School: Yu Da High School of Commerce and Home Economics
    Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C

8 students, ages 16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 13, 2007. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2006

Classes and Teachers: Wu Mei-Huei and Shi Yi-Ping

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.yudah.tp.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

Taipei city is an international big city with colorful figures within it, but being a resident of Taipei city, how much do you know about your own city? Kanner’s Foundation is located at the “Ta-Lung-Tung Cultural Park” which is aggressively planned in recent years by Taipei City Government; it starts from Yuan-Shan Rapid Transit Station and follows along Ku-Lun Street, Ta-Lung Street, Confucius Temple, Pao-An Temple and 44 Kan, etc.; under the concept of “Rotating along the axis with the mixing of western and eastern cultures”, Taipei City Government has put “new life” into this “old community”. At here, you can experience the youngest ECO-MUSEUM which exists in the street of Taipei city; in combination with Confucius Temple, Dalong Elementary School and Pao-An Temple, then serially connected with the local culture resource and integrated with peripheral facility, an important tourism belt is thus formed; this is the so-called cultural and local featured Ta-Lung-Tung Cultural Park constructed by Taipei City Government, and our foundation is located within this cultural park.

2. Summary of Our Project

Being a person with healthy mentality and body, it is very difficult for us to imagine what is wrong in social adaptation for people with disabled mentality and body. Therefore, we have thought a while, and here we use the introduction of Kanner’s Autism Foundation as a starting point to inspire everyone’s concern about a group of such people around us. People with Kanner’s Syndrome disease will have adaptation problem since the childhood and in family, school or even the community. However, the solutions of such problems take not only medical and educational assistances but also the social acceptance to help people with Kanner’s Syndrome disease to obtain appropriate care and to reduce family load as well as social trouble. Actually, Kanner’s Syndrome is the so-called autism, which is extensive development retardation mainly caused by congenital brain disease. The exterior world always thinks that autism patients “Close themselves in their own worlds”, this is actually wrong and deviated image.

3. Our Computer and Internet Access

A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%

B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

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

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

Optical fiber is used for the connection of computer in this school to the exterior. The backup host machine to store special project web page and necessary data has a space of about 100 Mb. For the internet environments used by teacher and student at home are mostly 2M/512 K ADSL service provided by Chunghwa Telecom.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

(1) Picture taking Originally, we hope to see the students’ learning situation, but since we visited them after the class, we can not take photos showing the students doing their work on site. Fortunately, chief Wu provides us with many journal materials and data and we can scan and get photo from these materials, although the result is not as perfect as we expect. (2) Skill Since we are green hands in computer skills in preparing the special project, we somehow feel frustrated; some special effects that need higher skill thus can not be displayed. Fortunately, our teacher Mei-Hui Wu encourages and instructs us to learn uninterruptedly while we are making the web pages, right now, our skills become more mature.

(3) Communication From the beginning of making the topic, the opinions are so diversified. Everyone thinks that is would be a pity if his/her own opinion is not adopted; therefore, a lot of dispute scenes are not uncommon. After communication and coordination is made among teacher and group and team leaders with discussion showing both the advantage and disadvantage sides, a final conclusion is thus made and all the members will follow it since we are a team that teamwork is our first priority.

(4) Time arrangement Since our school work load is large and the web page needs to be completed in limited time which in turn is a heavy load to us. Therefore, most of the jobs are done after class in the computer room with a hurry. Since this is a never tried experience, each one of us will do his/her best to get the best result.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

There are lots of blessings behind each adversity. We usually complain about too many challenges lying ahead of us, but if we look at these Kanner’s Syndrome patients, their family members and all the participants of Kanner’s Foundation, we will find that they all live in the adverse environment; their great performance on conquering the difficult situation in life and their hardworking attitude really impress us. We have learned a lot from the participation of understanding Kanner’s Syndrome patients, all the things we have encountered during the interview and preparation process can not be fully expressed orally; what they own are so previous and they need the protection so much; if our society can understand them more and spend some more time help them, this would be a much better world.

