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1. Description of Our Community
The project involved many 'communities.' The most immediate community that the project served was the school community, composed of students, faculty, administrators, and non-teaching staff.
The bigger 'communities' that the project served was the Cebuano and Visayan communities comprised by various cities, towns, municipalities, and baranggays to whom the tuba is still a familiar and commonplace--but sometimes neglected--cultural item.
The widest 'community' that our project served is the global community composed of people who hardly have any idea--sometimes having skewed ideas--of Filipino culture in general, and Cebuano culture in particular.
2. Summary of Our Project
Students, accompanied by their faculty advisers, went to various towns and municipalities outside of Metro Cebu to observe tuba-making practices, interview tuba-gatherers, and gather direct and first-hand information about the tuba. The students also gathered supporting information from secondary sources such as printed and online publications.
Finally, after enough data have been gathered, the students worked together to present their findings in an organized way—by creating a website dedicated to the tuba.
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: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 major difficulties we had to hurdle were those of hectic, sometimes competing, schedules and the distance separating our school from the communities we studied. We were able to balance arrange our schedules and coordinated with each other. Through better time management, we were able to free up some time for traveling to and immersion in the communities we observed.
Another obstacle that we had to deal with was the funding for our trips to the out-of-town communities. We were able to hurdle this obstacle by rallying support from the other faculty members and the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA). Both the faculty and PTA gave their full support to the project.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
The Cyberfair, being an international event, enables our school to participate in a global and collaborative effort to learn and to unite, as well as to share.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
For the first time, the first year students (aged 12-13 years) were the ones assigned to take a major role in the implementation of the project. They interviewed, researched, and wrote articles for the project. The project introduced them to experiential learning, where they learn new concepts through direct and first-hand experience. They also were introduced to group and collaborative learning, where they learn together as a group.
The project served as a capstone for the students communication arts classes, as the students were required to use the various communication skills at the different stages of the project’s implementation. In particular, the students’ outputs required clear, correct, effective, unified, coherent, orderly, well-developed, and coherent writing. Oral communication skills were also used as the students interacted with other people involved in the project. Social science standards were also met as the students embarked on an exploration of an important aspect of their culture and history.
General science standards were also met as the students discovered various chemical and physical concepts operating in the tuba-making process.
Critical thinking and logical reasoning—two skills that traverse the entire high school curriculum—were skills that the students either applied or developed as they sort out, analyze, interpret, verify, and evaluate the data they gathered.
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