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1. Description of Our Community
Tucheng City is located at the SE shore of Dahan River, with mountains at its back. Two hundred years ago, it was a deserted land which the people of Han race and aboriginal people had long been fighting for. As time goes by, today this city of beautiful mountain and river and friendly local people has become a well-developed and modernized city with numerous skyscrapers and advanced public facilities. We could say that our birth place, Tucheng City, is the miniature of Taiwan's immigrant society from poverty to prosperity.……
2. Summary of Our Project
In Taiwan, no matter in the cities or in the rural areas, people maintain their happiness and health from doing exercises everyday. They love exercises, practice it even after work. They have developed the attitude of being content, kind, and optimistic. Therefore, we made the decision to be closer to this friendly and lovely people, writing down the touching stories of their happy lives, and let the stories circulate in the limitless world of Internet.
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:more than 6
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
Thre are four computer rooms totalling 180 computers and three servers. Through the T1 line we are able to connect to the Education Resource Center of Taipei County, from which we can connect to Taiwan Academia Network (TANet). We have three supervisor/teacher who have Internet access with the speed of 512k broadband at home; all students have computers at home, four among which can access the Internet, three among them use broadband of 512k speed and one uses dial-up of 56k speed.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Skills In our school students start to learn about computers from the third grade. Therefore we had to learn all the related skills from scratch: typing, using scanners, digital cameras, image processing and most importantly website designs were all taught step-by-step by our teachers. Although these skills are new and interesting, yet they were not an easy job to learn all of them in one go. Furthermore, we often forgot what we just learned. Luckily after the patience and support from our helpful teachers, and the fact that we took advantage of lunch breaks and off-school times to practice in the computer room, we had improved a lot. Interviews This is our first time being the little journalists. We were very nervous in the beginning even though we all practiced on the previous day. Once we arrived at the scene, nobody dared to ask questions; when someone finally gathered all the courage to ask questions, the words were stammered and indistinct that the interviewee got almost angry. Sometimes even before we had finished asking all the questions, the interviewee said that he had to leave for other business! At that time we were quite disheartened. But the teacher said it was bound to be so in the beginning; the important thing is how we should face it when the difficulty arised. The teachers even shared some tips with us, such as: once we confirmed the interview questions, we can practice them on some of other classmates several days prior to the real interview. This way we would not get too nervous. This method really worked. Later we were not only more relaxed, but also more confidant We had another difficulty. The interviewees often spoke a lot and with fast speed that we didn't have time enough to jot down everything. Therefore when we had our Review Meeting, we decided to make this a team-work, meaning some people took charge in interviews, some took notes, some did recording and photography. Then we put all our works together and tried to get all out of it. That was how we overcame the interview problem.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Just like the good-old idiom: 'Acitivities, activities, you have to act to live!' Iron won't become steel without forging; people won't be healthy without sports; activities is like a divine pill, why do people always seek for special cure? We hope through our research project we can encourage everybody to do more sports or exercises, in order to achieve the goal of 'Energetic Taiwan, Healthy People'.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Combination with Other Important Topics-- Information Education: Recognization : Knowing how to use different software and hardware to complete the making of a website Compliance: Understanding the rules of usage in the computer room, learning related Internet Intellectual Property rights, and not to violate it. Skills: Use appropriate search engine to find materials needed; able to operate various software and hardware, and take advantage of Internet resources to process all the materials collected. Education of Genders: Our group is formed by equal numbers of females and males. We learned through teamwork that contributions are made by both genders, and we respected each other's opinion disregarding the gender. Each group member had equal opportunity to express his or herself. Career Development Education: After this contest, we found out that as long as we have patience, willpower, team-learning attitudes and teamwork skills, we are able to accomplish anything. Combination with School-based classes-- Education with Information: Our school pays special attention to information education, supporting 'Education with Information'. Our athlete group has always made good development. Through this research project, we would like to combine information with physical education in order to make more people get aware of the advantages of doing sports.
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1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?
