SUMMARY THEME 3-the MEDIA

For the young generation everything seems to revolve around the Internet as it’s actually the most important medium for them where they do several things involved with school and leisure apart from socializing. H5, Skype and Facebook are some of the Internet applications students mentioned. The Internet is also an important source of information even for online celebrity magazines which shows the print press is losing ground among young people.  Watching series on TV takes a lot of their free time as well and again American series dominate the screen, like Family Guy, American Dad, Glee, Dr House, Grey’s Anatomy. A major comedy show was Gato Fedorento, a national production that was a hit even among young people. The most relevant difference between media for the young and for the older generation is the fact that young people see it as a major source of entertainment rather than information.

The older generation listened to the radio, watched TV and read the newspapers and wrote letters to communicate. There was a lot of illiterate people until the 70’s and 80s on account of the absence of a consistent public education system so the radio was in  fact a medium that could be accessible to everyone and of course later on the television, although its dissemination was just  complete by the 80s. Free time was definitely not for all of the Portuguese. One of the oldest women interviewed stated that she didn’t have much free time as people worked long hours and couldn’t afford to spend money in their free time.

SUMMARY THEME 2 - FREE TIME

Our students are clearly more focused on technology than their parents or grandparents and therefore socializing face to face has lost its 1st place in the ranking of freetime activities.

The top free time activities for Portuguese students are :

• Playing music
• Going  to music concerts
• Sports
• Reading
• Social networks
• Drawing
• Online activities

The older generation socialized much more without any interference from technology at balls, at friends’ homes, in the park; reading and handicrafts were also important especially for girls, as well as watching TV and going for picnics.

Vagab Project - Summary theme 1 - from Portugal

Our school has been recently remodelled. We are very satisfied about it. What once was old, degrading and ugly is now modern, comfortable and big.

For our students,

Our school has around 600 students and it is mainly a secondary school, that is, the majority of our students come to this school to attend the last three years before college / University. 


We also have professional courses attended by students wanting to have a job after 12 years in school. Last but not least,  basic education is also available, from the 7^th year to the 9^th and equivalent professional degrees. Some occasional night classes are available to adults.

In the final project of our group 1 for this theme, there is an example of the timetable of a class from the 12^th grade.

Living in school: pros and cons

Pros

- Big building and modern facilities;

- It is all brand new ;

- Aesthetically pleasant;

- The classrooms have plenty of light and AC ;

- Well-equipped labs;  

- Interactive boards;

- Students get along quite well, everybody is great;

- Our school provides a great support to students with all kinds of disabilities;

- Some say we have the best teachers in Europe (ehehehehehe!).

Cons

- It doesn't have a canteen;

- The auditorium could be bigger;

- The bathrooms are focused all in the same place, there are classrooms really far away from them;

- The library could have a bigger variety of books.

For their parents, school was:

The Crimson Revolution in Portugal (1974) was an important milestone for the parents generations that  could actually feel the differences before and after the fall of the Regime, a dictatorship that ruled Portugal for 48 years and managed to struggle all attempts to turn to Europe and to progress.