CyberFair Project ID: 2903

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: Sensational Singapore
Category: 5. Local Attractions (Natural and Man-Made)
URL: http://www.rgs.edu.sg/student/cyberfair2003/cyberfair/index.htm
Bibliography: No bibliography page cited

School: Raffles Girls' School (Secondary)
    Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

7 students, ages 14-15 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 3, 2021. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 1997, 1998, 1999,2000,200

Classes and Teachers: Ms Foo Ling Ling, CyberNet Club

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.rgs.edu.sg

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

Singapore's geographically strategic location has played a part in our success. However lacking in natural resources, Singapore's strength lies in its hardworking, adaptable and resilient population. Singapore is a multi-racial society with a population of almost four million comprising of 77% Chinese, 14% Malays, 8% Indians and 1% Eurasians and people of other descent. Originally, the inhabitants of this island were Malay fishermen known as orang laut. After Singapore was established as a British trading port by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, Singapore drew hundreds of thousands of migrants and merchants to the island who came in search of a better life for themselves and their families. Most of them came from the southern provinces of China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Ceylon and the Middle East. In spite of the widely differing cultures, over the years, each racial group within Singapore has retained its own cultural identity while developing and integrating into Singapore's community. The four official languages in Singapore are : Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and English. English is the language of business and administration, and is most widely spoken and understood while Malay is our national language. Most Singaporeans, being bilingual, are able speak their mother tongue as well as English. With this mixture of cultures, comes a mixture of religions in our society. The main religions in Singapore are namely Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Judaism.

2. Summary of Our Project

The tourism industry continues to play a very important role in Singapore’s vibrant economy through the ongoing development of local attractions in all aspects. Aside from the areas set aside by the government to preserve the existing rich cultural backgrounds, known as heritage areas, the fact that Singapore is a country consisting of four main ethnic groups: Chinese, Malays, Indians and Eurasians, each with its own rich culture and diverse history, remains as an attraction by itself. Singapore is a “melting pot” where different cultures co-exist in harmony, while still retaining their own unique identity. Our project intends to explore the diversity of cultures by providing greater insight into the ethnic districts, Chinatown, Kampong Glam, Little India and Singapore River, which are popular local attractions in Singapore today. “Sensational Singapore” is chosen as our title as we hope that after viewing this website, viewers can deeply feel the unique diverse culture in Singapore. The colours featured in the site are also specially chosen. Red has always been considered as an auspicious colour by the Chinese and thus, it is chosen to represent Chinatown. As for the Muslims, Green is their royal colour and for the Indians, they have always been associated with gold and brown. The tranquil water of Singapore River would be most suited with sky blue. This project intends to educate the public on the different cultures in Singapore and how they are able to bond together in racial harmony. We believe that through this interactive and informative medium of education, we, as well as the rest of the world, would be able to understand how diverse cultures within Singapore are able to unite and can further promote mutual understanding and tolerance of different races, cultures, religions and nationalities globally.

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:4-6

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

One of the main problems we faced was time management. At the beginning, deadlines were set, but we faced difficulty adhering to them because of the many other commitments we owned and the brevity of our club's meeting time every week. Eventually, we sped up the process as the deadline of the project's submission loomed nearer and nearer by meeting up more frequently and increasing the duration of our meeting time to 4 hours. We set newer deadlines that we compelled ourselves to adhere to. We also drew up a timetable to aid us. Another problem we faced was the unavailability of a wide range of resources. We relied greatly on the internet for information and this has led to rather limited and narrow information sources. To widen the range of sources, we obtained books from libraries, visited museums and exhibitions, and collected brochures and extracted the relevant information for our website. We also found difficulty in finding relevant sources of information due to the scarcity of relevant books in libraries. Obtaining photographs for our project was a problem as we were not allowed to download and scan photographs off books without the permission of the relevant authorities. Thus, we made trips to the different ethnic districts our project was based on to take photographs using digital cameras. We also found the task of creating Flash Animations a difficulty because the Flash Programs in the school computers were of the latest version and we found ourselves unfamiliar with this new program. We are thankful that we have noticed the above flaws in the early parts of our project. True they say that there is a silver lining behind every cloud.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

Participating in the International Schools CyberFair has given us a chance to tell the world about the attractions in Singapore which reflect the diverse but united cultures within our society. This project will educate the public on the many existing cultures in Singapore and thus promote mutual understanding and tolerance of different races, cultures, religions and nationalities globally.

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

Our CyberFair project addresses mainly pupils from primary schools to junior colleges. This is because it incorporates elements of National Education and History. These elements help to build a sense of awareness for our local community and the different races and cultures within our society. This will facilitate mutual respect and understanding between the different races and cultures and thus creates racial harmony among our people, corresponding with the national curriculum which aims to create inter-cultural understanding among the students of different races. Through this project, we learnt about the value and essence of time. We learnt how to better manage our time and the importance of adhering to datelines and the skill of self-discipline to prevent procrastination. As almost all the images were original, we developed our photography skills through the project. While researching, had to extract relevant information and put our summarizing skills into practice as we tried to phrase our information as concise as possible. We practiced teamwork by trusting each other. This is especially so when we distributed the work because we had to trust everyone to complete their assigned portion. Through this project, we learn more about other cultures aside from our own and engage into our own history as we explore the various local attractions in the ethnic districts. As we gain better insight and understanding of the various cultures of Singapore and our own history, we fulfill the requirements of the education system in this aspect. As our school has often encouraged the use of IT-based learning, thus, we hope to promote IT further in our school and to cultivate interest in IT in completion of this project. Learning through the Internet is certainly more effective than traditional methods as it provides both narrative and visual aid, captivating the interest of pupils.