Softwares: PhotoImpact: Graphics design and processing. 2020: Image retrieval. Word: Files and data processing Flash: Creating animation and games. PowerPoint: Creating games for questions and answers. Dreamweaver and Namo: Creating contest website. Excel: Statistics and sum-up for questionnaires. Ftp and Cuteftp: Data, circulation of webpages, uploading to the organization. IE: Communication online; search and exchange related information. Nero: Burning a CD-rom for a backup of final work Hardwares: Computer: website creation, collecting information and processing files. Disks and flashdrives: data storage and exchange. Tape-recorder: Recording during interview for a more detailed notes afterwards. Digital camera: Taking pictures of group works and other activities. Scanner: Scanning maps, questionnaires and pictures. Photocopier and printer: Photocopying related information for group discussion. Stationary telephone and cellphone: Contacting among group members and interviewing others when needed. Library: Searching and collecting references. Car and motorbike: interviews and investigation.
2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.
The mother of teacher Chiofan participates in local sports groups quite often and knows lots of sport-lovers and coaches, we asked her help in contacting people as our interviewee in the beginning so that we could proceed smoothly on our interviews and picture taking. We had explained to them our research project in detail prior to the interview, and they felt it was interesting that their daily activity could become one of the topics for research projects. The athletes in Tucheng Elementary School also become our interviewees. But most of them were so shy that they did not wish to be photographed. We had to use images taken from other school magazines or community achievement exhibitions. In addition, we used questionnaires and surveys to see the sport habits of community residents. In the beginning, not too many people understood what the research was about. After our explanation, most residents were willing to fill out the questionnaire, accept interviews, and be taken photos. However, there were still a few residents who were unhappy to help, refused our request, or complained that we brought them troubles. Even though this was not smooth all the way, yet the feedbacks we received from the questionnaires were encouraging: we got to know most residents are supportive to our research. We hope to spread the idea of doing sports so that more people understand the advantages doing sport bring, and finally become one of the sport-lovers.
3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?
Exercise in Taiwan is not as popular as in Europe and America. Also, in an era, which overemphasized academic performance, “sports” was not valued and sacrificed for something else. Everyone will only regularly exercise for losing weight or rehabilitation after illness. Exercise should be integrated into life, an autonomous behavior, and a habit. Not only can exercise make one healthier physically, and also can exercise build up one’s confidence and train one’s will. The latest research mentions that exercise will prevent memory from being deprecating! Based on the abovementioned points, I hope that our research will touch people’s hearts and encourage more people to develop a good habit of exercising. Exercise will better one’s health and purify one’s mentality!
4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
Community Special acknowledgement to Bo-Zhu, Ko Tianguey Coach, Ms Su Rayshia, Lead Nurse Chang Jing…etc. for accepting our interviews. We would also like to extend our thanks to residents who took our research questionnaires. School We would like to thank Tzeng Zhijia teacher and Lee Hongyi, Chou Mingyi, Chio Yihao, Yo Shijia, Lee Ailin...etc. from the track and field team, and classes in all grades that filled out our questionnaires. We also want to thank Zhao Liling, Hong Chingyin, and Wu Chingshien teachers' help in collecting, organizing materials and information for us. Parents Thanks to the helps of Ronron's mother, Chifan's mother, Tingshuan's mother, Shingron's mother, and Zhixian's mother. Their warmhearted support helped us in contacting interviewees, traffic, and processing materials.
5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)
During the interviews, we found that people who have sport routines often have more lively attitudes towards the interview. They were willing to be interviewed, and even asked to be interviewed twice so that they can ask friends to join in order to give us more information. They were not only kind during the whole interview session, but they were very patient as well. We felt that sport really can make people more friendly and open! In the beginning of the research, most members volunteered to participate. However, since we often needed to use lunch breaks or time after school for discussions, some people wanted to quit for that reason. When we allocate people to do tasks, certain tasks were also left unwanted. Once the teacher learned about this situation, a group meeting was hosted. The teacher told us the importance of group work, that we should be persistant for what we do, and we should not quit any task that we have begun. 'A Good Beginning is like Half Way towards Success'. If we could learn group work in the first time we joined the contest, we will be able to overcome any problem or difficulties later on or even in the future. We felt very embarrased after listening to the teacher, and we did not argue over the task distribution anymore. Witnessing the accomplishments of every steps, the success of uploading every articles and webpages, we all felt that the efforts we invested were worthwhile. Success truly belongs to people who can hang on to the end!
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View our CyberFair Project
(Project ID: 3382)
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