School: Yu Da High School Commerce and Home Economics
    Taipei, Taiwan, Taiwan R.O.C.

5 students, ages 16-17 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 5, 2016. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2008,2009,2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2015

Classes and Teachers: 3

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.yudah.tp.edu.tw

1. Description of Our Community

Taipei is one of municipalities and it’s also the most prosperous metropolis in Taiwan. In this capital, it has its own development in history, then many historic downtowns are deep inside, and Dihua St. is one of it. Dihua St. is locatedin Datong district, and it’s the most preserved and historical significance in Taipei. It’s long been famous for Chinese New Year’s market and people are familiar with the so-called “Dihua St. shopping square”. In 1970, to meet the governments space reconstruction plan, people use modern art to the existing streets not only to keep old streets culture and history but to add something new to give new energy to activate them. Dihua St. is the most distinctive in Taipei; therefore, we want to know the effect of its space reconstruction.

2. Summary of Our Project

Dihua St. is located in Datong district over one hundred years and is also one of the most preserved historical streets. Every year on the coming of Chinese New Year, here is the big well-known street to do shopping. People highly demand in purchasing; the big street is crowded. People jostle in the crowd and are very hard to walk. It’s curious that why people will flock to this big street for Chinese New Year’s shopping each year. Dihua St. has a long history. With the time changes, are the stores popular and are tourists as many as usual? Space reconstruction is a new phrase in metropolis. For the space reconstruction in Dihua St., is it good as we expected? Does it bring better style, features and opportunities to local residents and stores? These questions are the key to push us want to explore further and we’d like to find out whether the space reconstruction in Dihua St. is successful or not.

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:dial-up modem

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):

We connect internet through optical fiber in school’s computer lab. The server is where we store project webpages and produce data. Optical fiber is the medium of core node. The connection speed is 1G bps. Besides, most students use computer appliances to surf the internet in class; another time is after school then we can make use of it to produce webpages and flash in computer lab. In team member’s home: Team members use social networking site and APP to discuss, collect and sort out all the information very effectively. After each of us finishing the job we are in charge, we can have further discussion in class and show it to teachers.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

We don’t have many team members. Each of us has limited abilities, but we solve every difficulties together. You can see the difficulties we met as below: 1.The place we choose: Dihua St. is in western Taipei. Though the traffic is convenient, we seldom visit Dihua St. except for Chinese New Year. 2.Technical problem: We never have experience in making webpages and flash. After teacher’s instruction, we practice more , through trial and error to be familiar with the software. 3.Academic stress: Team members have to deal with the project production, our own school work, computer skill evaluation tests, all kinds of exams at the same time. There is little time for all the preparation, but we pull it through. 4.Team work: We didn’t assign well in the beginning, so our individual work were overlapped. It lead to waste some time and delay the schedule.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

After joining in the big competition, we know how hard it is to produce a webpage. We do not only collect all kinds of information but sort out the essential part from the data. Besides, interviewing shop owners, giving out questionnaires are new experience. We went to shops one by one to ask them if we can interview them. Although they often refused us in the process, we never give up. We also learn the communication skill from the experience that we can’t learned from books. At first, we also have no idea about the competition rules, and teachers lead us to finish the production attentively. It’s not easy to build an exquisite website. To make a good one, we have to pay mental and physical efforts comparatively. Though the process is really difficult yet when we see the project, it’s so great to have such a sense of achievement!

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

When we took history courses last semester on 11th grade, history teacher assigned us a term paper about historic streets over one hundred years in Taipei. We decided Dihua St as the topic of our projec. For the paper, we visited the shop owners in Dihua St. first, and designed the questionnaires for visitors and local residents to know the influence for them and for shop owners after old streets’ space reconstruction. In the end we added computer skills and use these data to set up a website. Making use of new technology to introduce the change of hundred-year old streets is a brand new experience for us.

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

Image processing: Photoshop Flash production: Adobe Flash CS6 Webpage production: Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 Word processing: Microsoft Office Word 2010 Diagram production: Microsoft Office Excel 2010 Information searching: Google, Chrome Data transmission and saving: Gmail, USB Printer: Printing questionnaire Cellphone, Instagram: Task connection, photo taking instantly, sound-recording Computer lab.: Webpage production, place for team discussion

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

For webpages’ information, we ambassadors interview store owners in Dihua St., give out questionnaires to visitors to fill out on weekends in order to understand interviewees, residents, visitors’ thoughts and opinions about Dihua St. Space reconstruction. We use professional skills that we leaned from school to collect information, then we use these materials to produce project’s website and the say of expression by images and words. We hope the public can understand the differences before and after Dihua St. space reconstruction and the important meaning inside.

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

We learn communicative skills through this project. We thought interview was an easy thing in the beginning; we were refused over and over when we asked the store owners for their permission. In addition to interviews, giving out questionnaires is also a problem. At first we ask passer-by to fill out questionnaire, we were refused again and again. That makes us feel somewhat depressed but we still encouraged ourselves to keep going. The other thing is webpage production. It’s a time-consuming task. We have some difficulties from information arrangement to setting up webpage. We also hold the spirit of never giving up, going big or going home, and we’ll never ever do things carelessly. We develop our responsibilities and attitude to face the music.

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

To implement intellectual property rights, we took most of the photos by ourselves, and we won’t cite the photos from the internet unless few of them are hard to get. We’ll credit the photos we cite like the source or origin. We also collect project’s data in person there; all the interviews and photo shooting are under shop owners’ permission. Some information is the citation from newspapers, magazines from internet. Next, we synthesize our group members’ ideas. Finally, we implement the data we cite from the internet with photo credit. We do these to practice the goal of intellectual property rights and respect people’s publications.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

Discovery:We can get lots of data when we make good use of the resources from internet. We also discover the different styles of main architectures on the internet in Dihua St. We visit the place in person then find out some details we missed. We want to present our ideas to more people so they can come here and enjoy. It’s not easy to finish the project, but unity is strength. If there isn’t collaboration form team members, it may be too hard to finish. Lesson:No matter when we take photos or interview, we have to be well-prepared before we do either of them, so we don’t need to spend much more time in correction and ask questions we still don’t understand just right after interviewing shop owners. For this competition, we spend much time together going to Dihua St. to find the necessary data, so we can put in the project. Through this process we also learn the abilities how to discuss, communicate and solve problems from each other. Surprise:Though here was declined once, but the space reconstruction plan surely make this area to be prosperous again. Many stores are stationed in here to bring lots of visitors. As for the store owners, they straight forward to accept our interviews when we ask them. At the end of interviews, we had nothing further to ask; shop owners ask us actively if we still need other supplementary data and they even warmly welcome us to ask them whenever we have questions. We can feel local residents’ warm-hearted and hospitality.