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1. Description of Our Community
Chashan Village, where we live, is situated in the southernmost part of Alishan Township, at a height 350m to 1200m above sea-level. Its original name, “CEA YA MA”, means “Plains on the Mountain-slope”. The land-produce here is abundant and products are well-known for their purity and organic farming. The tribes living here include Tsou, Bunun and Han, and the villagers work together to establish a tribal culture full of variety. Chashan also is unique for its “Hu-Fu (Kiosk) Sharing Culture”, a newly formed band, the “CEA YA MA mofi Band”, the dance group, “Tsou Dancing Troupe”, and “village-inns”. Stone-carvings are numerous and they tell the legendary stories of the ancestors. If you come to Chanshan then you will be welcomed into the arms of passionate villages and nature. The village people have worked towards the goal of developing Chashan into a Tribal Ecology Park, and in recent years, it was designated by the Chiayi County Government as the “Chashan Leisure Farming Area”.
2. Summary of Our Project
Other than its breath-taking natural scenery, Chashan Village has also kept their aboriginal traditional arts and culture. It has worked hard for the goal of becoming a “Tribal Park” and hopes to create a balance between its tourism industry development and tribal culture preservation. Thus our CyberFair Project will target Chashan’s “Public Arts” and “Traditional Dance” for exploration, so that everyone may further understand Chanshan’s past, present and future.
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:less than 20
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:4-6
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):
We mostly do not have computers in our homes, as only a few students are privileged, and our internet from home is accessed through dial-up, therefore since the school’s network is better we had worked during our holidays to use the school’s computers. The computers are also more stable compared to a few years ago, and 8 new computers were purchased for the school’s computer room. This improvement is very pleasant.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
(1) Transport Difficulty: Since Chashan is very far from the cities, thus the big-brothers and big-sisters have to use buses for transport, but Chiayi’s Bus Company had cancelled its 8am buses on Saturdays, so the big-brothers and big-sisters could only come over on Friday night or around dusk on Saturdays. Chashan also occupies a large area, and most of us lived in Suburbs 3 and 4, so it would take more than an hour to reach Suburbs 1 and 2, where most of the interview and research works were done. Furthermore, we are also a large group, but thanks to the arrangements made by the enthusiastic An-chi and Teachers, we were able to successfully complete our interviews. (2) Lack of Time: Since many team-members’ homes operate as inns they often were required to help their parents serve the lodgers, and on Saturdays they also had to go to church, therefore the time available for discussions was very little. In the end, thanks to the communication between the teachers and the parents, we were then able to participate in the CyberFair Project during holidays. (3) Insufficient Experience: Since most of the team-members were participating for the first-time, as only Teacher Yi-hsiao, Teacher Rong-sin and a National Chung Cheng University student had previous experience, and also since a different topic was being attempted this time, it was not easy to conduct many activities and compile the data, and sometimes the activities were excessive and caused our progress to fall behind.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
(1) In the past, the computers were only used for gaming, but now we have discovered many interesting and new things, since the big-brothers and big-sisters had taught us how to edit video, make ppt and use the digital camera and MP3. A lot of new knowledge was learnt that were more attractive than what we learnt from books. (2) Many new technological products were really convenient, like taking photographs with the digital camera, where the photographs could be seen immediately after returning to school, and mp3’s, which allowed us to record our interviews and songs sang by everyone. By utilizing these tools data can be stored quickly and safely. (3) In fact, our village had so many things we could introduce to and share with everyone, especially in music and arts. Through our interviews of the Village Chief and elders in the village, we were able to understand that every person has been working hard for the whole Chashan village to make it even better.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
In our syllabus, the Curriculum of from Grade 1-9 fundamentally includes: (1) Humanitarian Aspect: Including self-understand, self-respect, and appreciation of other people and different cultures. (2) Coordination Skills Aspect: Including coordination of sense and logic, combination of knowledge and behavior, and integration of humans and technology. (3) Liberal Substance Aspect: Including self-expression, independent thinking, inter-communication, acceptance of others, teamwork, social service and obeying of laws. (4) National and International Views Aspect: Including nationalism, patriotism, world-view (covering culture and ecology) etc. (5) Lifelong Learning Aspect: Including knowledge-seeking, problem-solving and utilization of information and language. Our research project has embraced these 5 aspects.
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