School: Victoria School
    Singapore, N/A, Singapore

11 students, ages 14 to 15 years of age worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 18, 2008. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 (including this year)

Classes and Teachers: Mr Quek Wee Siong

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://vs.moe.edu.sg/

1. Description of Our Community

Our local community is the Republic of Singapore, an island on the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia. It lies in a central strategic location in Southeast Asia, the center of a trade route between the east and west. Singapore is well-known for one of the busiest seaports in the world and her world-class Changi Airport, thus attracting many tourists every year.

Singapore, although a small nation, has many local attractions, with an aim to attract tourists. Tourism has flourished in all parts of the world after World War II, and it is now an important source of income for the destination countries in the tertiary industry. In order to attract more tourists, Singapore has introduced themes into attractions to offer tourists many things to see and do so that they will extend their stay or plan to return. Singapore is also constantly upgrading and improving on both her Natural and Man-made attractions, to compete for tourists with other countries. She is embarking on the planning of introducing future plans of upgrading of each local attraction, to cater for education and entertainment purposes.

Also, the Ministry of Education has included Geography as part of our education curriculum, allowing students to better understand importance of the tourism industry in Singapore, as well as the significance of the local attractions in Singapore. Apart from just studying it in the classroom, students will also get different opportunities to visit these places under the schools, where guided tours are organized to provide the students with proper facts which they can make full use of in different aspects of the learning journey. Combining both work and play together, these outings have been well received by the students. As the future generation are groomed with a commendable knowledge on these places, they will grow up learning to appreciate how these attractions have prepared for the future, and thus will also do this for future generations to come.

2. Summary of Our Project

A city's cleanliness reflects strongly on our moral and civic values. A lot of responsibility and dedication is needed to build and maintain a clean city.

In year 2002, Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA) initiated a campaign to tackle the littering problem 'Singapore, Litter-Free'.

Since then, the NEA has worked hand-in-hand with event organizers, management of land/facilities (such as parks and schools) to engage the community to take the ownership of the cleanliness of the environment and the environment itself.

This project aims to help students to know more about the 'Singapore, Litter-Free' campaign and how it has contributed to the cleanliless of our city, which is labelled 'clean and green' by many.

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:none

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:4-6

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

Among the students of our school, it would be a safe estimate to say that at least 50% of the students have internet access, although the number is likely to be a lot higher. As we have quite a few computer labs each having approximately 50 computers, there are no workstations in each classroom, and all lessons which require the use of computers will be held in the computer laboratories. The Compaq computers there are all running Windows XP, and are all equipped with CD writers, giving us the luxury of bringing what we have done in school home, so that no time would be wasted.

Our school now also has a wireless network. Students can bring their laptops/notebooks to school and access the school's wireless network anywhere in the school premises through their accounts. Now, we don't have to rely on cables and don't have to be afraid of faulty cables which may prevent us from accessing the Internet. However, because the location of where we access the network is not designated at a fixed spot (take for example, computer labs), there is no assurance that there is someone supervising the usage of this wireless Internet access. Therefore, it is based on our integrity that we do not visit unauthorized websites or access unauthorized materials through the wireless Internet access.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

A problem we faced right from the start was the decision making process, where we had to choose one of the many interesting topics set. As with any work done in groups, this will be an issue since every individual will have his valuable opinion, and after hearing each member out, and reached a consensus, deciding to carry out our project on Environmental Awareness, which seems like an interesting topic to do, since environmental issues are popping out everywhere in this generation. We then chose certain tourist attractions which we felt had prepared for the future, and thus we carried out research on these places.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

This competition has brought the members of the group much closer together, as we got to know each other better through the meetings and we have also learnt how to help each other out, since the strengths of one can compensate for the weakness in another, allowing us to complete the project. We have also learnt how to communicate more effectively, be more responsible and how to work together with others.

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

The time we had spend on researching and the creation of our website was truly an enriching experience. Having gone through the in-dept research conducted during the project, we were all the more prepared to tackle questions from tests and answer questions with all our information available at our fingertips. With all this on hand, we learnt to organize our information. What made our Cyberfair project even more beneficial was the fact that we were required to embark on a class project with one of the topics on the environment, as part of our school curriculum. Many relevant skills were picked up on the way. Not only was our base of knowledge extended, we learnt how we could apply it - in our daily life as well as in school curriculum.

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

During the weekly meetings, our use of computers was rather minimal, as this was the time where we would show what each of us has done, so we shared a few terminals. Most of the work was done at home, each member on his own computer. Our research was mainly done by ourselves, and then it was shared during the meetings. To communicate, we used MSN Messenger, which is very useful since it allowed us to solve any problems we might have faced in real time. This was the most important tool in communication, as many of us could communicate at the same time, allowing a discussion to be held in the comfort of our own homes. As everyone already used this before starting the project, it allowed us to use it to its full potential since we were rather familiar with this piece of software. Occasionally, we used phones to keep in contact too. In order to take pictures for the use of the website, digital cameras were used.

Here is a list of softwares we used: A) Adobe Photoshop CS2 To design our graphics B) Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 To create and compile our website C) Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera To test browser compatibility D) MSN Messenger To have project discussions between members online at night

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

The nature of our project requires us to communicate with individuals to gather more research for our project. This allowed us to brush up on our communication skills, and it also gave us the opportunity to commune with people whom we have not met before.

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

By looking through the website we have created, people in our community would be able to understand what the 'Singapore, Litter-Free' campaign is about and how it is carried out. This will allow them to gain information in how to participate in this campaign in future.

http://itclub.vs.moe.edu.sg/cyberfair08/projnarrative.html

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

The help we received was mainly restricted to the very helpful and patient people who replied to our emails, where we asked them about their plans for the future. As the purpose of learning about their organization was for educational purposes, they were eager to help and this made it a very pleasant experience for both parties.

http://itclub.vs.moe.edu.sg/cyberfair08/projnarrative.html