School: Pei-Man Senior High School
    Tainan County, Tainan County, Taiwan

13 students, ages from 15 to 18 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 30, 2002. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2002

Classes and Teachers: Tsai Hsing-yun & Lin Ming-jiang

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.pmsh.tnc.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

Old Street is a name mixed with culture and history. According to the architecture history of streets in Taiwan, at the end of the Ching Dynasty, houses were built with bamboo and soil blocks except those belonging to the rich with red tiles. As time went by, those streets with tiles such as San-hsia Old Street and Hu-kou Old Street were becoming the locations crowded with people and Hsin-hua Old Street was no exception.

Hsin-hua Old Street is situated in the intersection between Chung-cheng Rd. and Chung-shan Rd. in Hsin-hua Town. According to the record of history and culture in Hsin-hua, it begins with Ping-pu Tribe's culture, transfers into Dutch European culture, and then transforms into Ming & Ching Dynasties' Chinese culture. Hence, it creates the specific and unique style in architecture of Hsin-Hua. In spite of the threat and destruction of the war, fortunately it stands still in the downtown of Hsing-hua. This is the pride of Hsin-hua Old Street and the inhabitants of Hsin-hua alike. It is the consequences of their common spiritual inspiration that we humans should learn from and follow their step and even spread around the globe.

2. Summary of Our Project

After experiencing our seniors' participation of the cyberfair last year, we obtained plenty of valuable experience. Thus many schoolmates are interested in such a project and we are no exception. We, members from the freshman to the senior decided to choose "Old Street" to be our topic after long discussion. Thereafter, we began with the distribution of work and arranged the time to call on locals.

Old Street used to be famous, to be prosperous, and to be densely populated. In spite of the decline of it's reputation resulting from outer factors, we saw the locals instead of giving it up make great efforts to present it's another kind of beautiful appearances. At the same time we should do our best to show "Old Street" to the people around the world and make everyone know that there is a place worthy to appreciate, to discover and to preserve, which might arouse more attention on cultural arts and humane spirits.

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:4-6

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

In our school we have two ADSL lines connected outward.

One is linked to Computer Calculator Center of National Cheng Kung University. Its band width is T1(1536K/384K) and its IP is 210. 60. 224. *. The other is linked to the engine room of Chunghwa Telecom Hinet. Its band width is 768K/128K and its IP is 61. 218. 223.18~20

OS of the server includes NT, Sun-UNIX, Linux. Besides, the provided internet services include mail server, Web server, FTP server, BBS, proxy server, and Dns server.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Because the grades of the members range from the first to the third, the disagreement cannot be avoided. However, such arrangement is partly because the freshmen and sophomores will be capable of being the leaders in the next CyberFair after gaining more experiences from this year's CyberFair and partly because as the leaders, what the seniors have to do is guide the directions of the project so that it won't influence their heavy schoolwork. After overall combination of their opinions, not only all of them learned how to communicate well with each other but those freshmen and sophomores obtained the seniors' variety of experience.

Moreover, to translate Chinese into English for us who seldom practice writing English composition is another big challenge. Thanks to our English teacher's instruction and guide, we are surprised at discovering our improvement in writing ability as well as our increase on English vocabulary. In a word, numbers of acquisition accompanied by this project is out of our expectation. And we are pleased to have the opportunity to share this procedure with others and are thankful for every helper.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

1. Our own footsteps + others' footsteps + all people's perspiration=one meaningful work.

2. Those beautiful things around us come from each person's unique insight.

3. The influence of the cyberspace is without limit and thus to pursue larger improvement isn't out of the question any more.

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

In our school since the second grade, we students are divided into two groups, the science group and the literature group. On the one hand, students in the science group believe it cannot be better to acquire "balanced" knowledge than bathing into this literature and arts learning experiences. During the research on our topic "Hsin-hua Old Street-a Visit on the Historic Scene", we had to visit the place in person so as to comprehend deeply its history, culture, art, and the spirits of heritage passed down from the earlier generation. On the other hand, even though students in the literature group attend History and Geography classes in their daily curriculum, most of the knowledge is abstract concepts. Thus by engaging in this project, we have clearer ideas about the connection between culture and history and a further explanation of geographical nouns instead of the fixed definition limited to the textbooks.

Apart from the curriculum new skills, we learned the skills of how to communicate with each other and the spirits of unity and cooperation. While calling on the residents in Old Street, we had to think it twice how to have a conversation with others so that they are willing to tell us what's in their mind as a whole. Even when curious people stood around us, inquiring what we were doing, we had to spread the information of our project clearly by blending our experience and knowledge harmoniously and thoroughly. Moreover, our job is distributed among several groups. Every group has its assignment and in every meeting we actively offered required assistance and appropriate encouragement and concerns.

