CyberFair Project ID: 8232

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: Taiwan Sock Legend--The King of Socks
Category: 3. Business and Community Organizations
URL: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2017/gsh8232/index.htm
Bibliography: http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2017/gsh8232/narrative/bibliography.html

School: Changhua County Tianjhong Senior High School
    Tianjhong Township, Changhua County, R.O.C(Taiwan)

5 students, ages 15~16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 16, 2017. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2016

Classes and Teachers: Yang, Tsung-Chieh Tsou, Mei-Ling

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.tcjh.chc.edu.tw

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

Changhua County, in central Taiwan, is an abundant agricultural county which is famous for various delicious foods and many ancient monuments. Many tourists are attracted by its beautiful scenery, and always come here on holidays. Changhua county is close to Taichung county in the north, next to Nantou county in the east, and beside to Yunlin county. In addition, because of combining mountain line and coast line, Changhua is also the transportation center for Taiwan Railroad.

Our hometown, Tianjhong township, is located in southeastern area of Changhua County. The total area of Tianjhong covers 34.6056 square kilometers. In addition to Tianjhong train station, the Changhua high-speed rail station located in Tianjhong is also established. On account of the railway, the transportation of Tianjhong is very convenient.

Tianjhong is also close Shetou township in the north, Mingjian township of Nantou county in the east, Sijhou and Ershuei township in the south, and Tianwei township and Beidou township in west. Tianjhong is a abundant and diverse town with various business organizations, such as Weilih company(producing instant noodles), Taisun enterprise(producing foods or drinks), and Shenghong hosiery company(producing socks). Among these local specialities in Tianjhong, socks are the most representive. In addition, Soxlink tourism factory(Shenghong hosiery company) is also the most famous socks factory showing the art of socks hosiery for tourists. Due to these business organizations, Tianjhong is getting more and more abundant and prosperous.

2. Summary of Our Project

Compared with other clothes, socks may not be so much important to common people, but they are necessary in our daily life. As the saying goes, thousands of miles begins with a single step. A pair of good socks can not only protect our feet, but also keep feet warm and provide specially healthy functions. Tianjhong township, the kingdom of socks in Taiwan, is famous for its socks, and most of socks in Tianjhong are made by Shenghong hosiery company.

In the beginning of 1960s, scarves with patterns of national flags, made by Shenghong hosiery company, were well-known to everyone. Besides, to show the fine art of producing socks to tourists and sell its vary creative products, Soxlink tourism factory, located at the junction of Tianjhong and Shetou township in Changhua county, was established in 2011.

In order to explore the mysterious art of the king of socks, our team searched a lot of online materials to prepare our project before the meeting with chairman Hsiao. Then, we paid a visit to Soxlink tourism factory and luckily were interviewed by the Chairman Hsiao. By the visit, we learned that how difficult a pair of socks was produced, and realized that we definitely cannot enjoy the precious consequence without wisdom and efforts of ancestors!

Therefore, to let people all over the world could understand the traditional sock weaving industry, we decided to create the website to spread the related information of Soxlink. By uniting the power of network with the introduction of our project, everyone can understand “who” the king of socks in Taiwan is!

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: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):

Although we tried to use computers at school to complete the most of our project as quickly as possible, working time was still very limited. We just could use our lunch break to search information, discuss materials we got, and construct the website. Besides, when going out, we also used notebooks or smartphones connected with 4G mobile network if there was no WiFi hotspot. To finish the project, all the team members work very hard.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

There are two main problems we had to overcome during the period of researching.

1. Time Limit

Although we consulted Mr. Yang and Ms. Tsou to direct us, the first thing we had to overcome is to collect historical materials related to our theme in very limited time. Because so many elements had to be concerned about before the deadline, sometimes we almost gave up! For we should attend the addition classes on Saturdays. The pressure of schooling was very heavy. Therefore, it was difficult for us to visit Soxlink tourism factory in leisure time. Fortunately, owing to the encouragement and inspirations of theachers, we overcome every single problem gradually. Moreover, chairman Hsiao welcomed and inspired us, which gave us strength to go on the project. With constantly searching, brainstorming, and discussing, we finished our project finally!

Since we wanted to participate in the cyberfair 2017, we finished Chinese version of our project first, and then translated it into English several weeks later.

2. Website Building

For us, website building is the most difficult element of the researching. It is because all of us were not familiar with the web page building software. Mr. Yang, Our teacher of information technology, decided to divided us into two groups. Yu-Chieh, Hsin-Yu, and Ju-Ying collected the online information and typed into TXT files as much as they could. On the other hand, Yi-Chun and I(Chia-Yi) tried our best to learn how to operate the web page building and multimedia processing software. The main web page building software we used was Artisteer, and PowerDirector was used to deal with our films. Indeed, website building is really a time-consuming task! However, Mr. Yang gave us a big hand whenever we encountered any difficulties, which really helped! Little by little, with the construction of web pages, the website of the project was established.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Knowledge is power. However, understanding is deeper than knowledge. Our main reason to do the project is to let people all over the world deeply understand the traditional sock weaving industry. Nowadays, many traditional industries have perished or disappeared. Only through uniting the power of the network, people in Taiwan can cherish this kind of traditional weaving art and pay more attention to Soxlink tourism factory. The more people understand that, the longer the traditional industries last! Therefore, no matter how difficult the project is, we still tried our best! Even if it took us so much time to finish the project, the experiences were unforgettable.