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

The objective of net competition is “giving and combining” and the objective of Kanner’s Foundation is ”The promotion of the idea of the enjoyment of the living right of “dignity” and the pursuit of the optimum welfare for their lifetime for Kanner’s Syndrome patients so that they can enjoy “quality” living space”, in fact, both spirits are consistent. In fact, we hope that after the completion of the web site, more people can see the dedication and efforts of Kanner’s Foundation. We always believe that if our society can understand the situation of Kanner’s Syndrome children more or can spend more time helping them, our world would become much better. This is also the reason why, in this net web page competition and in competitors from so many organizations, we strongly feel that Kanner’s Foundation is the one worth our study and further exploration.

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

(1) Hardware: Portable flash memory, scanner, computer, digital camera, digital recorder, printer. (2) Software: Dreamweaver (web design), Flash (web page animation preparation), Internet Explorer( web browser), ACDSee (image browser), Microsoft Word (text processing software), PhotoImpact (image processing software), CuteFtp (file uploading software). (3) Internet: Messenger, Email, Message board, FTP Server, Internet hard disk, ADSL broadband network.

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

Contacting related personnel in Kanner’s Foundation through personal interview, telephone and internet and we use action to build good interaction with the personnel in Kanner’s Foundation. We understand gradually what Kanner’s Foundation has done to Kanner’s Syndrome patients during the interview process and we turn all the results into this special project web site. We hope that, after the completion of the web site, more people can see what Kanner’s Foundation have paid and worked. The stories of Kanner’s patients can let the society understand not only more about Kanner’s Foundation but also more about Kanner’s Syndrome patients. The efforts and persistence the Kanner’s Foundation has done to the weak group of Kanner’s patients and the hardworking and sacrifice these Kanner’s patients and their families have done for the pursuit of normal life are all something that deserve our learning. We hope that through the preparation of special project web site, we can make more people understand what the difficult situations the weak groups have faced and we hope also more people can help them to walk out from the corner.

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

During the preparation of this special project, I always keep thinking, why there are such people that do things (such as sacrificing time and money) to someone that is not related to them at all, for just purely to let others live with more dignity? After my personal interview with the foundation, I find out that actually, there are so many such people in our society. For example, Mr. Wu, who takes the administrative job in the foundation, has given up a high pay job. He involves himself in the foundation and acts as coordinator of all the activities; for teacher Chen, who has painting expertise and can get pretty good pay if she teaches in the cram school, but she give up them just for these Kanner’s Syndrome students. President Lin of the foundation gives up all she has in foreign country and come back to this country to join this service just for her kid. Such spirit of changing small love into big love is what our society lacks of. We hope that we students can learn the living attitude and spirit of such “Small me and big me” from them.

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

In the beginning, we don’t know too much about Kanner’s Foundation and feel puzzled; fortunately, teacher Wu gives us a book named “Kanner’s Park” to solve our confusion. However, the introduction in the book is limited and the effect is no better than face-to-face interview; therefore, teacher Wu arranges us to interview Mr. Wu and teacher Chen of the Kanner’s Foundation, hence, most of the data are provided by Kanner’s Foundation, among them, about 50% of the content comes from the monthly journal and reports provided by Mr. Wu. All the photos and works are interview photos and works. Kanner’s Foundation has agreed us to use these data and photos.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

(1) In this net competition special project process, we realize that people live in this society are not just for themselves; another important living concept is “to serve others” with ”small me big me” spirit in mind, and all these are important elements if this society can be changed into a warm and lovely one.

(2) We heard the touching story between Kanner’s Syndrome patients and their family members because of our interview with the foundation. These mothers, starting from loving their own children to loving others’ children, they let us realize what the spirit of “Love our elder people and others’, care our children and others’” really is.

(3) During the special project process, we find out that everyone has his/her own innovation and persistence and a perfect special project can be achieved only through discussion together. However, we are a team and we emphasizes on team work and a research plan of job division.

(4) Although we are just a group of vocational high school students, we must have the spirit and attitude of “Small me and big me” because this is however a society with people living in herds. If everyone faces his/her life with selfish attitude, this society will then become cold-blooded; we must start learning how to behave as a modern people of “Sacrifice yourself for others” from now on.