociación Espiral , Educación y Tecnología (Spiral association for education and technology). The number of blogs taking part in the competition is quite important and there are blogs from many places in Spain.

We’ll know the final result of the jury on May 4th. However, what matters is that our blog has been positively evaluated so far and that we have to keep on working very hard to do things even better. Perhaps even more important: we have to keep on learning through technology and enjoying blogging as a means of communication.

So, again, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

For more information on Edublog, just click.

Catalan celebrations

- Christmas: Everybody knows this celebration but here, in Catalonia, we celebrate different celebrations from the rest of the world. Here in Catalonia we don’t celebrate Santa Claus, we celebrate “El Caga Tió”, this is a trunk that the children hit with sticks with the intention of receiving sweets and presents.

- Sant Joan: This is a summer festivity. People go to the streets and parks and throw a lot of fireworks and make bonfires. It’s typical to eat a special cake, which is called “coca de llardons”, and it’s delicious!

- National day of Catalonia: On 11th of September we commemorate when Catalonia and Aragon lost the battle against the rest of Spain.A king had died without children, so Catalonia and Aragon and the rest of Spain wanted different kings, finally the king that the rest of Spain wanted became Spanish king. So then Barcelona went on fighting (in total we fought 14 months) and we lost. Then this king changed our institutions and rights because we didn't accept him. The date when we lost is 11th of September of 1714.

- Patron Saint of Barcelona, Merçè: This day (24-9) we remember La Merçè, the patron saint of our city, Barcelona. This day people go to the streets and to the centre of the city and they see “els castellers”, people who build human castles, “trabucaires” or shotgun men and other types of exhibitions.

- La castanyada: This festivity for some people is Halloween but for the Catalan people it is “la castanyada”. We go to visit friends or family and eat typical deserts, for example, panellets, chestnut (castanya) and “moniatos”, (they’re similar to the potatoes, sweet and their colour is like that of the pumpkin). Sometimes, some people wear a “castanyada” costume. “La castanyera” is de symbol of this celebration, this symbol is an old woman who bakes chestnuts.

The Legend of Saint Jordi

This pictures were taken from Google and they're by Pilarín Bayés, a famous Catalan illustrator of children's books

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Fondo flamenco

Fondo flamenco

View more presentations from luliitta.

By: Sara, Laura and Nerea

Second Life

Second life is a game created by Linden Lab on 2006.

It’s supposed to be a simulator of life, but more based on social life.

The game is based on the sci-fi novel ‘Snow Crash’ by Neal Stephenson and on Cyberpunk.

It works with a 3d avatar system, that is based on creating your own character and moving on a 3d world.

As it is a simulator of life, you also have to buy or sell things, and it has its own currency, the Linden Dollar (L$). You start with a quantity of L$’s and if you want to get more you’ll have to exchange them by real money by PayPal.

You can see movies, called machinimas and some bands ‘played’ on the game, like U2.

And also political life! Gaspar Llamazares from Spanish ‘Izquierda Unida’ joint the game and they have an office inside the game and some other.

There are communities created for countries so you can find Spanish community and Polish community. The Spanish community in second life is the 85% of the total population of the game.

So Second Life is a perfect representation of life.

Steps

• First of all you have to go to Second Life’s website (http://secondlife.com/)
• Then click on Get Started (top right)
• Next you have to fill all the spaces that they tell you.
• To get a trial / demo of the game you have to be over 18 or pay directly

· When you fill all the spaces,

accept the terms of service agreement, and click on Create Account.

• You will get an email, which you don’t have to reply, with a link, when you click on the link you will activate your account.
• Then directly you will be sent to the download section.
• When you download th e game, install it and you will be able to play!

  

Moodle

Moodle was created by Martin Dougiamas, a WebCT administrator at Curtin University, Australia, who was graduate degrees in Computer Science and Education.

Moodle is a free and open source, e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Enviroment.

Moodle is designed to help educators create online courses with opportunities for rich interaction. Its open source license and modular design means that people can develp additional functionality.

Moodle has many features expected from an e-learning platform, plus some original innovations.

Moodle is modular in construction and can readily be extended by creating pluguins for specific funtionality. Moodle's infrastucture supports many types of pluguins.

• Activities
• Resource types
• Question types
• Data field types
• Graphical themes
• Authentication methods
• Enrollment methods
• Content Filtres

Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker

Windows Movie Maker is a video editor that we can edit videos and create image and audio video, use effects and distortions. It’s easy to use, here we add instructions.

