School: Lu Jiang Elementary School
    New Taipei City, New Taipei City, Lu Zhou District, New Taipei, Taiwan(R.O.C)

13 students, ages 11-12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 15, 2012. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2009,2010,2011

Classes and Teachers: ZENG BOWEI,HSU YAMAIE,WANG SHIUAN

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.lcps.ntpc.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

Early Lujhou was prone to flooding due to its location. In order to avoid the flooding, the residents chose their abodes. The early namesake of “County above the River” for Lujhou originated from such. Its poor living conditions coupled with advantageous location of being close to Taipei city meant that most residents here were poor immigrants who sought to make a living in Taipei. The introduction of a myriad of cultures from other places created a diverse temple culture. Due to religious influences, the locals have developed a strong sense of identity and commitment to their homes. Enterprises sprouted and grew, and in the end a region rich in temple culture came into being. Master Liang-chuan Wang grew up with this background. The unique skills and proficiencies of the great Master is inseparable from his home, influencing his lifelong dedication to the protection and safekeeping of culture and cultural artifacts. Through this Cyberfair project, we hope to reinterpret and share Master Wang’s focus on interpersonal relations and friendships to replace the modern neglect of personal bonds. This would become a sprouting bud in the hearts of the people who came in contact with the Cyberfair project.

2. Summary of Our Project

Master Liang-chuan Wang is a witness and testimony to the modern development of Lujhou. His skills in sculpting, drawing and face-painting for Chines opera were inseparable from the modern developments of Lujhou. The choice of Lujhou City for the site of The Forbidden City Museum showed how Master Wang had contributed to local culture. Our topic, titled “The passion of relics and the beauty of human relationships”, allow the students to experience the waning attitude of respecting your teachers, regional identity, humanist culture and interpersonal relationship through the research on The Forbidden City Museum at Lujhou, the understanding of Quanzhou style sculptural art, and leading student interviews of art masters.

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:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dial-up modem

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:1

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

The school houses a complete set of IT equipment. Every class has a classroom computer. There are 4 computer classrooms and an information center in the library. The school’s network is a 100 MB optical cable. Our server has several servers with the Windows 2003 and Linux OS. Members of our team also have broadband or optical internet connections in their home PCs, and get in touch with each other through the school’s blog, web drive or e-mail.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Difficulties: Scheduling and differences in the time tables Team members include students from the 5th and 6th grades. It is difficult to schedule their time. Student abilities also vary. It was difficult to coordinate team members during weekends, with very little time spent on group research at the museum itself. The Forbidden City Museum at Lujhou adopts an appointment system for visits. Students were only able to visit the museum during time slots on Wednesdays and Fridays, with each visit lasting from 2 hours to half a day. Collected information, and interview recordings and videos must be brought to school and organized during lunch breaks or active learning classes. Work distribution, exhibition preparation, making of posters and blog are work that need to be distributed in a relatively complex manner. Difficulties: Limited abilities in Interviewing and Research The three supervising teachers divided the 14 team members into 3 groups. Four 6th grade students were designated the “Interview Team”. Five 5th grade students in the A team were designated as the “Archival Artifacts Team”, with another five 5th grade students in the B team designated as the “Information Team”. There were significant differences between student abilities of the two classes. Even the 6th graders found research and interview work rather foreign. Almost two months were spent in the first semester trying to train student abilities. Earlier on, there were over 20 students in the group. But due to the complexity and difficulties in conducting research, several of them backed out, which also led to increased work difficulty for the rest. The final stage of research data organization is the heaviest work load for the students. The pressure of the deadline made us feel extremely stressed. Difficulties: Attitude of the parents It is difficult to schedule all the students to come to school to carry out research. Parents also raised their doubts and worried that this might affect their …

5. Our Project Sound Bite

After a time of more than seven months, we are deeply moved by the efforts put in by our students. We also thank the other two supervising teachers Hsuan Wang and Ya-mei who made great sacrifices without complaints. These allowed our project to progress to our current status. Although perfection cannot be attained due to the time constraints, the harvest reaped from learning and working together with our students is irreplaceable.

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

The work required to complete the Cyberfair project is both complex and arduous. Its success is very much dependent on the abilities of the team members to cooperate with each other. It happens that our of the important core values in our topic is the bond between individuals. Thus, we placed special emphasis on human relationships when integrating our Grade 1-9 Curriculum. We hope the students can acquire the 3 important points of learning – (1) research techniques; (2) handling of interpersonal relationships and (3) regional identity with their hometown. How are the different subjects carried out?

