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1. Description of Our Community
The area where we reside is called the Xuejia District, located in the northwestern part of Tainan City. Being close to the coast, the land has a higher level of salinity. The Bazhang River, Jishui River and Jiangjyun River flow through the region, and given the flat terrain, flooding is frequent during heavy rain. Due to its proximity to the sea and higher soil salinity, we mainly specialize in milkfish farming, milkfish fishball production and cultivation of drought-resistant and salt tolerant crops such as sorghum, corn, watermelon and cherry tomatoes. Our line of milkfish products, watermelon and tomatoes are famous throughout the nation, and visitors to Xuejia must try these specialties to make their trip worthwhile.
2. Summary of Our Project
Although the number of formations or dance companies that participate in the Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance is increasing, but compared with other parades, the number of formations for the Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance is still quite few, and most of them are in Tainan City. The Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance in Zhaigang Neighborhood where our school is located is one of them, and our school founded the Children’s Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance in 2011. It learns its formation from the traditional Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance in the community, acquires the religious meaning of the twelve pochie protecting children and integrates new steps to make the formation more innovative and performable. In 2013, in addition to designing school-based parade curricula and conducting creation courses such as history, arts and dressing based on the twelve pochie, our school conducted a research project on the twelve pochie for Cyberfair, which explored the origin of the Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance and comprehended its meaning and belief of the times. Moreover, the research project thoroughly introduced its dance rituals and meanings of its props and interviewed respected elders of the community, instructors and creators of picture books to authentically record the inheritance process of the formation.
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:2-3
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):
Our school is equipped with 1 computer classroom. Almost every classroom has a computer. All the school computers are connected to one another though special line or internet. The online connections are quite smooth. The campus internet is a regional internet work where resources from each computer are shared.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
1)Personnel Gathering and Time Arrangement: The school courses have a stable time schedule, and there are no empty time sessions to use. After school, everybody has their own day care classes to take. It is hard to gather everybody. Therefore we can only use lunch breaks and holidays to gather and discuss the structure of the topic, outline of the interview, and to carry out the interview.
2)Interview techniques need more training: The topic of this research is a local folk art issues, therefore giving a interview in person is a very important experience. Many information has to be obtained through the interview. But to tell the truth, we have no experiences on interview, and do not know what questions should be asked. Focusing on this difficulty, our teacher let us watch a film of a interview conducted by a television host. We discussed the technique and demeanor that needs to be paid attention to during the interview, then we carried out a simulation of the interview. After repeated practicing, when in formal interview, everybody can ask questions orderly, and record quickly as we conduct the interview.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
It was very toilsome to practice the formation, but we were very happy to win applause on the stage. The research was very toilsome as well, but when we saw results slowly appear, we jumped for joy. During the research, we gradually realized that culture is around us, and that if we did not place importance on it and try to understand it, a lot of tradition would stop in our hands. We not only recorded the important elements of the Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance in the research, but also elaborated our imagination to create our own performing styles and to “make it even better” so that the Twelve Pochie Folk Art Performance can be glorified in our hands.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
The Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum emphasizes creative and active teaching, and uses diversified evaluation methods to inspire the multivariance of the wisdom of the students, and let students of different potential to develop their strengths, and truly reach the goal of ?suitability development?. The project research of this project, brings the students together to go out for on-site survey and interview, breaking the tradition of learning only in the classroom. This also cultivates the ability of solving problems in our actual life. The result should be plentiful! What we truly want is ?knowledge that can brought, and not a school pack that cannot be carried?! The attending of this research project, not only lets teachers to improve their professional knowledge, but also to develop their strength to guide their students;Children also learn that they have to discuss and negotiate repeatedly to complete this task, and understand the importance of teamwork. This also lets students to transfer from learning passively to aggressively construct knowledge by their own, and fully trying out and cultivating interests and ability.
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