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

Geography:

Our teacher often wanted us to do projects about local culture, people, or specialities, so we asked our teacher for information about the sock weaving industries in Tianjhong during the process of researching. This special project could be also as our local education homework handed in later.

Housekeeping:

Before the visit to Soxlink tourism factory, we consulted our housekeeping teacher about types and differences of silk materials. Therefore, when looking around there, we confirmed what we had learned in school. It's really a very special experience for us!

Linguistics and Performing Arts:

In the past, we just learned in the classroom, but this time we went out of the classroom and played little reporters, which was really exciting for us. Except the interview with Chairman Hsiao, we also interviewed a few consumers, which we randomly met. We not only practiced our communication skills and but also showed some body language to get some active responses.

Information Technology:

Web page production wasn't easy task, for we had to learn and put into practice in short time. Thanks to Mr. Yang's patient teaching, we made progress gradually and had done a great work at the last! Maybe what we had done is not perfect, but at least we have tried our best! It's worth it!

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Project Elements

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

Information tools and technologies we used are as follows:

Personal Computer(Desktop) 7 network-connected computers with Intel i3 CPU to deal with data

Personal Computer(notebook) 1 Acer notebook with Intel i5 CPU to arrange web pages and upload files

Digital Camera(Cannon EOS M1) Take pictures and record videos during interviews

Smartphone(Xiaomi Note 3,etc.) 1. Take pictures and record videos for backup during the interview 2. Share WiFi hospot with 4G mobile band 3. Keep in touch with team members

Photo Impact 11 Image Processing

PhotoCap 6.0 Photo Resizing

Artisteer 4 Website Constructing and Outline Arranging

Power Director 14 Video Coding and Fixing

Format factory 2.7 Video Compressing

FileZilla Client 3.1 Upload web pages

PhotoCap 6.0 Website Constructing

Oral Interview with Questionaires 1. Interview Chairman Hsiao 2. Interview several customers

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

After this project finished, people around the world surfing our website can realize the producing procedures and various materials of a pair of sock, and furthermore they know more about Soxlink tourism factory. This could be a powerful motive to push people who are not natives to come here to buy products. Especially to foreigners, MIT(Made in Taiwan) products stands for good quality . In other words, Soxlink produces MIT certified goods, which stands for extremely high quality!

On the other hand, all of us shared what we saw, heard, and learned in Soxlink tourism factory to our neighbors, families and friends, and recommended them to buy the products of Soxlink tourism factory to support MIT goods, support local business organization in Tianjhong, and support Taiwan traditional sock weaving industry. By this way, the quality of our local products can be promoted and so does the local industries. Tianjhong will be more prosperous.

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

Tianjhong is a small town located in the south of Changhua county. Because its location is in the country, the economic development of Tianjhong is very low. Even people living in Changhua county doesn’t know much about Tianjhong. So, we chose the local business organization--Soxlink tourism factory as our theme of the project to let people around the world to know this small town more.

During 1950s,many other companies had been relocated with mainland China and Southeast Asia, in order to save on labor costs, Soxlink had decided to stay in Taiwan, and transformed into tourism factory by producing socks with high quality later. Therefore, products were upgraded from common socks to multi-functional ones. For this reason, socks of Soxlink tourism factory were famous and were fond of by many customers. At the present time, Soxlink also cooperates with many national companies , and produces socks with their famous brand, such as Adidas, Nike, Disney, and so on. Soxlink is really the glory of Taiwan industries!

By establishing the website, we hope more people are attracted and come to Tianjhong to learn about not only its local products—socks, but also king of socks—Soxlink tourism factory, which can stimulate the economic development of Tianjhong to make progress! On the other hand, for this project is also our homework of local business organization, our teacher uses that as a sample to introduce Tianjhong local specialities in class. Our web pages are highly praised by teacher and classmates. We are very proud of what we have done!

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

The most important person we have to thank is Chairman Hsiao. He accepted our interview, patiently answered all our questions, which cleared all our doubts in mind. His frankly explaining the history of Soxlink gave us a clear outline of the development of Soxlink tourism factory. Besides, he generously authorized us to utilize pictures and descriptions of Soxlink official website and DM in our website constructing for free, which gave us a great help.

When we visited Soxlink tourism factory, some tourists and customers we interviewed also gave us several advices about Soxlink socks which we really appreciated. They all highly praised the quality of the socks. In addition, the representative there also clearly introduced the factory and products to us, which helped us very much.

When it comes to the website constructing, we have to thank the contributions and directions of our supervising teachers, Mr. Yang and Ms. Tsou. They spent so much time directing, teaching, and revising. Without them, we are not sure if we can finish the project or not. But, with their help, we make something impossible possible!

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Discoveries: After this special study, we know that the producing procedures of a pair of socks are very complex, such as graphic and knit program designing, materials purchasing, knitting, seam closing, socks boarding, and packaging , and so on. Each step contains several details of concepts, which is far more complicated than we can imagine.

Lessons: When interviewing our team, Chairman Hsiao told us that he just wanted to weave socks to his father to wear from the beginning, but this idea pushed him to achieve his socks kingdom and turned him into king of socks in Taiwan in the end! This taught us not to give up any small dream. Even if it seemed just an illusion or imagination. Maybe, constantly Innovation and hard-working could make the dream com true!

Surprises: In the process of researching the topic, the most surprising is to operate the old manual weaving machines. Through the machines, several threads of colorful silk can be combined together to form a sock prototype, which is a fresh experience to us. It is really magical!

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