project-based learning

Do students like learning? Of course they do. Then, why do we often think they don't? Because there IS something they dislike: the way they must learn.

What can we do to solve that? Peoject-Based learning is a new idea that promotes a more involving and motivating way of learning. PBL leads students through knowledge making them absorb plenty of new contents as well as work in a team and present their project.

As a student I enjoy PBL because it makes you more effective when searching information. It also makes you more critical with the informarion you find and, despite requiring more work, you learn a lot more than with the traditional method. Instead of swallowing units lf verbs, grammar and vocabulary you discover the words, learn the grammar and use the verbs. In addition, it improves your speaking skills and makes you more likely to work in a team with mates.

In conclusion, PBL makes learning more exciting, effective and, in fact, prepares students better for the real world.

bullying

"Bullying is an undercovered problem that affects students but also teachers, and, in fact, our educational system" -Marie Desmond, teacher and mother-

It is well-known that bullying is present in most of the schools around the world, and despite of that, we still ignore it. Why? Because it is so difficult to fight that we are lazy to do it.

A kid suffering from bullying may be ashamed of telling (or most of times scared). Sometimes not even the victim knows that he/she's being bullied because the bullies seem to be his/her friends. There are a lot of different ways to do bulling. It can be physical, psychological or it can take the appearance of tasteless, aggressive jokes.

In my opinion, we must fight all kinds of bullying. If we erradicate bullying from schools our eductaional system will work better: students will be happier and more focused on their work. There will be a better environment at school. We must change the bullies by teaching them how perjudicial their behaviour can be and how their "funny" hobby transform others, how their victims suffer.

To sum up, bullying is a great problem we must vanish from schools.

spain's king abdicates

Today, at short past ten, Mariano Rajoy, the president of Spain, appeard on an official communicate telling Spain that the king Juan Carlos the 1st had decided to abdicate and pass the crown to Felipe, his heir.

The news surprised Spain and the spanish whilst everyone was working on their jobs. By midday the breaking new had already spreaded around the country and the world. At that time, Juan Carlos have made another communicate, then talking himself about the reasons of his decision and encouraging the spanish to trust in Felipe. According to his speech, it seems that he considers he's ruled the country for long enough and it is time for his son to sit on the throne. He's also spoken about his health and the difficult moment Spain is living (the deep crisis it is suffering).

The new have instantly become trending topic on twitter and lots of politicians, economists but also citzens have given their opinion and point of view about it. It is good to remember that Juan Carlos is the third king to abdicate within a year in Europe (the Belgian and the Dutch abdicated last year). The politic tensions Spain's living with the Catalan process have become more sensible around the country, where a lot of citzens (not only catalans and euskeras) have expressed their wish to transform Spain into a republic.

As I see it, a King was very useful some time ago (...perhaps the last century?) but now, that democracy has reached its maturity, a crown has nothing to do in a country but spending its money... 

finishing 1bat

Almost nine months have passed since I started first of Batxillerat. In September, nine months looked like eternity, now, they're just dust. How have all this time flied so fast? I think I have the answer: a lot of stress and fun.

-Stress... In some ways it's been a stressful year. First, we have all the stuff to do from school plus the exams and projects. Then we have the non-stop sailing season. Between school and sailing, weeks and weekends have passed so fast that I haven't even realized. Even though, I like this lifestyle and I definetely prefere it to the boring Sunday's evenings lying on the coach waiting for a good film that never arrives...

-Fun. Despite being very buzy, I have had some time to have fun. And what's more, I have fun doing the things I do, overall, sailing. Appart from sailing, I have also enjoyed other activities, such as swimming, windsurfing... To get it better, I've been to parties, concerts, I've gone to more than a trip, I've been with my familly, etc. 

In conclusion, course 2013-14 has been very profitable: I've learnt a lot, I've enjoyed almost every second and, in fact, it's gone sooooo fast (but that's ok!).

Here you have some pictures of this year!

time flies...

Time flies. That's a fact.

How can we prove that fact? Very symple, show something that used to be modern a few years ago to a today's kid and stare at his reaction! That's what "the fine brothers" have tried with the eighties' computers.

Don't miss this funny video. First you can see they don't even know what's standing in front of them. When they reach the conclusion that that's a computer, they wonder how to turn it on, and once on... They know anything about how to use it! (Honestly, I wouldn't know neither) the first thing they look for on it is obviously internet. Mistake! There was no internet back to that time:) after that, they play with it a few minutes and quickly get bored of it.

It is an interesting experiment, and I have to say that there were two sentences that stuck to my mind. Thi first one, has a sense of humour: it looks so hipster! The other one, worried me a little: if there was no internet, how did they do their school work? This means that young generations are completely forgetting about books... Do we really want to be a society based exclusively on internet?

Internet is an undoubtable helpful tool, however, we can't rely only on internet. We must keep books and handwritten things as a treasure if we don't want our grandsons to need a keybord to write down anything.

longboarding

Last year a longboard in a shop caught my eye. Since then I asked for it for several months until one day my parents told me: "if you want a longboard, you'll have to build it yourself. We're not buying it because you'll use it twice and then forget it in the garage..." But I really wanted the "long", rather than as a toy, as a transport. So I built one.

At first I didn't really know how to start, so I looked on the internet about shapes, materials, wheels, styles... Everything. I found which woods and shapes were the best and then I took what I could from home: my high quality wood was nothing more than an abandoned wooden centerboard, and the shape... Well, I drew it with a projector on the wall.

Luckily a friend of mine was there to help me, so we did it together. I drew the desing for the bottom and the shape, he cut it and together we sanded and painted it. After that, we went to Figueres and bought the axles and the wheels. When we thought we were almost finished, we couldn't find males nor females to fix them. We looked for them in several ironmongers and finally found some that were suitable.

It took us about a week working the whole day to build the longboard, but it was really worth it. Perhaps it is not the best, and it does have some imperfections, but I'm really happy with it and I have to say that we are very proud of our handmade longboard.

green roof

Barklays center in Brooklin is set to go green with a giant roof garden. It is planned to build several housing flats around the arena. In order to muffle the sound and to make the place more attractive, the existing roof (which is based on an iron cielling with Barklays' logo) will be replaced by a colosal garden. The garden will be built on floatating trays above the existing roof so that the plants will grow covering the old one. An air gap will reduce the sound and make the plants more likely to survive.

In my opinion a green roof will be beneficial for the zone, it will look better and even reduce pollution by making more breathable air. I'm eager to see the result and, of course, I'd like to go there to see it... And to assist to a concert, as well as visiting the city!