School: Hualien Ho Ping Primary School
    Hualien, Taiwan, R.O.C.

13 students, ages 10-12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 22, 2010. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2010

Classes and Teachers: Heryiing He

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.hpps.hlc.edu.tw/

1. Description of Our Community

In traditional Taroko Tribe, people choose the intelligent and righteous man as their head. As the time changes, life has became more and more convenient. The young, however, leaves the village, and mostly the elder and the children stay. There are still some enthusiastic people making efforts quietly and cultivating the young generation in the community.

During holidays, dance performances can be seen in Taroko National Park. Students from junior high school and primary school in Siou-Lin Township wear the traditional Taroko garments; xylophones and Jew’s harps (lubugs) certainly appear in a dance. Although lubugs can sometimes be heard, we found out that the knowledge of them was not deep at all. Thus, we hope that we can get a more profound understanding through this research project.

2. Summary of Our Project

The sound of a Taroko lubug is full of rhythms, but it is rarely seen in the community. Our school teachers are teaching children how too make traditional Taroko musical instruments. Watching them concentrate, we wanted to know if this instrument was preserved or not in the community.

Our research guidelines:

1. Finding the lost traditional culture through collecting, sorting data and magnifying them.

2. Making Taroko traditional musical instruments on our own to feel the music.

3. Interviewing the elders of the tribe to recall their life and experience the value of traditional culture. (Gaya)

4. Connecting the resources in the community to provide and access for the community to learn this traditional musical instrument.

5. Taking actual actions to participate in the community activities and fulfill the ideal of caring about the community.

6. Hoping that this CyberFair research project can deeply know the music of Taroko lubugs.

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

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

School Internet Facilities

Currently, the Internet at school is fiber broad band. There is one computer lab. Uploading and downloading data do not waste the time of students, teachers and parents. Because we did interviews and field trips during extra-curriculum time, we usually made web pages on Saturdays. The teachers modified our work at the last.

Domestic Internet

At team members’ houses, few of us use 56K dial-up Internet and ADSL broad band. We usually discuss at school or utilize our free time at school to communicate with emails, MSN messengers, FTP and exclusively internet forum to send data and exchange thoughts.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

1. The principal and administration unit helped us contact relevant organizations and the profession. 2. Parents of the students helped contact narrators and interviewees. 3. Activity fees were raised by the school administration unit and instructors. 4. Instructors provided vehicles and picked up students. 5. No enough time. Besides extra-curriculum time, we used our lunch break and free time. 6. The team members can only browse on the Internet and type at the beginning. Therefore, the students enhanced their ability to use DV, digital camera, digital recorder, sending data in school information class. 7. The children do not understand aboriginal language when interviewing the elders in the tribe; thus, the students used DV and digital recorder to make the record and asked parents in the community afterwards while sorting data.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Traditional ceremonies, languages, weddings are important characters of Taroko culture, and they are the most common successful cultural property in current promotion of the community.

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

Although we do not have the relevant skills and knowledge of doing a research project, with the instructions from the teachers and the endurance from this period of time, we started to love the content of our project. We understand more that “lubugs” are not merely musical instruments. They include the principles of getting along with nature. In order to learn this new concept, we read a lot and went to the sites, which made us learn greatly and love our culture more.

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

Computers, Searching data, writing research reports, making web pages Internet, Searching data, uploading research reports, using emails, making web pages Computer Software, Searching data, writing research reports, making web pages Scanner, Sorting paper references Digital camera, Taking pictures of work and interviews Digital recorder, Recording interviews

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

In this project research, every team member fulfilled every task by division of labors, through dividing into teams, discussion, collecting and sorting data, and conducting interviews together, and we learned how to apply the knowledge we gained into life. We tested what we had learned in life. Every interview and field trip, we found that we focused more, our asking skills became more sophisticated, and team members encouraged each other to make things more perfect. More importantly, we cared about every detail now; whereas, we were careless at the beginning, which made the interviewees feel that we were serious and sincere.

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

The purpose of the project is to let people understand the art of Taroko lubugs. In addition to that, we would also like people to know the procedure of making a lubug. In the end, we hope this action can preserve the culture of this vanishing musical instrument and sustain the possibility to develop it.

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

We want to thank our principle and all the teachers who have helped us in our schools. They spent lots of time to give us information and to help us to finish all the works we need to do. Teacher Yao, he teach us using the computer skillfully. We also want to thank all the people with whom we had the interviews.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We can preserve the skills even we are little. Although we do not have the relevant skills and knowledge of doing a research project, with the instructions from the teachers and the endurance from this period of time, we started to love the content of our project. We understand more that “lubugs” are not merely musical instruments. They include the principles of getting along with nature. In order to learn this new concept, we read a lot and went to the sites, which made us learn greatly and love our culture more.