Hello!!!

We are Belinda, Natalia, María, David, Marta and María, students of English at the University of León.


Welcome everybody to our blog 'On Focus', a place that offers you the posibility of finding out about people's lifestyle in León.

The reason why we have chosen this blog title is that we want to focus on the day to day life in our northern spanish town.

First of all, we show you what you can do during a day in the city: sightseeing, shopping, nigthlife, etc. The second article talks about the University and the countless options that it provides you. Finally, we focus on new technologies at University as an important factor in the developement of studies.

Enjoy León ^^

A little monumental tour

Although Leòn is not a big city, you can spend a hole day, or even longer, visiting the numerous and well preserved monuments that the city of Leon proudly holds. Starting from the most famous one, Leon’s Cathedral (http://www.catedraldeleon.org/) also known as “The house of the light”, a masterpiece of the gothic style with more than 1800 square meters of stained glass from the 13th century is the perfect enclave to start realizing that Leon is a magic city.

Not so far, around five minutes walking down one of the most pictorial streets of Leon, you can find two of the most significant buildings in the city;

El palacio de los guzmanes, one of the best examples from the Spanish Renaissance Palaces, and right on its side, La casa de Botines, with unique style and highly individualistic design by Antonio Gaudi, one of the most influential artists from the Art Noveau.

Another five minutes walking (almost everything is near here) you find “La basilica de San Isidoro” with Romanesque paintings and a very interesting museum about the history of “El Reino de Leon” and its kings.



Take a relaxing walk althrough the riverside and get to el “Parador de San Marcos” and old monastery holding one of the most luxurious hotels in the city, and a beauiful museum inside.



Take a little rest having some tapas in the new zone of Eras de Renueva and don’t miss a chance to visit “MUSAC” The museum of contemporary art of Castilla y Leon, (http://www.musac.es/) recommended by the New York times as one of the most important recent buildings in Spain.

MUSAC: Contemporary Art Museum of Castilla y Leon

Auditorio Ciudad de Leon, by Mansilla y Tuñon, visit http://www.auditoriociudaddeleon.net/

Cultural Activities :

Dont miss the chance to enjoy the performances that the auditorio ciudad de leon offers you : theatre, dance, music... visit the website above!

In addition, all saturdays there are plays in the little theatre situated in the ''Albeitar''at the back of the '' Casa del estudiante''.
The students of the university of leon have a discount in the plays!

If being a mere spectator is not enough for you, you can practise cultural activities such as photo, theatre, poetry,etc .. visit the website : http://www.actividadesculturales.unileon.es/ and click in ''talleres creativos'' .

Shopping around León:


Spread over three floors and surrounding 37.000 square meters, Espacio Leon is the newest and most famous commercial centre in the city. Inaugurated in October 2004 it has become the most important shopping area in the city, and most of the stores that already had branches in the city centre’s old commercial area, have new ones inside Espacio Leon. There is plenty bus lines and a generous schedule to get there, and even by car, the three floors parking lot allows you to come anytime without problems to park.
Technology, various stores gathering everything from the sports casual to the most elegant... a nine-screen cinema, all kind of restaurants..Get to know more at http://www.espacioleon.com/.

Espacio León

And if you better feel like going for a walk you can always go shopping in the city centre, streets such as Ordoño II, Calle Ancha and surroundings, have a great variety of stores in which you can find whatever you look for while going for a walk through a monumental area.



Tapas and Nightlife:



The widest variety of appetizers ever, more than 150 bars and clubs within the Barrio humedo, (http://www.barriohumedo.net) a beautiful area concentrated inside the roman city walls.
The philosophy is getting inside a bar, drinking a shot of wine, beer, or whatever you feel like, and taste the tipical, delicious and free “tapa” from the bar…but no for so long, as we said before, there are almost 150 bars waiting for you to taste their great foods...so five minutes in each bar will be more than enough. It could appear as an expensive activity, but 30 euros for two people, (around 40$) will be plenty money to eat or drink one’s fill and have a great time. This can be done every day of the week, before lunch time or from 7.00 pm on, so it will be a great idea to mix the monumental visit with little stops in bars. And from Thursdays to Sundays and inside the same zone, when tapas bars close their doors, you can party out until 9 am if your body resists.
Every kind of music and ambients, from the smallest and most calm Rock bar, to the biggest and noisiest house club.


