Distance learning in all types of schools from March 2020 to the beginning of June 2021 (with a short break in September 2020) was forced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, in Poland, this form of teaching was used sporadically, basically only for extra-curricular activities. The vast majority of teachers did not have any experience in this field. The large-scale introduction of new forms of distance learning and knowledge transfer and enforcement methods created a number of challenges and opened up new opportunities. The presented study attempts to identify the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in the opinion of primary and secondary school teachers in the Wielkopolska region. The analysis was carried out based on empirical material obtained from questionnaires addressed to all teachers from the Wielkopolska region (703 questionnaires were received). The survey results allowed the diagnosis of positive and negative aspects of distance learning. Among advantages, teachers pointed to growing computer competencies and time and money savings due to no need to travel to work. In turn, as disadvantages were demonstrated, the lowering of teaching quality because of the lack of direct contact with pupils and health problems resulting from decreased physical activity and long-term staying at the computer desk. The teachers’ experience in identifying the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning is undoubtedly an excellent and reliable source of information that can be used in the future to improve the distance learning process. The applied approach allowed to obtain representative results, which may transpose into generalizations on the scale of the entire country.

Praca ma charakter przeglądowy i dotyczy polskich publikacji podejmujących problematykę poczucia bezpieczeństwa człowieka w przestrzeni miasta. Analizowano następujące zagadnienia: 1) dobre i złe dzielnice jako stereotypy przestrzenne, 2) poczucie bezpieczeństwa a typ zabudowy, 3) poczucie bezpieczeństwa w miejscach publicznych, 4) poczucie bezpieczeństwa w sąsiedztwie, 5) poczucie bezpieczeństwa a pora dnia oraz 6) poczucie bezpieczeństwa a cechy demograficzno-społeczne.

Motives: The pandemic situation created unique opportunity to undertake research in the context of the changed living conditions of the population. Aim: The main purpose is to assess broadly understood safety perceptions at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. The key research tool used was a survey questionnaire (270 respondents), complemented by observations in Poznań (Poland) and photographic documentation. Hometown was chosen due to imposed restrictions on movement. Results: The COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed people’s life in many aspects and therefore affected perceived safety. Level of fear of the pandemic was varied and so was keeping up to date with information about the pandemic outcomes. Before the pandemic people felt safer in the analysed various places. Implication of the pandemic for everyday behaviour was significant, resulting e.g. in leaving home when it is absolutely necessary, working from home. Most of the imposed restrictions were rated positively.

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Research on the sense of security in Polish crime geography has been developed since the end of the 20th century. The studies conducted focus primarily on the overall assessment of a city or town, or its selected parts, using survey questionnaires. This study is an attempt to address the issue of the sense of security and, in particular, perception of dangerous places, at a microscale level. The focus of the paper is, first, to identify dangerous places in Gniezno using a survey and second, to analyse them using complementary methods: desk research, interviews with police officers, field inventory and photographic documentation. The research was carried out in the years 2017–2019. The sense of security, both regarding the city as a whole and selected urban spaces, was higher during the day. The places most frequently indicated by the respondents as dangerous, regardless of the time of day, were: Tajwan, Cierpięgi street, the Old Town and parks. Difficult past and the image of the place play a crucial role in the safety perception.