CyberFair Project ID: 7384

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: The Sparkling Star-Xinyi Planned District
Category: 5. Local Attractions (Natural and Man-Made)
URL: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2013/gsh7384/index.htm
Bibliography: http://eclass2.ccjhs.tp.edu.tw/~cyber004/ccjhs_Xinyiinternational/9.htm

School: Taipei Municipal Zhongzheng Junior High School
    Taipei City , Taiwan, Taiwan (R.O.C.)

5 students, ages 13 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on January 17, 2013. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2013

Classes and Teachers: 8

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.ccjhs.tp.edu.tw/

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

Our 'local community' is the “Xinyi Planned District”, the region that is newly developed in Taipei. The world’s top 10 Sights for New-Year’s Eve, once the highest building in the world, Taipei 101 locates exactly in this region. With beautiful view, attractive buildings, and pleasant spaces , Xinyi Planned District has a total distinct outlook. Its influence is much more important than before. Nowadays, “Xinyi Planned District” has become Taipei’s administrative, financial, economic, and fashionable center. From the world-known architecture-wonder Taipei 101 to the public artworks everywhere around the corners; from the top branded Chinese bookstore- Eslite Flagship Bookshop to the performances of the brilliant buskers on the street; from the one-time lodging for the military dependent, to a modern, bustling commercial district of fashion hypes , the Xinyi Planned District is filled with the atmosphere of art while showing high vitality, making it a district eye-catching!

2. Summary of Our Project

We introduce our local community, the “Xinyi Planned District”, to the world to show the beauty and vitality of Taiwan. As a part of the community, we want to share the abundance and richness of the district. We visited the Xinyi Planned District and organized several interviews with related persons. Through the interviews, we saw through the different perspectives of different experts, and explored the district in diverse dimensions. Also, through the surveys on street and on the Internet, we learned more about people’s point of view toward the district. Furthermore, we participated in charity bazaar in the community. Through the perspective of teenagers, we hope to discover and to show not only the fashion part but also the cultural and creative part of the district, and to provide our advices and prospects. In the end of the project, we transform the result of our study into several touristic routes, to promote the full dimension of this region and enhance the value of our website.

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:more than 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):

Our team used computers both in school and at home. On school days, the computer classrooms are accessible during the lunch break and after class. In the computer classroom, we have sufficient Internet resources with the fiber-optic communication. As for at home, each student has different conditions, some use the fiber-optic communication, some use ADSL, while the others use cable, and none of us have met problems while surfing the Internet.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

There were a few problems we had to overcome. Originally, we wanted to interview the people responsible for putting on the New Year Eve fireworks display at Taipei 101. We also wished to introduce some of the people who work at the Eslite bookstore. Unfortunately, none agreed to our requests. We were not even permitted to take pictures in the bookstore. As a result, we were all very disappointed, but decided that we needed to think of another plan. We would just do whatever we could to introduce the Xinyi district. We turned to contact the director of Xinyi District, the tourguides of Taipei 101, the book-lover of Eslite Bookstore, the artists of pubict art and the professional busker. Luckily, with their help, we can increase the dimension of our study. We tried our best and are happy with the result. Besides, while we walked around the Xinyi area to conduct surveys to find out information about the area, about half of the people would ignore us or smile and walk away. The people that did agree to fill out the survey were often those waiting for a table in a restaurant who had nothing to do and nowhere to go. After we recycle our questionnaires, we don’t know how to analysis them. After discussing with parents and teachers, we finally know what to do. Finally, making the website was much more complicated than expected, so we decided to make a schedule. However, once we got to work we found that we didn't have enough time to finish all the tasks. As a result, we kept on changing the schedule. Due to the cooperation between team members and the help of our teacher in programming, we are able to solve the problems. This teaches us the importance of cooperation.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Building the website of our project is much more difficult than we imagine, and we have to thank lots of people who make this possible. During the process, we’ve learnt the technique of surfing the Internet, the skill of building the website, understanding how to analyze and synthesize information and practicing writing and editing of content material, and moreover, the spirit of cooperation. When we encountered problems, we discussed and investigated them together, and we come up with solutions as a team. This competition has let us understand the importance of teamwork and work distribution. Last but not least, we have the opportunity to know the community more thoroughly in different dimensions.