Photo Video

1_Import images at Movie Maker.

2_Import songs and audio.

3_Insert effects and transitions

4_Save and choose format.

Happy Easter

Dear friends! May this Easter be full of sunshine and joy. Lots of chocolate bunnies and great (wet) fun on Easter Monday. Happy Easter to all of you.

Easter

As Easter is approaching us, we would like to aquaint you with Polish traditions connected with this holiday. Although some of them may seem familiar to you, we hope you will find here something extraordinary which will interest you.

Preparations

• eggs' painting
• cress's planting
• cooking and tidying up

Firstly we start the celebration on the last Sunday of the Lent (which is tomorrow) when whole families flock to churches in order to take part in big processinos during which colourful palms are blessed.

After three days during which we reminisce the Last Supper ( on Maunty Thursday), Passion and Death ( on Good Friday) and blees food ( on Holy Saturday), we celebrate the Resurrection. We usually spend this day among family. One of the traditions involves receiving presents which are thought to be brought by the Easter Hare.

The most popular dishes that you can meet on the Easter table are: eggs, white sausages, pork loin, "żurek" ( soup which has already been decribed here on the blog) and plenty of Easter cakes e.g. "mazurek", "babka"and "keks" .

"Eggs' battle"

It's the next extraordinary tradition which children are particularly keen on. In this game you have to smash the egg of your enemy with your own egg taking advantage of the strength of its shell:) But if your egg is smashed, you have to eat it.

"Śmigus dyngus" We strongly believe that Easter Monday is the most fascinating because we can organize water fights during which we pour water onto each other. That's why we hope that the weather will enable us to enjoy it.

So at the end we'd like to wish you rich Hare, tasty eggs, wet Easter Monday and happily spent time with your family.

Made by: Karolina, Kamila, Agnieszka

SARDANES

Prima Aprilis

As some of you have probably realized, our yesterday post was only a prima aprilis joke;) In Poland we celebrate this day on 1st April. We hope you didn't take it too seriously=)

HURA!!!

Dear friends,

Guess what!!! You'll never believe what has just happened. It also took us by surprise when we got to know this wonderful news. Now, focus:
You are going to have the pleasure to welcome us to Barcelona this Friday!!! We've just found tickets in so low a price that we decided to make a surprise for you. Such an occasion will never repeat, so wait for us this Friday after your lessons at school.

We can't wait=) See you

Adobe Photoshop

Research Project ADOBE PHOTOSHOP©

· ADOBE PHOTOSHOP
It is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current and primary market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation, and it is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. With this program we can manipulated images, mix photos, change their characteristics, change their format, etc…

TO PRACTICE! TECHNIQUE OF THE SELECTION

Some tools are easy but others are difficult. The tools that are easy to use are the "magic wand" or the "lasso" but the results aren’t precise. The one that has precision but it is difficult to work with, is the tool "pen".We use this technique for different effects.

PRATICE

A way to isolate an element of an image and to maintain the details of its edges is to use the filter “To extract”. The most important tools are: the highlighter and the paint bucket.

1. An image is chosen, we open it and we work with the version Marinates Photoshop CS3. Next, we go to Menu>Filter>“To Extract”. We open the window of the tool and we see the different possibilities of configuration of the tool brush on the right.

2. Now we define the thickness the brush with which we will draw up the outline. Next we go to the image and we drew up the part that we want to select. When we have already drawn the line of the wished image, we take the paint bucket and click on the selection.

3. We click the Preview button (right superior part of the screen). Now we observe the silhouette image surrounded by grey pictures (transparency), to see better the detail of the outline chooses in the menu of configuration of Preview (right part inferior) that the bottom is white or black.

4. Of this form you visualized the existence of I haul target or black. In this case it leaves I haul black, that makes difficult to integrate the image on a bottom of clear tones. In order to eliminate it and to correct it accounts with the tool To alter edges and “To clean” (left part superior) that purify the selection.

5. When you have cleared the halos presses OK, you will have the selected image isolated del bottom, single would be to integrate it al bottom that you wish. For this it unfolds the “To Edit”>Copy menu, - or the short cut of keyboard ctrl+c, opens the image that you are going to use of bottom and presses ctrl.+v - short cut of “To Edit>Paste.

In summary...

1. Open the image in Photoshop CS3>Filter> To extract

2. Brush> To define thickness...pixels> To isolate object

3. Preview>Menu preview configuration.

4. Depure the selection>Retouch and clean.

5. OK>Menu edit>Copy>Open the image of the bottom>Menu edit>Paste.