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1. Description of Our Community
Our community Huielong is located at the boarder of Toayuan Guieshan Township and Taibei counties of Xinzhuang and Suling. It is prosperous in both business and industry. A variety of institutions and religious belief centers are a part of the local community, such as Lunghwa Junior College of Technology and Paul Hsu Senior High School, Ch'uanchen Taoist temple, Huielong Temple and Guieshan Temple. Besides, the Amis aborigines living here add diversity to and enrich the culture of our community.
2. Summary of Our Project
Our project focuses on the Amis minority culture and arts, which have been neglected by the majority and become vanishing gradually. Chihan Tsai, a sixth-grade student in our school, is an Amis, but he didn’t know much about his own culture. Until one day, he saw a painting exhibited at our school Cultural Hall did he arise in him the desire to search his root. Moved by his determination and sincerity to find out his culture, our school teachers and students organized a work team to engage in an exciting exploring adventure on the Amis culture and arts. By way of participating in Amis festivals, we had opportunities to meet the Amis tribal men and learned their language, music and arts. In addition, we held a small-scale harvest festival at our school. Through this activity, we expect to awaken the public to value the minority culture more and further to enrich our local and global communities by integrating their culture and arts into our daily lives.
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:2-3
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:4-6
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
There are two computer labs in our school, consisting of 120 computers. Our school is connected with Taiwan Academic Network via FTTB provided by The Bureau of Education Network Center. We also have another ADSL line with 2Mb download speed and 512k upload speed for the use of the entire school teachers and students. Apart from that, computers in every classroom and faculty office can also be hooked on the internet.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
After we finished our Chinese web pages on Feb. 26, we didn’t have enough time left to translate the large amount of information into English. As foreigners, it was not an easy task to translate Chinese into English in the first place, not alone we had to complete translation in two weeks. As we were desperate and didn’t know what to do, six teachers of our school came to give us a hand and helped translate our web pages into English. Thanks to those teachers! We finally completed the impossible task in time and uploaded our English web pages.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Participating in this project, we saw with our own eyes many beautiful Amis arts and heard many wonderful music, especially when joining the Amis Harvest Festival, which let us all open our eyes. We also heard a lot of fascinated Amis legends. Besides, when the dance teacher, Mr. Chiachin Wu and his elder brother taught us how to dance at the Harvest Festival, we felt just out of this world. These experiences would forever be engraved in our memories. During working on this project, we felt exhausted sometimes, but when seeing our web pages complete step by step, we felt it was worthy.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Our training courses for this project match totally with the fields of language, arts and humanity, health and physical education, social studies, computer science, set forth in the nine-year consistent curriculum, presently in force. We learned how to search information related to our project, and techniques to interview people, record their answers, and finally organize those materials into a report for our project web pages. Also, we invited specialists to teach us Amis language, dance and music, and we drew paintings, did Amis traditional costumes and accessories in the class of art and craft. In the synthesis class, we also learned to cook Amis cuisine, and practiced songs and dance to implement the concepts of sex equality. Finally, we worked together to hold a small harvest festival to present all the things we learned about the Amis culture.
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1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?
Digital Camera: During research we used digital photography to videotape our interviews. School Scanner: We used the scanner to scan many precious photos and converted into digital for processing by the computers. School Pen Recorder: During the interview, we used the pen recorder to record each interview. Computer Software: we used PhotoImpact, Dreamweaver, Namo Webeditor, Mediastudio Audio editor, Flash MX, Swish, Ulead VideoStudio, etc., to make the web page and its artistic processes. School Internet: We used search engines to search related information, periodicals and papers, E-mail to contact interviewees and team members, and transmit reports. Telephone: We used telephones to contact the interviewees, plan the interviews, organize events and discuss with team members.
2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.
We were very happy to be able to participate in this project because we had opportunities to meet the tribal men and interview them. Through interactions with them, we not only gained deeper knowledge about the Amis culture and arts but also established friendship among us. We used all the knowledge learned from them and presented them in our art works. We had completed the mission of shortening the distance between two peoples with different cultural backgrounds and fostering the appreciation of the diverse cultures in our community. After completing this project, we had proved ourselves the best culture ambassadors for our community.
3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?
During working on this project, what impressed and influenced us the most is the Amis people’s attitude towards their ethnic origin. We interviewed many Amis people who regarded and admired their origins more than we did. Many successful Amis earnestly returned to their hometown and did something to preserve their culture, in hope that they could awaken their clansmen to value and pass their culture down to their descendants. These people who show great concern for their culture and adhere to their traditions have affected every of us working on this project. We decided to join the CyberFair project hoping that the Amis culture and arts could make known to our community and the world as well. Because every culture is the treasure on earth, if any culture has become extinct, it will be a loss to the world.
4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
We want to thank many people who helped us complete this project. First of all, we want to thank Quanta Culture & Education Foundation to support our project spiritually and financially. Secondly, We’d like to thank Mr. Juichi Chu, Ms. Shuhui Chen, professors of Department Of Architecture Design, Ming Chuan University; Mr. Anguo Jiang, Ms. Juihui Chiu, Graduate School of Communications Management, Ming Chuan University; Ms. Huiju Lai, the instructor of Department of Digital Media Design, Ming Chuan University and her students: Huiju You, Ch'iup'in Huang, Chiuping Hung, Paiyu Chen, to meet with us regularly to provide professional consultation on Amis culture and web page production. Especially, we would like to thank Chinde Xu, The President of Fakong Tribe Youth Association; Wenlong Tsai, The Director of The Hualien County Fenping Township Community Development Association; Chienpin Chen, The Amis Tribe Chieftain in Huielong District; Gawai’s father, Kungfu Tsai; Ms. Huimei Lin, teacher of Hualien Zhongshiao Elementary School; Ms. Chiachin Wu and Mr. Deguie Wu, Harvest Festival Dance Teachers; Ms. Shuya Huang, teacher of Xihu Elementary School. We also want to thank our teachers, Chingfei Cheng, Shengzhong Wang, Yuanching Liao, Ichen Chung, Chiunghua Tsai, Chingwen Xu for their help to complete the impossible task of translating the Chinese web page into English in two weeks. Without their help, we couldn’t complete our project in time.
5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)
In Guieshan District, we met Amis people every day, but we didn’t care much about them and their culture. After completing this project, we have totally changed our concepts of the Amis tribe. We were surprised to find out that the Amis culture and arts are so rich and profound that there are many valuable things for us to discover. Now when we see some tour buses carrying people worldwide to visit Guieshan, the small place in Taiwan, just to appreciate the Amis culture, we are touched deeply. We are glad to know that the Amis culture has gradually been deep rooted in Taoyuan area and thrived. Working on this project gave us a lesson; that is, we shouldn’t belittle any culture at all because every culture more or less has made significant contributions to the world so that we have a colorful world.
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View our CyberFair Project
(Project ID: 5082)
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