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1. Description of Our Community
Sanyu Elementary School is situated in the culturally diverse and stimulating Tienmu district of Taipei City. Since its establishment in 1993, the school has striven to promote openness and innovation in student learning, and to provide a multidimensional setting for the realization of the three vision we have for our children, “Health, Harmony, and Learning.” We believe in and maintain a learning structure that is strengthened by athletic training, multidimensional extracurricular activities, and self-motivation, and hope each and every child learns how to “conduct themselves well, have the means to do things well, treat others well, and know the importance of learning.” We hope to instill the quality of being “energetic and informed and to excel in whatever one chooses to engage in” in our superior Sanyu children.Since the establishment of musical clubs at Sanyu, we have been offering meticulously designed musical courses alongside of them, and held many exhibitory performances. Delegates from our musical clubs have also won acclaim at numerous musical contests. The club instructors provide guidance to our children in encouraging them to actively participate in local community events, such as Christmas recitals and performances for the benefit of orphaned children, and also in teaching them to learn from life’s experiences. We hope our children to grow up with gratitude and to care for others, and that each and every one of them will be good citizens in their adult years.
2. Summary of Our Project
The members of this project are students already belonging to musical clubs and who all have a passion for music. Below are the major issues to be discussed in the project report: 1.To research the history of musical education at Sanyu Elementary School. 2.To understand how school clubs may be incorporated into campus life, the community, and international events by letting students interview the headmaster and club instructors of Sanyu. 3.For students to actually participate in musical contests, campus, community, and international events in order to cultivate their identification to the school and a sense of honor. 4.To understand recent experiences and issues students and parents participating in club activities through conducting surveys. Lastly, students will learn more than just how to play music by participating in musical contests; instead, this active participation will help cultivate in students their identification with the school and the land on which they live, making them better citizens of tomorrow.
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:more than 6
E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):
Information science is deeply integrated into teaching and campus activities, there are computers with LAN connection and internet access in every classroom, with internet access being 10M optical fiber broadband connected to TANet. Activities in connection with the Cyberfair were conducted in the computer classroom, and project related digital files were stored in the computer belonging to the project instructor Teacher Lyu. But with the accumulation of project related data, the hard disc storage space on Teacher Lyu’s personal computer became insufficient, so he assisted us in installed a server called “Cyberfair Database” for our exclusive use, which is to be specifically for storing Cyberfair project related material. Our project instructors, Teacher Huang and Teacher Lu, make copies of all the files within the “Cyberfair Database” using their own flash drives pretty much every 2 to 3 days in order to ensure that our hard work remains safe and sound.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
1.Lack of time: Team members consist of students from the fifth and sixth grades, in addition to homework, each member also has assignments from their respective musical clubs, and most students also attend care center classes or other events after school, so it wasn’t easy to gather team members for meetings and discussions. In order to solve this problem, we set up a FTP storage space, used email for daily communications, and assigned individual tasks to each member, so that we could complete the work regardless of limitations in time and space. Our utilization of internet software gave us great advantage, and it was both encouraging and exciting to think that we had solved another problem. 2. A great number of interview subject: We were obliged to interview the faculty and external instructors for four musical clubs roughly at the same time, therefore there were lots of conflicts of time, and organizing interview dates became an important issue for us. In order to solve this problem, we divided team members into different groups to interview teachers who had time conflicts, videoed and recorded entire interview processes and took photographs, so that we could share with everyone our experiences in interviewing our teachers. 3. Differences in information processing skills: Because members were from both grades 5 and 6, the level of information processing skills somewhat differed between students, and we had to overcome issues regarding the handling of recording, video devices, as well as web design and image processing. In order to solve this problem, Teacher Huang and Teacher Lyu came up with a teaching plan for computer processing, went over it with us time after time, and clarified sketchy points for us so that we could successfully accomplish our individual tasks.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
It was our first time participating in the Cyberfair. We spend considerable time studying the past winning projects of the contest, to point out the strengths and weaknesses of each one, and to learn not to hastily wrap up any assignments we were given just because we wanted to have more play time. Additionally, regarding our interviews of the musical club instructors, Teacher Ling-hsiang, Teacher Fu-lu, and Teacher Mei-juan always carefully went over the details of the interviews before we conducted them, and gave us their advice and criticism after we did the interviews. Lastly, we were greatly interested in the image processing and webpage design that our teachers taught us. It was surprising and broadening to learn that the webpages we normally see are really made up of line after line of written codes.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
The Sanyu String, Drum, Recorder, and Choir team is made up of students who already love music and actively participate in musical clubs, who have all joined together to work on this Cyberfair project. When we set up and designed our website, we asked the students to contribute their thoughts and ideas, to fully utilize the numerous abilities they had cultivated in their respective fields, to share and cooperate with each other, in order to create and establish the project website for Club Charisma. Language wise, students were asked to discuss and put together interview outlines, to write progress reports, to conduct real interviews, and in order to complete these assignments they had to possess good abilities in integrating the faculties of listening, speaking, reading and writing; regarding mathematics, students learned how to process the questionnaire answers into legible statistics; regarding social abilities, students encountered little challenges in interpersonal relationships and communication. Before interviews were conducted, team members gathered to discuss and construct a set of questions, during the interviews they learned how to interact with their subjects, these are all applications of what students learn from books, and enacting this knowledge in person provides for valuable experience. Regarding natural and life sciences, students learned to enrich their project data and facilitate data processing by learning how to use tools of technology, such as camcorders, sound recorders, digital cameras, as well as the use of various applications and software. Regarding arts and the humanities, each musical club instructor gave their all to introducing the students to the beauty and enjoyment that music brings to people, and through the sharing of club activity video recordings and experiences, students gained higher interest in music.