Useful Links :

* http://www.aytoleon.com/ info about the city to the citizen and the tourist.

* www.fontun.com/leon here you can know all necessary about the province and their town councils, routes, art, history, gastronomy and popular fiestas. You can also look for accommodation.

* http://www.dipuleon.es/ get more info about sports, culture ( Instituto Leonés de Cultura ),youth and tourism.

* http://www.vivaleon.com/ a perfect way to find out all about sports in León (climbing, hill walking,4x4, Skiing, paintball, etc..) and lodging ( youth hostels, camping, etc..)

* http://www.turismocastillayleon.com/ discover the tourist opportunities that Castilla y León offers you

UNIVERSITY, A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITIES

The University of León is, without a doubt, a growing place due to the new building sites that are being carried out in the area. Founded 28 years ago, there are more than 1400 staff working there and 13400 students including 2600 erasmus.

Vegazana Campus is composed of 15 colleges where you can study many different degrees. The College of Philosophy and Letters is the oldest one, and lots of cultural activities are performed there. Worthy of mention are the visit of the Buddhist Monks and the numerous exhibitions of books and pictures that take place in the entrance of the building. The University is also adapted to the new days creating places consisting on the most modern technologies, and a great example of this is CRAI-TIC.

Besides the colleges, the campus has a lot of interesting buildings, for instance, San Isidoro Library. ‘San Isidoro’, which is a great building where are included more than 430000 books, is the most important library in the campus. You can find there the perfect place to read and study. There are other smaller libraries in the different colleges of the campus, each one with specific books for their degrees.

Interview with Victoria and Lidia, students of ULE, about the University of León:

A European program exists for students who want to come to Leon to study for a semester or for a year; Spanish students can also go to other countries. This program is called `Erasmus´. There is a relationship which is called `Padrino Erasmus´ and thanks to which Spanish students help foreign students to look for a flat or to know the main things about Leon and the University.

Interview with Tatiana, Erasmus student of ULE:



Are you tired of doing always the same things? If you love sports, you can practise some of them in the campus. Near the college of INEF, there is a gym where you can choose between practising typical sports like football or basketball, or some kind of dances. If you prefer the nature, it is also possible to practise open air sports because there are some grounds around the university to play football or some other olympic games.
University also organises trips to offer other alternative sports to the students. Trips to `San Isidro´ to go skiing or snowboarding are a good option if you like this kind of winter sports and meet new people.

The School of Languages of the University of León is near San Francisco Park, which is in the centre of the city, and you can get there easily by bus or even on foot. In the School, you have the possibility of study English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Arab, and you will obtain 9 university credits. Each language is divided into different levels, and in order to have access to a higher level, you must do a level exam. Students will have three lessons of one hour a week, except Fridays and Saturdays, when the classes last three hours non- stop. As well as teaching all these foreign languages, the School provides Spanish Language for foreign people, and even the so-called University Extension Courses, where you can learn the Lionise language, outdated nowadays. Finally, the School of Languages has a complementary activity developed during the summer: Summer Courses of Spanish for foreign people, where they can take classes of Spanish language and culture.

