School: Hemei primary school
    Changhua county, , Taiwan

11 students, ages 11 to 12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 29, 2004. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2003

Classes and Teachers: Piter Lee, Wu Wen-Chuan, Chang Chun-Lang, Yang Tao-Bin, Jao Min, Chen Li-Zheng

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.hmps.chc.edu.tw

1. Description of Our Community

Hemei Town is proud of its national secondary classical historic spot — Tao Tung Academy and a glorious local economical property — Hemei Textile. At its climax period, this huge business contained more than 2000 factories, giving Hemei the name: “Textile Kingdom”.

As times change, Hemei Textile faces tough challenges of down falling and type change. The number of existed textile factories in Hemei now is only 1/10 of that in the past. From our project, we find innovation and invention are very necessary for Hemei Textile’s future.

2. Summary of Our Project

Hemei Textile is Hemei’s glory. Once it was very important in the development of Taiwan Economical Miracle. Elders often recall its prosperousness, but sigh for its downfall. However, we made this project, intending to achieve in improving the situation.

The achievements of this project were wished to be: A) Understanding the rise and fall of Hemei Textile, the industry deeply related to our hometown. B) Letting more people know Hemei Textile by the Internet, and bring refreshment to it.

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:1

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:2-3

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

a) Internet Website: We set an interactive website called Jia-Feng Website. There, we can quickly shared data and photos for research, and interacted like to leave messages or discuss on line.

b) School Internet environment: 81 computers in 2 computer rooms. Each computer is linked, so we can look up information and print papers at school.

c) Member’s home Internet environment: Each team member has a computer at home, inked by ADSL. After school, we continued researching by E-mail, Ftp, and our interactive website.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Old photos and data were very hard to gather: It was very uneasy to find early-day photos and data of Hemei Textile. Luckily, we got lots of valuable data in the exhibition of Textile Festival held by Hemei Township Office.

Difficulties of making WebPages: We were not well skilled in computer techniques, so we met difficulties in making WebPages. Thanks to Mr. Li and Mr. Chen. Under their guidance, we overcame the difficulties!

Uneasy to plan time for research: We used every morning self-study time to do research. And to avoid members’ after school-class time clash, we had to plan the time for visits in advance. When we could not get together, we used up the Internet.

Problems on operating computer: Computers often shut off automatically, the Internet went too slowly and files could not be uploaded; “The file is lost?” “Re-type it!” These problems were really annoying. Thus, we have learned to save 1 file to more copies, to prevent it from missing.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

I have had a much deeper understanding to Hemei Textile’s glorious history. And I also became more interested in textile. In the research, we find that to innovate and invent are very important. Our county magistrate said, 'Hope Hemei Textile to bind with culture and go for a better development!' I think this project is very significant. It had made me learn so much and love my hometown more! (By Wei-Shio)

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

A. Integration with “Art and Humanity”: “Art and Humanity” is the key point of our “School-based Curriculum”. Our project Hemei Textile was produced through the use of local community resources, spot visits and actual weaving. People will thoroughly know the glory Hemei textile-industry once had and the prospect of its change .We hope that, by voting and web pages sharing, our students can appreciate the beauty of weave.

B. Application with WWW Tech: By means of interactive web pages, web hard disk, e-mail, message board, etc, we learned to do research more effectively.

C. Integrated Learning Activities: From the research process, we have been more skilled in interviewing, computing questionnaires and report making, and also, in cooperating and consulting, which were very beneficial for us!

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

A. Interactive website: It let us immediately share information and discuss on line.

B. Web hard disk: The information stored in diskettes or hard disk in computers in school often was ruined or could not be read. To prevent these obstacles, we used web hard disk.

C. Technical Equipment: We use telephone, computer, ADSL wide network, scanner, printer, digital camera, digital video camera, and recorder.

D. Software we use: Macromedia Dreamweaver:To edit and manage web pages. Macromedia Flash:To make animated cartoon. Ulead PhotoImpact, Photoshop:To deal with image. Acdsee:To manage photos. Microsoft Excel:To compute questionnaires. Microsoft PowerPoint:To make Power Point. Microsoft Word:To handle scripted data. Internet Explorer:To browse WebPages, look up information, update and download data. Outlook Express:To interconnect.

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

Letting residents realize our textile culture: To realize nowadays “Hemei Textile”, we lively interviewed many textile factories and local personalities, and surveyed by questionnaires to know the residents’ opinions. Our interviews have let many interviewees and residents know our research and aroused their memory and concern about “Hemei Textile”.

All our school students joined in D.I.Y.: We held “Paper-weave and Carpet Pattern Design” D.I.Y. activity and whole-school vote, letting students experience textile beauty and share our project.

Spread culture specialty through the WebPages: We tried our best on the web pages, hoping people who have seen it would appreciate the specialty about our once-worldwide-known Hemei Textile.

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

A. Has made Hemei residents be concerned with their textile culture: 80% parents were interested in our questionnaire.70% interviewees supported the foundation of a textile museum, which corresponded with our county magistrate’s textile-industry-combining-education idea, and the survey conclusion could be referred by administrative units.

B. Combining teaching, it will continuously spread our culture: The school weaving and voting activities we held have let our schoolmates experience weave beauty. We dream of making a vivid record of Hemei Textile, and hope this WebPages could be a great Hemei local teaching material.

C. Spoke the textile industry’s thoughts: The bosses were very passionate as we went visiting the textile factories. They spoke the development tendency of their textile industry and that they need the government’s concern.

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

A. Thank Mr. Huang Zhi-Liang and Mr. Zhuang Feng-Jia for they provided their writings for our reference. Mr. Zhuang was so zealous that he acted as a volunteer for our project. His brilliant advice helped us complete our project.

B. Thank Hemei Township Office and Library for we have collected useful data from Hemei Textile Festival and Hemei Library.

C. Also thank for the textile factories we have interviewed and those who did questionnaires. They helped our project go smoothly.

D. Our principal — Mr. Li Wen-Zhong, always encouraged us, and our teacher - Mr. Chen Li-Zheng, conducted us and helped us make animated cartoon.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Funny discovery: During our research, we experienced many wonderful visits, like to Jou-Mu, Hong-Yu factories, and with our supervisor and principal, even more, to deserted factories. We have learned so much about textile that we could be “little weavers”!

Lesson: Cooperation. As members cooperate, failure would never defeat a team!

Surprise: After the research, I found there was so much to learn in the world of textile, such as yarn-spinning, dyeing, and knitting, shuttle weaving. I also discovered many funny Hemei textile stories and even a chant!