1. Description of Our Community
Our community,Changhua City,is located within Changhua County,which is the central part of Taiwan.The population of Changhua city is over 236,000. People are mostly involved with industry and commerce within an area of 65.69 square kilometers. Ping He Elementary School,located in Jhongjheng Rd.,Changhua City,has 70 years history.Thanks for the hard work of principals and teachers yearly,our students make prosperous records in the fields of language,art,athletics,dance and music.Especially in the field of music, there are chorus,band, children orchestra,string orchestra,and etc.We can find musical harmony air in campus owing to the promotion of numerous musical teachers who devoted to music a lot.
2. Summary of Our Project
This project is about children orchestra. After interviewing the first instructor and principal ,the founder, we understand the history of our children orchestra. We also visited the NTSO, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, and their concertmaster to learn about the structure of kinds of instrument and how to make musical sound. One time, we participated in a TV show,Taiwan Kids, Great!, to talk about Ping He children orchestra. We want more people to see the marvelous orchestra.
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:21-50%
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):
Our school has three well-equipped computer labs with one hundred and five computers in total. Plus, there is one computer in each classroom at least. The network in school is part of Taiwan Academic Network (TaNet), and internet access is available in each classroom. Besides, the wireless coverage is around seventy-five percent of the campus. While discussing the project at school, we can search information and print data online and we would also collect data and make process report through the access to broadband.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
1)Time: There are 7 members from different classes and 6 of them are members of children orchestra. Due to morning time on the weekday was practicing hour for orchestra, we didn’t have much time to do the project. We could only meet and make progress after their practice. For doing the website, we tried our best to get progress in vacations and after school. In addition, We also discussed online and made records of our process and reflections on facebook. 2)Poor interviews skill: To understand more about the children orchestra, we interviewed the found principal (Mr.Wang Ching), the first instructor (Ms.Lin Chia Yu), and concertmasters of other bands or music clubs. We were very nervous about the interview because of our inexperience. We took turns to be interviewee and interviewer through our draft and had lots of interview drills to work out any possible answers. After that, we seemed to be able to interview the principal and teachers easily. 3)Members drop out: to reorganize Step by step, every member had to keep record about what they learned after every section. Some members dropped out because of pressure from class and orchestra’s practice. Surely, we were very disappointed. But we did not quit in the middle but reorganize and distribute the workload.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
We have learned a lot since we decided to join the International Cyber Fair 2014. We were grouping, studying, learning computer software, editing website, and etc. We knew better about children orchestra and it seemed to become their second home. The routine practice is hard but that never bother them at all. In order to joining in the children orchestra, everyone has his/her own story .They even try harder in class to keep their membership and to make excellent performance. We want to make more people know better about this extraordinary orchestra and welcome everyone to join the family.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Grade 1-9 Curriculum is to involve all aspects of daily life that correspond to the students’ mental and physical development and aim at developing core competences which a modern citizen should possess. Such core competences may be categorized as follows: 1. Arts and Humanities: We visited NTSO which let us enjoy the beautiful music and get to know more about symphony orchestra instruments. Furthermore, we designed our posters, thank-you cards, personal logos, and illustrations to improve our website. 2. Social studies: Through a variety of activities, we knew better about the organization of our orchestra and responsibility of everyone such as the conductor, the general director, deputy director, concertmaster, and so on. Participating in the TV show, Taiwan Kids, Great!, of the PTS and visiting NTSO widened our horizons. Performing in our school and community concerts enhanced the communication and connection between school and neighborhood. 3. Integrative Activities: We realized the importance of cooperation and learned to care for each other after holding school concerts and completing the project together. Besides, we also learned to try our best to help others by performing on charity event. 4. Information Technology: We spent a lot of time doing the research by surfing online to finish the project with a variety of editing software in computer classroom. Such as, browsers, office software, drawing software. We also used multimedia equipments such as: digital voice recorders, digital cameras, scanner, smart phones to improve the project. 5. Language learning We focused on listening, speaking, reading and writing of languages, developing basic communicating competence. We simulated the interviews and listened to the digital voice recorder and typed the record on the computer. Besides, organizing and arranging the notes, photos, reviews, and sharing opinions with each other increased our linguistic ability.
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