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

Our project fit into the requirements for our school in several dimension: 1.Language Dimension: Through interviewing others, we learnt to listen, record, and summarize what the interviewees said. After gathering the information, we need to read them carefully and find the key problems, we learnt to summarize and ponder in order to write the articles that we put on the website. 2.Social Science Dimension We learnt the skill of drawing and reading maps, and how to analysis the meaning represented by the region. From the history of the Xinyi Planned District., we learnt how the change of politics, economies, culture, technology, and social can affect the development and the future of a community. We understood that the interaction between people and the environment, that the rise of economy value and spiritual aspect, that how we adopt and improve the environment are something we have to learn in the society. 3.Science and Technology Dimension The modern technology used to built the Taipei 101, and it’s security structure teaches us about the combination of architecture and technology. And the green buildings in the Xinyi Planned District show us how can we be environment-friendly in daily life. 4.Math Dimension By using Excel to analysis the data of our questionnaires, we learnt the skill of thinking in a mathematic way and analysis. 5.Art and Cultural Dimension From admiring the public artworks and watching the performances of the buskers, we understand that art roots in our daily life. Participating in cultural activities helps bring art into our life; interviewing art workers helps us differentiate artwork creation from cultural and creative products; designing the handmade products allows us to experience the skill of artwork creation; setting up the website teaches us the design and beautify of layouts. In this project, we found that participating in activities related to art can enrich our life and soul.

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Project Elements

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

To complete this project, we use quite a number of desktop and laptop computers to do research. These are the information tools and technologies that we used: 1.Mobile Telephone: To contact with each other and other parties. 2. Digital camera: To frame anything which looked interesting, to capture resources as many as we can and then load it to our computers without too much of a hustle. 3. Computer & the Internet: We used the online website maker for editing photos, recording findings, sending and receiving e-mail's and surfing for more information, 4. Computer software: Photo Impact X3, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver , Adobe Flash, MS Paint, Microsoft Office XP, FTP Program, and PhotoCap. 5. Tape recorder: We used it in interviews. 6. USB Stick: Saving information for exchange between team-members or for discussion. All these tools helped us in the creation of the website. Through the usage of the Internet and the hard-and-software, we managed to overcome the limit of time and space, and to gather the information successfully while summarize them at the meanwhile. We used a private group on Facebook for discussing, created Google sites as our virtual workspace, and downloaded our files.to the Dropbox. It’s much more interesting to learn through the Internet than the traditional ways. With the usage of the Internet platform, we increase our tempo of absorbing information, finding what we need easily. And while solving the problem, we also learnt to think logically, and improve our ability of learning ourselves. However, facing such a huge amount of information, how can we filter the information? This is the difficulty we often face. This is when we find we need the help of teachers. We believe that with the help of teachers, learning through the Internet can be more efficient than traditional teaching methods.

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

We called ourselves the “Xinyi Explorer”, aimed to discover the features of the district. In the project, we organized interviews with local leaders, the director of the Xinyi District and the chief of Si-Si Nan Gun. Through the connection, we participated in charity bazaar and acted as a “one-day vendor” on the creative market. We made products ourselves, and donated all we had earn to the project of fighting against drugs in campus of the “PaperWindMill Theater”. We also had interview with public artworks creators, tour guide of Taipei 101, booklover of the Eslite Flagship Bookshop, and buskers. We recorded and summarized what the interviewees said, interacted and gave feedback by E-mail and phone calls. In the end of the project, we transform the result of our study into several touristic routes, to promote the full dimension of this region and enhance the value of our website.

