School: Xisong Elementary School
    Taipei, Taiwan, Taiwan

9 students, ages 10~12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 18, 2009. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2009 (This year)

Classes and Teachers: Tony Tsai, Jasmine Huang, Neo Liao, Kitty Liao

E-Mail contact:

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

1. Description of Our Community

Our school is located in Taipei city. Established in 1936, it’s a school with splendid history. Through the years, our school turns into a large school consisting of over 2000 students. Because of the accumulated reputation of our school, not only the students’ parents but the community residents join The Sunflower Volunteer Team of Xi-song Elementary School. On many occasions, for example, the sports meet; we can see the volunteers devote themselves to help our students.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our project is to introduce the volunteers devoting themselves to help our children at school. We'd like to analyze the development and difficulties confronting the volunteers. Besides the volunteers, we also surveyed the teachers, parents and children in order to fully understand the members at our school and in our community. Through this project, we hope our children may understand the volunteers more and be willing to take part in different volunteering activities in the future.

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

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

1. The volunteer team consists of nearly 200 persons. It’s difficult to interview every one of them. For those volunteers who are the parents of our school children, we had the children bring the questionnaire home to interview their parents. As for the volunteers from the community, we directly interviewed them at our school’s library, recycling center, tutorial classroom and the traffic guidance spot, and so on. 2. Our students are from fifth or sixth grade. However, their writing skills still need to be improved. What we did is ask our students to revise their writing over and give them some tips of writing and doing interviews. Eventually, they have made great progress in the project. 3. We surveyed the third and fifth graders this time. We hope to expand our project after the students have learnt more about volunteers. We planned to survey more students from different grades.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

For many reasons, such as economic recession, people are less and less willing to be volunteers than before. By this project, we expect people, especially our students, to understand what the volunteers have done and what volunteers can do for the community. We hope our students and the community understand that everyone can be a helpful volunteer. In addition, it’s neither time-consuming nor hard to be a volunteer. On the contrary, by being a volunteer, everyone may feel the joy by giving.

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

1. In the process of our project, we applied what we learned from different areas. Doing the interviews, we need the skills from Mandarin class. We know how to process and analyze the data by the knowledge we learned in math class. We know our society’s situation and the volunteers from social science class. In computer class, we learned how to search the information on the Internet and how to build our web pages with computers. 2. “It’s happier to give than to take,” goes an old Chinese saying. And being volunteers is the best example of it. We tried to connect this concept with different areas of learning, such as the social science class, the life curriculum, and so on.

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

1. Internet could be the most useful medium throughout our project. We searched the information of volunteers from all communities. We exchanged information and our point of views on our blogs. 2. We used digital sound recorders and digital cameras to record our interviews. 3. We used printers to print out our questionnaires and our interview outlines. 4. We used the following software: Windows XP, Namo 5.5, Neo-imaging, Office 2003, Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player 11, Acdsee 5.0, Lifetype 1.2.1, and so on.

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

1. As teachers participating in this project, we may apply the data and outcome of this project to our lectures in class. 2. As students participating in this project, we may share our reflections with our peer and we’ll try to be volunteers in the future. 3. Via our project, we hope people all over the world can understand how a volunteer team in Taiwan works, and thus try to understand more volunteer teams in all fields. Moreover, we hope to inspire people to be volunteers and to help others.

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

1. The influence on the volunteers and our school: We interviewed the volunteers and learned the difficulties challenging them, such as the insufficiency of equipment, training, etc, and we has passed on the information to the school or anyone concerned. 2. The influence on us: Because of this project, we understand how the volunteers feel and what they think. The volunteers shared with us their happiness and their disturbance. Helping others made them happy, but sometimes they might encounter annoying people or incidents. The volunteers thus told us, “Don’t make yourself uneasy because of others’ faults. All you have to do is hang on to what you should do to help others.” 3. The influence of our website: By our project, we hope our community can understand how our local volunteer team works, and then try to understand more about volunteer teams. Moreover, we hope to inspire the residents to be volunteers and to help others.

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

We would like to thank the former traffic guidance leader, Li-hua. She provided us the certificates and photos of her awards. She also shared with us the information of volunteers in this district. What she did really helped us finish the project. For the interviewees, including our teachers, the principal, the parents, the students, and especially the members of our volunteer team, we appreciate them for accepting the interviews. From the interviews with the volunteers, we know how the volunteer team worked. Besides, we would like to thank our Section Chief of Information Management, who gave us lots of advice and encouraged us to finish the project.