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

1. oral interviews---We visited the inhabitants of Old Street in person to understand more about Old Street.

2. computers---We searched for relevant information on the internet and exchange opinions through email, etc.

3. the press---We paid more attention on Old Street in newspapers and magazines.

4. tape recorders---We recorded the content of the interviews.

5. digital camera and cameras---We took photos down during the procedure.

6. scanners and printers---We dealt with the images by scanner and printed required papers out.

7. telephones---Sometimes we had to communicate with the interviewers through telephones.

8. computer softwares---Word 2000; Flashget1.0; Audio comverter; RealAudio Live Encoder; Winzip

9. computer hardwares--- Dreamwaver 4; Frontpage 2000; Flash 5; Photoimpact 6.0; Photoshop 6.0; Cute-ftp; Ws-ftp

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

Luckily, our Computer teacher Lin Ming-jiang is acquainted with Dai Ji-si, Secretary-general of Hsin-hua Old Street Cultural Prospect Committee. Thus almost on every holiday the whole group of us with excitement and nervousness called at Hsin-hua Old Street in person and made an appointment with Mr. Dai. In the beginning, we explained our purpose and content of our project in detail. After the explanation, he was moved and encouraged us to keep on working on the "mission" full of meanings. In addition, he actively provided all the information on Hsin-hua Old Street he could acquire. While walking on the streets of Hsin-Hua with Mr. Dai's clear narration, we not only took notes and asked questions but recorded his treasurable narration by a small-sized tape recorder and took photos of every single building by a digital camera. It was the stimulation before each visit and every member's frequent discussion with our computer teacher that made the process of the project more smoothly than we had expected. To be more specific, each of us unconsciously became the spokesman, the "ambassador", and the person who moved the community and furthermore led its residents to participate in. This was what we comprehended from the project and what caused our affections toward Old Street to be deepened and strengthened.

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

In the past the topic that our classmates would like to chat with was "What's your favorite foreign scenic spot?", "Where do you think is the place with the most distinguished architecture?", or "Where will you like to play this coming holiday?" Since we started with this project, classmates around us have been curious about the topic of our project and what's more, they have been so deeply attracted that they organize another group researching another topic. Most important of all, we strongly sensed that people around us do not only focus on themselves longer but start to actively show their concerns on events happening around them.

In addition, other teachers showed their concerns about our project and transmitted such relevant information to their students in class. More and more people, including our classmates, teachers, Hsin-hua Old Street inhabitants, and others interested in this topic, reach this common consensus -resources on the internet is there waiting for everyone to make good use of. Besides, our common concept, "the knowledge on the internet is there welcoming for everyone to irrigate and expand", is not a passive social propaganda any more, but an active global tendency.

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

Fortunately, our project was supported and encouraged by the locals in Old Street from the beginning to the end. Every time when they were going to hold a relevant activity about Old Street, they informed us in advance and made us understand the following development and movement. The members of Hsin-hua Cultural Prospect Committee, in particular, showed the most kindness on our single visit. For example, they would prepared refreshments with tea and light snacks for exhausted us. Perhaps it was affected by our efforts so they turned their passions towards Old Street into another power to drive people work harder on Old Street's revival and renovation. All of us learned a lot from this complementary assistance.

Asides from the locals' voluntary, our classmates kept an eye on any information about Old Street on newspapers and magazines and voluntarily exchanged computer information with us. Besides, some enthusiastic teachers in our school would give us advice when necessary. To sum up, the best achievements cannot be complete without those above-mentioned helpers. We are not only proud of this project, but would like to give them our great big thanks since it's everybody's honor and everyone's efforts.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

To be honest, the first time when we encountered "Old Street", we were disappointed at its ordinary appearance and even doubted whether we had chosen a place without characteristics to be our topic. However, the first impression faded away completely and instead a sense of mission appeared after the detailed description of every single building from the narrators. This sense of mission came from our interest in Old Street's unique history, from the pity of declining reputation, and from the locals' inspiration and stimulation that they are keen on Old Street's revival.

The entire street of Old Street stores all our valuable memories-how we changed from amateurish narration in the beginning to expert explanation in the end when passengers consulted us; how we found out needed information from messed files and listed out what we thought was meaningful and worth sharing with people; in the meetings, how we did our best to figure out a strategy to combine every member's viewpoint as well as to correspond to our project guidelines.

Anyway, even though what we finished cannot be the toughest mission in the world, we're certain it's the most difficult one we have ever done before. All our pleasure and excitement are beyond description. All we would like to do is shout out, "We made it. We finally made everybody's common wish come true and share it out with people around the world!"