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1. Description of Our Community
San-zhi village is located at the northwest of Taiwan, the northwest of Datun volcanos, next to Taiwan Strait; it is a beautiful village which faces the mountains and the sea, and it’s been a great tourism place for the residents in Taipei county due to the convenient communications. Because of its great geography and communications, San-zhi village is always the favor to the people who care about funerals and the locations of graves. Many public, private cinerary-casket pagodas and graveyards kept being built in the village; currently there’re five graveyards and three cinerary-casket pagodas, where are the important places that allow the residents in the north of Taiwan to express their respects to the gone families.
2. Summary of Our Project
There’s a special kind of industry in San-zhi village; we would like to know more about the native environments and local industry via this case study project in order to understand the current funeral industry in Taiwan. This project can allow us to think over the questions about life and death, and let us face the life with active, positive attitudes. Our research methods include data collection, interviews with figures, visits to cinerary-casket pagodas, and investigation on the neighbors; we collect opinions of residents in the village on this industry, which increase our knowledge and reinforce our recognition of the home town after the discussion and thinking among the teams.
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:none
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):
There're two computer classrooms in our school, which totally have 82 computers available to students. Besides, there're computers in each classroom, which allow us to get online with FTTS, discuss with others, look up information, and print out the documents in school.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Sensitive topic which needed to be communicated with parents: In our case study project, the main and most essential part is to visit cinerary-casket pagodas , which is usually a taboo to the public. Hence we did hesitate a while as we decided the topic, yet we finally determined to do this topic. We knew that we must communicate with parents first; so teachers sent out the admission notices of team members and the network fair instructions in advance. They also convened meetings with parents to explain the spirit of the network fair and the meaning of the research topic, so that we could gain parents' assistance and support.
- The network environments in team members' homes: Not every team member has computers at home, and some team members can't get online at home; thus we can only carry out the project in school, or make drafts at home and produce the electronic files with the computers in classrooms, computer classrooms in the school.
- Insufficient experience of interviews: We barely had experience of interviewing other people; before the interviews, each team drafted and printed out the interview outlines. A copy was given to the interviewed subject, and we had another copy; this way could prevent the tension and errors. Sometimes we had to listen to the recording files if we couldn't understand the interviewed subjects.
- Cooperation among teams: In the beginning, we didn't know one another very well, so most members didn't express their opinions and did their own work instead; however, teachers found that lots of work was repeated. Afterward, we learned to discuss, draft the outlines and structures first, and then assigned the work to different members; this allowed the project to be completed successfully.
- Difficulty in making webpages: Because of our inexperience and insufficient skills, we had difficulty in making webpages and animation; the problems were solved after we asked for the guidance and assistance from informatics teachers, teacher Ye and teacher Huang.
- Difficulty in arranging research schedules: We only had the time at noon to do the research; many members sacrificed their time for other activities. The schedules of visits and interviews had to be planned in advance; most of them are arranged during the weekends. Even so, some members had to take lessons after school; it seemed that the time for research was always insufficient.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
There’s only a thin line between life and death; so we ought to treasure every moment in our lives and face our final homes with positive attitudes.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
- The importance of “life education” is actively emphasized by nine-year consistent education nowadays.
- The network technology is well used during the case study project; we usually communicate and cooperate via computer network, network disc drive, e-mails, instant messages, and etc. We try to research and share data with more efficient, no time-limit methods.
- Integrated study project: we learned through interviews, visits, discussion, drawing structure plans, and other activities; our skills in webpage production, data processing, and computer application are more proficient. In addition, we are better at team cooperation and communication.
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