CyberFair Project ID: 7756

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: The Marvel and Concerns of the Royal House Teacher’s Residence in Yongjing
Category: 6. Historical Landmarks
URL: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2014/gsh7756/index.htm
Bibliography: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2014/gsh7756/narrative.htm

School: Yongjing Elementary School
    Yuanlin, Taiwan, Taiwan

10 students, ages 10-12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 18, 2014. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2014

Classes and Teachers: Zhang Yurui, Jian Minghong, Qiu Xianxi, Xie Xiuhua, Xu Renyan, and Class 4, Grade 6, Yongjing Elementary School

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.yces.chc.edu.tw/board/index.php

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

In the north of Changhua Country is upland of coastal plain. In the south are alluvial plains. In the east are the Bagua Mountains. Yongjing Township is located in the middle of the Changhua Plain. Yongjing is adjacent to Yuanlin on its’ northeast, Shetou to the east, Tianwei to the south, Xihu to the west, and Pusin to the north. In early times, Betel leaves were the main economic crop. Later, more cultivation and sale for seedlings started to develop. Traditional buildings in this area are mostly “Hulong” outward extended style buildings. From evidence of some family house names, ancestor worship cards, tombstones, family map and Three Mountain temples, ancestors of the residents here are believed to be from the Hakka community in Chaozhou, Guangdong province. Hakka families have strong sense of family unity. They left this in area some well-known and representative historical constructions. Among them are Chengmei Hall of the Wei family, Yu San Guan of the Chen family, and the Royal House Teacher’s Residence, which are called the Cultural Golden Triangle of Yongjing.

2. Summary of Our Project

Though the members of our cyberFair Project are locals of Yongjing, we initially did not know much about the historic landmarks and their geographical information. However, through data collection, interviews, and exploratory field trips, now we not only be able to appreciate their beauty. We are also eager to lead people into the worlds of those valuable and old historical landmarks. Unveiling the “Cultural Golden Triangle of Yongjing” examines the present and past condition of the main Hakka families in Yongjing. By making our website, we would be able to attract the attention from local citizens and the government. All people and organisations here are responsible for these landmarks, which are now in imminent danger of disappearing and being damaged. We can call up to action to maintain them in good shape or future generations will not have the chance to witness the precious art and history and traces of life left by their ancestors.

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:4-6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

The historical landmarks we investigate are private property. They are not open to the public and residents live inside. We are not allowed to go in without prior application to visit. Our school needs to send an official letter to the office in charge of these landmarks. Our teachers also contact the descendants of the three main Hakka families and arrange interviews.

The descendants of the three families run well developed businesses. Most of time they are busy and they don’t live in the community. Arranging appointments is difficult. Weekends are our only choice. We need to be very patient.

In order to present facets of the historical spots left by the Hakka families, we take a lot of pictures. However, the website space is not big enough to store all the pictures. Our school computer teacher made a suggestion to use Photoscape to combine picture and words. Without the computer teacher’s instructions on how to use Photoscape, we would not be able to display those pictures on the website.

Computers we work on are not stable. Words being typed disappear and we have to do it again. Internet lags when many of us work together at the same time. Cyberfair’s website becomes almost impossible to access. The data cannot be uploaded. Problems we encounter in the classroom are numerous. We learn a lesson that we have to backup our work and data all the time for the sake of losing them.

We are unfamiliar with webpage designing software. We are slow in learning how to use it. Fortunately our teachers, Mr. Zhang, Mr. Xu and our computer teacher, Mr. Qiu, all unite and help us to make our work successful. Finally, our school English teacher, Mr. Chian, helps us translate our website into English. He tries to make us learn more English.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Students, teachers and school administrators are becoming closer to each other. We and the people in our community are closer, too.

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

Grade 1-9 Curriculum Guidelines is the current education policy in elementary and junior high school education.