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1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?
Throughout the Cyberfair project, we utilized all sorts of information technology (as shown in the mind map below), including software, hardware, and their various usages. Some we had already learnt in computer class, others we had never come in contact with before, but we learnt them from our instructors especially for the sake of completing this project, and we amply rewarded for our efforts. We used Cyberfair Database, Flexible Data Storage, Sanyu Official Website, Club Charisma Special Section, Online Presentation of Cyberfair Project, and Internet environment, Processing skills, USB flash drive, Everyday use data storage, External hard drives Backup of all files in the Cyberfair Database, Backup data storage, Information technologies we used, Recording devices, Digital video cameras DV, Digital cameras DC, Digital sound recorders, Software, Information editing, Microsoft word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Image processing, PhotoImpact, PhotCap, Concept mapping, Xmind, Webpage design, Dreamweaver, Namo etc.
2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.
1. Support of our school: From start, duration to finish of the project, we were fully supported by our headmaster and dean. They were concerned for our progress, gave us timely encouragement, and told us to always go to them in case of need of assistance without exception. The Headmaster talked of our project theme on public occasions so that the entire student body and faculty of the school knew about it, and the parents were informed of it as well. This allowed for us to receive contributions and assistance from various people at times of need, therefore our Headmaster and dean could be said to be our most dedicated “ambassadors” and spokespersons. 2. Visits and interviews: Our plans for interviewing the instructor for all the musical clubs at our school, including 5 members of faculty and 7 external instructors, caused us some effort in organizing and planning their respective interviews. The plans and procedures are shown in the diagram below. 3. Presenting our result: We used information software to integrate our research findings systematically into a webpage that people could understand at a glace.
3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?
1.Project instructors and students all knew to plan in advance in order for things to proceed smoothly.2.While engaged in the project, students participated wholeheartedly, asked for assistance whenever it was needed, and neither feared nor were hindered by any obstacles, the experience they gained from joining in the contest helped them to become better persons.3.Students acquired the correct attitude and skills from conducting interviews and communicating with their elders, this will greatly contribute to their people’s skills and interpersonal relationships now and in the future.4.Students learned data collecting, word editing, artistic processing, and webpage design using information technologies, and completed the entire content of the project report with some assistance from their instructors.5.Each and every student learned the importance of team work, as well as of the need to maintain the attitude of “seeking truth, knowledge, and wisdom” when conducting research. 6. As can be seen from the interviews we conducted, we fully experienced the professionalism and dedication of our musical club instructors, and learned of their hard work and efforts, and know now the importance of appreciating and valuing everything in our possession.
4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
The members of the project team are also members of the musical clubs, so we play the role of ambassador between the school and the community. We perform in department stores in Tianmu area and nearby welfare institutions. We also hold exchange activities with Tianmu Junior High School and Taipei Physical Education College. The parents of the students in the musical clubs are also community residents, we also conducted questionnaire survey on them to learn about their opinions.
5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)
Discoveries and Surprises We learned how to use many different types of multimedia tools and devices in the duration of the contest, and utilized them to facilitate our interviews or routine project assignments. We discovered that even the devices that looked easier to operate required repeated practice, and if one were unfamiliar with any device or tool it was easy for things to go wrong on important occasions. Moreover, since before the project we all belonged to our respective clubs, we had little idea of the way other clubs on campus were operated. This contest has enabled us to learn more of how our own and other clubs may play better roles in school, community as well as international activities and events. Lessons Interviewing the various musical club instructors was a terrifying job, and in future we would need to strengthen our knowledge of the use of multimedia devices to ensure that no further problems arise during other interviews.
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View our CyberFair Project
(Project ID: 7208)
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