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1. Description of Our Community
Our local community is what we would consider to be a group of people who share something in common. In our context, as Singapore is a multi-racial society, our community is made up of Singaporeans from all races, especially those who have grown up with Singapore’s culture. At the same time, our community also includes anyone else who shares our common interest in Singapore’s cuisine or who speaks Singlish.
2. Summary of Our Project
For our CyberFair project this year, our topic is on Singapore’s culture, with a strong focus on Singapore’s local cuisine, as well as the country’s very own customized language, Singlish. Our webpage will detail the history of Singlish, including brief introductions on how it came to being many years ago. It also touches on the use of Singlish today and the peoples’ different views on the use of Singlish, such as whether it is used excessively or not, and how it affects peoples’ views on Singapore. A mini-dictionary on the Singlish vocabulary can also be found on our website, including the different expressions plus the mix of different languages and dialects. Surveys taken by different groups of people and their results can also be found on our website, which gives us an overview on peoples’ opinions on the use of Singlish. Our website also includes descriptions, recipes and the origins of some of the famous local dishes in Singapore.
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:1
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
The problem we faced was the clashing of schedules. Many of us are in different classes, and we are almost always very busy with schoolwork. We also had to study for our termly tests, leaving us with insufficient time to complete our research and perfect the website. We eventually overcame this by improving our time management skills and fully utilizing our only common time, the after school co-curricular time to discuss and improve the ideas we had. We also tried to increase our efficiency by splitting the 14 of us into smaller groups, with each group researching on different topics. This brought about other problems, such as the inconsistent quality of our articles, as well as some groups being unable to submit their research on time. As the deadline drew nearer and our website was still incomplete, we were all under tremendous stress, and had to stay up late to put the website together. We focused and stayed on task together, sacrificing sleep and free time in the process. Eventually, all of us were able to finish on time, albeit the rush towards the end and being absolutely exhausted. Another problem we encountered was the differences between the team members. We disagreed on numerous things, ranging from which picture to use to the overall approach to our website. By discussing things calmly together, we were able to resolve our differences and make compromises that allowed us to move forward. Initially, our webpages contained mainly text, such that it was more of a research paper than a webpage. After valuable feedback from our families and teachers, we decided to add more images and videos to the webpages to improve it. Though time-consuming, we managed to make the website more colorful, interesting and engaging. At first, we took great care to email every source to seek permission to use their intellectual property. When unable to do so, we have tried our best to credit all the sources in the Bibliography, and we sincerely regret any omission on our part.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Our participation in CyberFair this year has brought us as a cohort in Infocomm Club closer together as it allowed us all to focus on one project that we strive to do well in together.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
The use of internet for teaching and learning has been more effective than traditional methods as it is a faster way of communication, and there are tools such as videos which can help improve our learning. Videos are beneficial if used appropriately as we can view experiments and perhaps projects that we might not be able to conduct in school. Our school’s vision is to nurture students who are “Leaders with Heart”. This means that we should all be committed as a citizen and a responsible member of the global community. CyberFair has helped some students to become such leaders, as they helped to lead the project and to come up with ideas, even though their initiative and enthusiasm was not expected of them. Also, another aspect of our school’s vision is for us to become ‘women of strength’ (our school is an all girls’ school by the way). During our CyberFair journey, we were successfully able to embody this quality by remaining resilient despite all the challenges we faced, and carrying on with our project.
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1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?
We used 14 smart phones, all of which are either an iPhone or an Android phone. We made use of the mobile application ‘Whatsapp’ to conduct discussions within the group. We also made use of the voice recording function on the iPhone and its high quality built-in microphone to record our voices as part of the interactive ‘Singlish Dictionary’. While researching for this project, pictures were taken by the built-in cameras in our smart phones to capture instant information for reference. These cameras were also a great help when we took pictures of the various Singaporean foods. Alternatively, we also used digital compact cameras to capture those shots, as well as some videos. We also used various laptops and computers to complete our project. These laptops contained a program called Adobe Photoshop CS5, which became a wonderful tool for us to exercise our creativity and create pretty headers for the website. The computers we used are the ones provided in the school’s computer lab. They are Macintosh computers and computers with the Windows 7 system. Search engines on the Internet, namely Google, also became a vital tool for us to find plenty of information to do our research quickly and efficiently. Furthermore we communicated and sent documents to one another via our respective emails. Our email accounts are from different services, such as Yahoo, Hotmail/MSN and Gmail. Gmail in particular allowed us to have access to Google Docs, which had a very useful instant edit function. With Google Docs, we could edit the same document simultaneously or even our research on our mobile phones. As such, we could edit our work wherever and whenever we wanted to. All in all, these were all very useful in helping us complete this project.
2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.
We emailed several local YouTubers and film makers to ask permission to use their videos, as well as respective organizations for permission to use their pictures. We also approached family, friends and teachers for their individual views on the subject and their take on its influence in their lives. Some of these opinions and answers contributed to our survey, while others provided ideas we integrated into the project. All these allowed us to share the purpose of our project, spread and promote the importance of Singlish culture.
3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?
We hope that our website will help people in our community gain a sense of identity because due to the influx of immigrants from other countries, people in our community may grow increasingly uncomfortable. Thus, we hope that our website will allow people in our community to feel that we have something to protect, that being our heritage. More importantly, our project instills a sense of belonging and unity among Singaporeans, by emphasizing and highlighting the culture that binds Singaporeans together despite our differences. We also hope that our project will serve as a crucial first step to developing a solid Singaporean identity in the future, by formally recognizing little things that make us Singaporean.
Additionally, our website will introduce our very own Singaporean culture to those who have recently joined our community, and hope that they will grow to become a part of us.
4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
Many people helped us with our Cyberfair project, including our teachers that have led the Cyberfair project before. Our seniors, who had graduated at the end of 2012, also came back specially to visit and advise us on what we could do. In fact, our website initially started out as a website purely about Singlish, but after hearing their comment that the scope was too small, it was only then that we brainstormed again, before coming up with the idea to include Singaporean cuisine in the website. So in a way, some of the content on our website is due to their invaluable help and guidance. Without them, the website would not have been the website it is today. Also, we conducted a survey that involved various members of the community between ages 10 and 50. They ranged from students, parents, to people in the working class. They were very helpful in providing us with information for us to collate data. Without these people, we would not have been able to conduct the survey, and thus we are very thankful to them. Another volunteer who has helped us greatly is none other than one of the team member’s domestic helper. She was kind enough to allow us to take videos of her cooking chicken rice, whilst explaining the cooking process to the very best of her ability. For that, we are immensely grateful to her as well.
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View our CyberFair Project
(Project ID: 7606)
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