In the Arts and Humanities area of the Grade 1-9 Curriculum, we’ve done what describes as follows. Teachers lead us to further understanding traditional art by teaching how to create art works. Cut-paste art and paint-on-wood art, making flowers by material of straw and paper clay, are done instead of ceramic and pottery pieces. With teachers’ demonstration and help, we gather together a flower blossoming piece of work for the occasion of Chinese Lunar New Year. In school, we adopt the seal characters for use on the window lattices of the main hall eaves. Columns in the House of Royalty, introduced by Mr. Qiu, are printed on the cover of our composition books. We use the seal characters in our door couplets of our classroom for the occasion of Chinese Lunar New Year, too.

In the Social Studies and Dialects area of the Grade 1-9 Curriculum, our research for our website project is on historical landmarks in our community. Resources in our community are certainly used in our visit to and investigate the historical landmarks. By having investigative field trips to three main historical landmarks in Yongjing, we gain a better understanding of the beauty of traditional art. We also help the public to understand, too. We achieve our goal of promoting the care and attention of the public and government for these valuable landmarks. The above mentioned is within the range of the area of Social Studies and Dialects in our 1-9 Grade Curriculum.

The use of technology such as the internet, internet storage system, email and message boards, makes our work efficient and powerful. Our ability to use technology well is what the area of Science and Technology in our curriculum wants us to learn.

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Project Elements

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

For us, Facebook website serves as the most useful tool. We use this website as our platform for sharing data and research discussion. It works like an online meeting room. Another useful tool is Network Attached Storage. We save all our data we collect with much of our work on it. Data is safely stored and easy to access. One of our teachers owns a NAS. We use his to save our data.

The equipment we use includes telephones, computers both at home and at school, scanners, printers, digital cameras, video recorders, audio recorders and of course the Internet as well. Scanners are used to turn paper documents or pictures into digital data for storing on a NAS.

Computer software we use includes Microsoft Expression Web 4, Microsoft Office, Outlook Express, Photoscape, and Internet Explorer. Photoscape is a software our computer teacher introduced. It is used to combine pictures and their comments. For email communication, we use Outlook Express. The most important aspect being website design, we need a lot of instruction from our teacher, Mr. Zhang. He is quick in learning how to use software. He helps us very much.

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

Through both our website in both Mandarin Chinese and English versions, we deliver the beauty of the art of the historic landmarks and introduce the history of Yongjing. People would be impressed by what they can explore in the Golden Triangle of Yongjing, the main three historic heritages here. The more we get people to know about them, the more they will care about the maintenance and protection of Yongjing historic relics.

We have a presentation to show to our school’s teachers our work. They then can incorporate our website as one of their teaching resources. Our students will have skin deep impressions of those historic heritages here in Yongjing and develop deeper and wider understanding. We paved the road ahead for them for future exploration of the beauty of these heritage sites.

Raising people’s appreciation of the beauty and history of those historic landmarks is the best way to protect and extend their life. This is why we have devoted much time from ourselves to the making of this website.

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

Our website talks about not only the beauty but also the concerns of the House of Royalty Teacher's Residence. By revealing our investigation, the public gets an insight to local history and culture. This way they become more conscious of the maintenance and protection needed for our environment and historical relics.

Our project website connects and is open to our school. It can enhance the local cultural learning material, so students can understand more of the culture and history of the environment they are living in. We are happy to share our work of exploration with them.

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

We owe our thanks to Director Qiu Meidu and Miss Qiu Ruimei in Jing Xiu Elementary School. Also we thank Qiu Chuizhou, the grand old man of the local culture here. They helped our exploring activity go smoothly and offer a lot of advice in how to unveil the secret and beauty of House of Royalty Teacher’s Residence.

We owe our thanks to Chairman Chen Qinghao of Ting Hsin International Group and his wife Lin Dexun, the executive of TingHsin He-De Educational Foundation, for their help. Our visit to Chengmei Hall and Yu San Guan could not be completed without their help.

Our Principal, Mrs. Hu, encouraged us through the whole process. Her spirit makes us more confident in our exploration work. We have full support from our school.

Other people, including teachers on our campus, directors, and students’ parents all got involved to help us. Our transportation to those historical landmarks, food preparation, and management of the data collected all received assistance from them.

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View our CyberFair Project (Project ID: 7756)

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