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Project Elements

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

We used a wide range of the latest information tools and technologies. The hardwares used include: PCs, Digital Cameras, normal cameras and scanners. Among the computer programmes that we used are Adobe Photoshop 6.0 (for photo-editing and image-creating), Macromedia Flash 5.0 (for creating animations), Macromedia Dreamweaver 3.0 (for web-building), Microsoft Word (for collaborating information), Internet Explorer 5 (for previewing our site), Win FTP (for uploading our site), and Yahoo Groups (for facilitating communication and sharing relevant files within the team). The computers and their programmes can be found in our school’s computer labs. We borrowed equipment, like digital cameras, from our school library. Most of us owned our own digital cameras, PCs and have internet connection at home. Thus IT equipment was readily available for us. The Internet has certainly been our most helpful tool. Not only did we obtain most of our information through the Internet, it also facilitated our communication. This is especially helpful as this allowed us to do our work at home and simply post it Online for retrieval when we arrived in school. Yahoo Groups also provided us with a convenient form of communication. All we had to do was post any message we wanted to relay to our group members or any file we wanted to share on to Yahoo Groups. This posed a great help to us as we could better communicate with one another. We also made frequent trips to the numerous libraries in Singapore to look for information. We went to the various local attractions to take photographs and to collect information about the place. We visited community centers and museums and asked the relevant people for information on the spot. We also interviewed people of other races to tell us about their culture while venturing into this project.

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

Since we had to take all photographs necessary by ourselves, we did spend a great deal of time explaining to the people concerned about our project and other details. In most cases, they agreed to either pose for us, an example would be the astrologer in Little India, or allow us to continue with taking the photographs of the monuments and places. However, there were 1 or 2 cases, when they started to mumble and chase us away, so we had to leave, and unfortunately, we missed out those landmarks. As our project is based on the Singapore community, we also had friends and their parents of different races to tell us more about their culture. These oral sources are actually more insightful and unique than just books and information from the World Wide Web. We had to tell them about our project and specifically what we were looking for. In this way, these members of the community helped us in great ways. We also communicated through electronic mail with certain statutory boards to find out if they had any picture taken of certain festivals that we had missed at the start of the year. Unfortunately they were unable to help us in that way and we had to make do with the 1 or 2 pictures that we had available at that time.

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

We feel that through our CyberFair site, we will be able to make a difference to not only the local community of Singapore, but also to the Internet community of the world. This is because our site touches on the Singapore community, its multiracialism. Our forefathers have in many ways, done a great deal to preserve their respective cultures and traditions. In recognition of their contributions, numerous roads have been named after them. We hope to pass this down to the younger generations, just as our ancestors have done. In this multicultural context, we feel that preserving our individual roots and identity is very important. Through this project, we can pass down our heritage through historical facts like street names and the present situation. We hope to create awareness among the local community by displaying the 4 main races coexisting in Singapore, and thus create tolerance of each other, especially at such times of tumult across the world regarding racial issues. Therefore, a way to prevent any such happenings would be what we have done, to educate them about others’ cultures. By compiling information from various sources and them in an array, makes our site unique and different from other sources. Visitors will be able to learn more and get a wholesome picture of each individual race and culture, all in one go. We have established contact with many members of the community throughout the course of this project which is very helpful. This project has served as a means of binding the community as well as our own team together. Our seniors and teacher looked at our website, the process from time to time, and constantly gave us both positive and negative feedback which we received and thus, made appropriate changes to it.

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

Firstly, we have to admit that this project would not have been possible without the help of our teachers, school, peers, families and the public. The school has been very helpful in giving us the opportunity to take part in this project. They supported us along the way by providing us with all the equipment necessary for the building of our project, like the labs and the softwares, making it easier for us to work in school since not everyone had the necessary equipment or softwares at home. Our teachers have also been very supportive and constantly guided us. Our teacher-in-charge, Ms Foo stayed with us even through the holidays, making sure we finished everything by the deadline. We would like to thank her for sacrificing her time for us. Other club members were actively involved in this project as volunteers. They helped us in our research and also in the editing of photos. This was a great help as only a small number of us were in the team. They were also involved in the discussion of a CyberFair topic. Our seniors provided us moral support by constantly giving us well wishes. Our families also guided us along the way. They were the ones that had to endured our long string of complaints at the dinner table if a problem occurred while doing our project in the afternoon. We even had to stay up late working on the project, depriving our siblings and parents from using the computer. Finally, the public. They have been really great volunteers and without them, we would not have known certain unique characteristics about their cultures, which makes it all the more interesting and our experience a fruitful one. To all these people mentioned above, thank you so much for your help and support.

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