1. Description of Our Community
Tian-Sheng Elementary School is located in Tamsui Town which is a small town on the northeast point of Taiwan. Tamsui is a town with a special historical background dating back over 400 years. The school is near the Tamsui fishermen’s Wharf where you can see the Taiwan Strait on the one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other. The scenery here makes a person broad-minded. At the back of Tian-Sheng Elementary School is the Hobe Fort Park where used to be an important fort in Sino-French War and now is transformed to a green beautiful park. When you walk in the campus, what’s coming into your sight is the sampan boat which can be seen only in Tamsui. The playground used to be the battlefield of Sino-French War . Therefore, from the viewpoint of either history or scenery, the community nearby is quite impressive. Tamsui now is well known as a tourist spot. You can not only visit many historic spots but also walk around Tamsui Old Street and Fishermen’s Wharf where you can get something delicious to eat. The scenery in Tamsui is beautiful, while the people here are wonderful. There are some artists living in the small alleys, like Mr. Chen Quin-ho, who is introduced in our web-page, devotes himself to the making of sampan boats. Also Uncle Cheng who provides the Tamsui Fishery-Culture Image Hall to the public tells the stories of Tamsui through his black-and-white photos. Tamsui, what an outstanding small town.
2. Summary of Our Project
Fishery has been run by the locals in Tamsui since long time ago. Throughout the history of Tamsui, it has gone through prosperity to downfall and come back to prime again. And all these are due to the development of fishery in Tamsui. Long time ago, it was an important international port for vessels. Nowadays, it’s not only a port but also a well-known scenic and historic spot. The scenic and historic spots in Tamsui are must-go to the tourists while the specialties, which are fishery products, are must-eat. All these are still related to fishery in Tamsui. By the project, we hope people are able to have a better understanding of the development of the fishery in Tamsui which influences the small town so much.
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):
Computer is the most important equipment to us to collect data, upload the research reports, and finish the web pages. We utilized our school's abundant computers to access the Internet. There are 38 computers in the computer lab, each classroom also has one computer and all of these have direct access to the Internet. At school , we adopted a fiber optic backbone infrastructure to connect the school's computers, then we connected the Taiwan Academic Network by a T1 Line. Having conventient access to these resources really helped us in facilitating our needs and getting work done.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
1.Replacement of the Team Members and the Arrangement of Time is one of the problem. In the beginning, there were 8 sturdents joining the project. However, some of them quitted because of personal reasons. In addition, the teachers in charge of the project were out of school most of the time because they had to attend meetings. All these made the completion of the project difficult. However, because of the encouragement between the members and the insistence of us, we completed the project finally. 2. We could only take photos of the present Tamsui. As to the photos of the old Tamsui could only be seen on the web. Teachers made phonecalls and wrote emails to who preserved old photos for permission to make use of the photos on the website. 3. Knowledge of fishery is a totally strange field to us. Fortunately, Teachers had looked up some related books and films for us so that we could have a better understanding of fishery as soon as possible.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
During the process of our research, each one of us has learned so much. The knowledge and experience that we have gained is invaluable and not something we can imagine learning from any textbook. Through the process, we had learned how to integrate information, how to cooperate with each other, how to communicate with the interviewees and how to create a website. All of this bound us together. Cooperation makes “mission impossible” possible. During the process, we know that there are so many people who have devoted themselves to the preservation of culture. Because of them, we are able to see Tamsui through history and also its beauty. Without their generosity and help, we could not complete the project.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
First of all, it’s student-centered. Secondly, we adopted the knowledge and skills of different fields which we had learned at school before during the process first and then learn new knowledge and skills at the same time. 1. When we interviewed with people and organized data, we use the skills of language field including speaking, communicating and writing. During the process, we improved it. 2. In the data collection and analysis of the fishery of Tamsui, we combined with social studies and local field. 3. For group discussions , we applied some discussing skills from integrate field. 4. The skills which we learned from information class helped us a lot for the photo processing. In order to create our own website, we also learned the software of making webpage.
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