School: Colegiul National Horea,Closca si Crisan
    Alba Iulia, Alba, Romania

4 students, ages 16 - 18 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 1, 2004. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 0

Classes and Teachers: Iuliana Iovanescu

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://

1. Description of Our Team

Our team consists of three 11th graders Carmen(17), Adina (18), Daniel (17) and one 9th grader Vlad(16).Our teacher of English, Ms.Iuliana Iovanescu told us about the Doors to Diplomacy contest and invited us to be part of a team which would work on the theme Leadership Traits. As we found this a good idea, we started planning our work with a lot of enthusiasm. After seeing a few ex-winners’ sites, we had a general image of what should be done, so we came out with the idea of doing something original like our Doors to Diplomacy Cake and the Surveys. Students expressed interest in our surveys themes and behind the hard work in organizing the election campaigns, it was fun-some of the participants tried to buy votes with candies and by solving homework. After announcing the local press, we started taking interviews. We found a little bit difficult to obtain appointments to interview some of the persons we aimed to. We started building the web site after we gather the necessary materials. Daniel was our specialist and technical adviser.

2. Summary of Our Project

The goal of the project is to reveal the moulding of a leader.Through this project we tried to show which are the qualities that a leader must have from childhood to maturity. We interviewed Mr. Dorel Burlan and Mr. Ioan Popa, who are important businessmen in our country, and Mr. Valer Cerbu , who is the headmaster of our high school and all these three gentlemen pointed out at the hereditary factors are mostly responsible for a person in order to become a good leader.Another interview was offered to us by Andrei, the Archbishop of Alba Iulia. He stated that believing in God is important even for leaders. We also organized two surveys, one for the leader of the school and one for the most popular student, as we wanted to point out the difference between a well known person and a leader. We were pleased to see that the students in our high school observed this difference. Another activity that we organized was a project contest. The participants had to use only their creativity and their improvisation skills but they created interesting projects and two of them were brilliant. All in all, we wanted to offer a model for teenagers so that they should know and recognize a leader. A good leader has a mixture of qualities, some of them being hereditary and others being cultivated. It is important for a leader to be recognized , as a good leader provides a good life for the persons that he leads.

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:not sure

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:more than 6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

The most difficult problem was to combine school work and spending time by doing interviews and all the other activities that we performed for this contest. We had a lot of testpapers and semestrial testpapers at school, we had to skip some classes in order to be with our teacher of English and to agree on what we were supposed to do next. It was hard, but we managed ! Another problem was that our personalities and age differ, so it was hard to agree on everything.We had some quarrels because our opinions were not the same and we are stubborn students that keep to our views. We had to agree on who was doing what, who took the interview to whom, then we returned with the interviews – another problem – “ my interview is the best”, “ I don’t think so, MINE is better “. But we tried not to hurt our colleagues’feelings and if we did, we apologized. Then, we had a problem with our guest at the project contest, because at first we invited a senator, then there were some peoblems and the senator couln’t come and we had to think of another personality in our city. This problem was easily overcome because the other person that we invited was happy to be in the jury and offered us a lot of moral support, that’s why we oicate of Participation. There were other minor problems, for example we had to write, re-write, re-re-write the information we acquired, but we think that in the end, if the final product satisfies you, all the problems seem insignifiarison with your big achievement.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Our project permitted us to create a web site that would help students understand the qualities and responsabilities of a leader and how diplomacy contributed to their success. We have learned that the “ perfect leader” is not just an image, that the leader can be transformed and moulded so that he should become the “ perfect “ one in the eyes of the citizens.

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

Our high school is a school of winners. As we have shown on our site, there are many famous figures in our country that graduated from our high school. So, the subject of leadership immediately attracted our attention and we devoted our entire free time and energy to the production of the web site. We are taught that we will certainly succeed in life as we are all good and very good students, we get involved in all the activities, programmes and contests organized in our high school and these participations offer us the experience once we graduate. We are taught to be independent, to think freely and to integrate in the community. This contest is the right thing for us ! So, we interviewed important members of our community, we got in touch with the media as we announced our participation in the local newspaper “ Informatia de Alba “, we involved our entire school, our colleagues, our teachers, our headmasters, they all thought that the theme of the contest is a very challenging one. We dealt a lot with the psychology of the leader which is studied in the Xth grade, Religion and Economy are other two subjects that we study and that helped us a lot in our quest as we had to interview the Archbishop and famous business men in our county. The study of the English language and the computer technology were also essential for doing this project. Of course, group work and pair work were used because since we were a team we were supposed to work as a team !

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

We used numerous information sources and technology tools. In order to organize our project structure we created a project map which included our ideas and work division so as to increase the efficiency of our work. Since three of us are in the same class we were able to communicate and give advice to each other, and once a week we would meet with the whole team and with our coordinating teacher, Ms. Iuliana Iovanescu. We wanted to use the people as the main source of information so we completed some interviews. The Internet was most important as many other sources : books, encyclopedias and of course what we worked at school : surveys and contests. Building the web site initially showed to be a problem, especially because only one of us has done this before, but he was not so experienced to set up a site as we wanted. So, Dany started to learn using more professional and advanced site building programs : the Macromedia package which includes : Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks. The list of technology tools also includes CorelDraw, Microsoft Word, scanner, digital camera. Then, we searched for web servers which provide free web without asking you to put their banner on your web site. We did not face difficulties in launching the web site.

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

Communication with other people is one of the keys to success, so we tried to talk to a lot of people that could give us the necessary information for doing the project. We asked a lot of people for help and they were willing to support us and we thank them. We tried to make our colleagues understand the difference between being a leader and being famous by doing surveys in our school. We realised that the two terms were confusing for many of our classmates, so we decided to explain the terms to each class- that’s why when we announced the theme of the surveys we marked the difference between leadership and celebrity. Then, we interviewed some persons that have to do with being a leader and we underlined the use of diplomacy on the road to success. We tried to find leaders from various domains – education, religion, economy, law in order to realize if it takes different qualities to be a leader in each field of activity. The answer was obvious – if you use diplomacy, your success is certain to happen. We also involved our colleagues in a project contest on the theme “ The Art of Being a Leader “. Their final opinion was that anyone could be a leader, no matter what their gender, race, religion was, but you must have certain skills and use diplomacy in your attempt to become a leader.

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

When we started this project we decided to help our high school mates, our teachers and a large number of people understand the meaning of a leader and the levels that a person has to cover in order to become a good leader. We announced our intentions in one of the local newspapers, in an article about the contest Doors to Diplomacy. As a response to our project many people asked us questions about the project and, most importantly, about leadership and the moulding of a leader. Our survey showed the difference between a leader and a popular person and a leader and, as the headmaster of our school, Mr. Valer Cerbu said it, a ruler. Through this campaign we managed to inform our community about the true meaning of a leader.

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

We tried to involve as many members of the community as we could . We involved the church through Andrei, the Archbishop of Alba Iulia, the school by organizing surveys and taking an interview to our high school headmaster. The business community was involved, too. Important business man offered their moral and economical support ( Popa Ioan and Dorel Burlan agreed to offer us interviews and the company Agrotrans sponsored us ). Mr. Baco Mihai, a well known lawyer, offered to be the judge in the project contest. Also, a chef offered to bake our Diplomacy Cake. We have to say that a large number of students in our high school and the teachers showed a great interest in this project.