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

We introduced the different dimensions of the Xinyi Planned District in details, especially about arts, making us getting acquaintance with the region all over again. Also, by having interviews with the locals, we built relationships with the director of the Xinyi District and the chief of Si-Si Nan Gun. With their help, we made products ourselves, and participating in the charity bazaar, donating all we earn to the project of fighting against drugs in campus of the PaperWindMill Theater. Overall, our team believes that we have positively impacted the community as it gave an insight to all the people. We came up with some prospects about our district to really doing something for our community.We hope to construct Xinyi Planned District as “Manhattan in Taipei” and highlight our own specialty and culture simultaneously. In the future, we wish that more and more masterpieces created by domestic artists will be placed in public space and be admired by most citizens. Xinyi Planned District is going to be transformed from a financial center into a shining world-class metropolitan area with proud art, heart- warming humanity, and creative cultural industries. We would like to add our local elements to those Western-styled buildings to show our own cultural and living esthetics. Furthermore, we ought to increase more activities and facilities for kids, adolescents, and elders exclusively and establish a warmer, safer, and friendlier home. Our goal is to make the Xinyi Planned District to be celebrated for its shopping centers but its colorful art activities by taking good use of rare and finite space. Someday the Xinyi Planned District can even provide visitors with wonderful places for international art festival.

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

We would like to thank all the interviewees, Mrs. Yu Shin-Hua, the director of Xinyi Planned District, Mr. Chang Nai-Wen, the artist, Mr. Yang Yuan-Ching, yo-yo professional busker, Ms. Zhou Yue-Ru and Mr. Yang Yu-Xi, the tour guides of Taipei 101 and Mr. Chiang Qin-Kai, the book-lover of the Eslite Bookstore, who were valuable with their information and insight about the Xinyi Planned District. We express our gratitude to all of the teachers from our school for their help and patience and especially to the teachers responsible for the project: Ms. Tsen His-Chia - an information technology teacher. She spent numerous hours with us providing ideas about the development of our website. Ms. Chen Wan-Zhen – a visual arts teacher. She was our art consultant. Ms. Yang Yun – a life technology teacher. She helped us to organize the materials we collected. We also want to thank Ms. Ivy Liu, Ms. Esther Chiang, Ms. Raphaella Wang and Mr. Daniel Wang. They coordinated the groups of translators, helped with all necessary translations. We are especially thankful for the patience and support of our families and friends. We’ve had to spend a lot time on this project, including weekends and holidays, when we had more time to dedicate ourselves completely to the task at hand, and they’ve offered us their help, their support and their love. Most people around us have been very enthusiastic with the project, and we have an enormous list of people we would like to thank.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Our biggest discovery is that building a website is not as easy as we think! Not only do we need the background knowledge of building a website, we also have to make sure our content really “says” something and to beware of whether our pages will attract people’s attention. There are just too many details. As for the amazement, seeing our website grows from zero to now, that the whole world will be able to see it, is our greatest achievement! The lesson we learnt is that we should work steadily and make solid progress since once we allow ourselves to be lazy, we will have to redo everything in the end. And in the cooperation of the team, we need constant communication, even if we have the same goal in mind, we need to adjust, and try to figure out better coordination all the time. Besides, while working with each other, people will show different characteristics, some even not-known by him/herself, leading us to know ourselves and others better. We were very surprised that all the interviewees, excluding the district chief and a tour guide, wanted to clear everything out of the Xinyi district. One enthusiast of the Eslite bookstore thought the entire area should be filled with Eslite bookstores, while the artist responsible for the sculpture, Cape Paradise, believed the area should have only public art. Yo Yo, a professional busker, argued that Xinyi should be one large open air performance space. The tour guide wants the Xinyi area to have more places to put on shows. Everyone hopes that the Xinyi Planned District would be transformed from a financial center into a shining world-class metropolitan area with proud art, heart- warming humanity, and creative cultural industries.

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View our CyberFair Project (Project ID: 7384)

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