Of course, students also have time to enjoy themselves and, what could be better than University parties to do it? University parties are the way a lot of students escape from the stress of their daily life. Each faculty has its own festivities, all of them celebrated the same way: one whole day of festivity, consisting on an ‘Espicha’, which is a gorgeous party in the middle of the campus where people go and drink, dance and make new friends. The committee of the respective faculty builds a big top with music and a bar where you can buy beer, calimocho (a mixture of wine and coke) or whatever you want to drink. Espichas usually start at 12 o’clock and they last until 11 o’clock. Fortunately, fun doesn’t finish here and after the Espicha, ‘El Húmedo’ is a must- see. El Húmedo is the old zone of the city where you can find a great number of pubs and discos with different musical styles. Erasmus students have particular parties in certain pubs and they have also discounts for drinks. Sadly, espichas are not accepted by everyone. The debate was open when the students were forbidden to celebrate espichas in the campus, a fact that unleashed dissatisfaction in all the students. The solution seems to have come with a meeting between the vice-chancellor, the members of the committees and the city council, where they decided that espichas will be celebrated on Saturdays instead of Thursdays. The question is: Does this solution convince students, used to celebrate their parties on Thursdays? Some students answer our question.

Interview with Victoria and Lidia, students of ULE, about espichas:



Thanks to the great number of possibilities the University offers us, we can get easily what we want. It is a fact that the University of León is growing, and it is up to us to keep it like this.

New technologies at university

The university of León ,also called 'campus universitario', apart from being a very prestigious university, is also very well known due to the exciting technological innovations,which have been one of the most important factors in the development of teaching activities.

The campus consists of many faculties.In each faculty you can study several degrees which are interrelated.There is a great number of facilities such as laboratories or projectors .We can also mention the usage of computers instead of blackboards,which is becoming more and more frequent.

The best centre to show this innovation is the CRAI TIC.This new building was made possible through the colaborative FEDER program few years ago.The research an development of the building has expanded to cover a wide range of necessities.These tools provided by this innovative building are useful to encourage student's desire to learn.




Here you can see some pictures:

















With the aim of exploring the new technologies we are going to look around the CRAI TIC.
The main facilities in this building are the 'computer rooms',the 'videoteca', 'la sala fría'etc. All of them are related to the new technologies.


As soon as we approach to the entry we come across a security guard who is in charge of the control of the building.In front of the door there is an original machine where you can configure your university card in order to be able to access to the net.

The first room we visit is one of the computer rooms.At this moment,the room is packed,so in this case we should book a seat with the university card.Here,students can not only search the information for their projects but also use the e-mail service.

The second room we visit is 'la videoteca' on the second floor.In this room you can enjoy yourself while watching different types of videos such as films,documentaries or cd's for hours.Even,you can borrow videos in order to watch them at home but, remenber:you need your university card.

Our last visit is to the room 109.Here,we find a great amount of computers which are specially useful to write down faster instead of using the old fashion blackboard.

Once we have finished this interesting visit we interview the well-known professor of French Mario Tomé Díez who has been in charge of many different projects related to innovations in education.

M=Mario Tomé I=Interviwer

I:-How long have you been interested in computers?
M:-I have been interested in computers since 1997
I:-How long have you been using this method?
M:-I began to design my own blogs in 1999 and since then I have been using them as material in my classes.
I:-Have you colaborated with other people to carry out this project?
M:-Basically I have always been a self-taught person but I keep in touch with professors from France who are also working in similar projects.In order to swap information I visit Grènoble twice a year.
I:-How does teaching with the new technologies differ from more traditional forms of instruction?
M:-In my opinion there are two clear tendencies.On one hand some people affirm that computers are a mere tool like books or dictionaries and on the other hand some people claim that they are an important way of communication.
I:-How do teachers assess a student's progress?
M:-We do it by exams, audio activities and also by taking control of the
students' attendance.

I:-In the classes where the project has been implemented,what results have you seen so far?
M:-Preliminary results show an increased student interest in classroom activity among all students including those who were previously uninterested in classroom activities.I also believe that the emerging technologies expand our capability to create,share and master


knowledge.However we should remark that the presence of the teacher in class is tremendously important .

In spite of the fact that computers have become more and more a new classroom tool, many people are reluctant to use this new method .
What about you?are you for or against?