Language Interviews occupy a significant proportion of the work in this Cyberfair Project. Students must learn how to contact their interview subjects, to carry out pre-interview discussions, formulate interview questions, be in control of timing, how to converse politely with people, and techniques in asking questions. Even their body languages and appearance can be discussed and established during language classes with the students. Post-interview data organization, and methods in recording research progression and writing personal reviews can all be used to improve student language abilities and depth. Mathematics Students should be the mainstay of the Cyberfair project. Hence students should understand and participate in time scheduling, activity event design, and even budget utilization. Allowing students to have better understanding of the overall picture and development of the project would allow a good application and improvement of math-related abilities. Various activities Research is team work. Students must be able to coordinate and match different abilities to different types of work. The model by which students get along with each other would also influence work progression. Inducting students to be really part of the team is one of the more important course objectives of mixed activity courses. Society Cyberfiar projects use schools as the …

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

1.Recording pen:Interview recording and writing subtitles 2.Digital camera:Taking photos during activities and making video records 3.Video camera:Video recording and to make promotional clips 4.Hard disk, thumb drives and web drives,Type computer softwarel: Data search, communication and submission of interview records 5.Printer:Information printing and image export 6.Long distance connection:Long distance information export and application

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

The main topic, Lujhou City The Forbidden City Museum, is a private museum. The museum itself did not setup an official website, and hence is rather obscure. People only came by it through printed or electronic media. We visited the museum in person and interviewed the curator Master Liang-chuan Wang and cultural promotion chairman Mr. Rong-ming Wang. Through these two we acquired an in-depth understanding of museum artifacts and history and saw Mr. Wang’s extremely proficient sculpting and artistic skills. For the promotion of the museum, we held a small exhibition so that students in our school and personalities of every field can come and visit. Improvements in accessibility with the opening of the Lujhou subway line would be able to increase museum popularity and local tourism.

Also, we also established a Cyberfair project blog in our school website to record students’ personal reviews on their research so that people would have a better understanding of our Cyberfair project.

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

Influences to us: From the beginning of the webpage building activity, members must carry out intensive basic training and discuss about our research topic. Weekends might be used when necessary. The activities are very packed, and students would go to small group discussion classrooms to carry out data analysis or setup databases in their free time after class. Preparatory work for exhibitions must not be overlooked either. We must work on the poster as well as rehearsals for poster guidance, and data organization was the heaviest work of them all. Thus, good time-management without compromising learning of school courses is also one of the more important aspects of learning.

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

Influences to the region: Through this research, we can promote local art of Lujhou to a new generation of school children. Through heritage activities, we were able to expose our research features and content to other people.

Lujhou City The Forbidden City Museum itself has not setup an official webpage. People came to know it through other forms of mass media, but the museum holds many exhibits whose value is no less than that of the Forbidden Palace’s collection. More people should be able to see these intricate artifacts so that Master Liang-chuan Wang’s sculpting techniques can be promoted and passed on. With our website, more people would know about Lujhou City The Forbidden City Museum and the treasured collection it holds.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

With the rapid development of modern electronic media, our modes of information acquisition were reduced to mere dabbling. It is both too fast and simple, and even excellent reading habits of printed media are disappearing under intense information bombardment. Through this research, we discovered that knowledge worthy of our learning and understand come from people themselves. The accumulation of rich experiences and techniques by the older generation would be passed on to the next generation, granting us the chance to learn these time-honed skills earlier on, such as the art of dealing with people, the meaning of artifact conservation and the deeper purposes behind it all. We are very grateful to Master Liang-chuan Wang and Mr. Rong-ming Wang for their generous contributions in helping us. We would always remember how M. Wang always reminded teachers dedicate themselves in promoting student etiquette and personal values to improve the state of our society. These are valuable experience to us and our students.

Control over time management and work progression is extremely important. At first, we neglected in communication and work division, leading to a delay in our work. Communication and work relationship between our members are also very important.

Rare treasures must be made known and exhibited to everybody to witness the perseverance of our ancestors when they complete an artifact whose intricacies and techniques make them difficult to make despite modern technologies. These are things worthy of learning and must be passed on to be preserved. Hence, strengthening interpersonal relationships is crucial as well.