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1. Description of Our Community
“Kuchan” shopping area is located in Kaohsiung City which is the primary city in the south of Taiwan. It stretches over Yancheng, Sinsing, Cianjin and Lingya District. In general, “Kuchan” shopping area includes “Old Kuchan” and “Shinkuchan” shopping area. Old Kuchan, which located in Yancheng District had been famous for selling imported goods since 1962 and reached its peak in 1979. However, Old Kuchan shortly declined in the beginning of 1990s and Shinkuchan took place of it.
Shinkuchan lies at the boundary between Sinsing, Cianjin and Lingya District, where is the administrative, economic and cultural center of Kaohsiung. Citizens gathered around this area especially after the opening of President Department Store which is situated in the intersection of Wufu 2nd Rd. and Jhongshan 2nd Rd., Sinsing District. Ever since it opened, President Department Store had become the most sought-after department store in Kaohsiung. Consequently, Shinkuchan drew the attention of every Kaohsiung resident and became prosperous and prosperous. Unfortunately, a conflagration made President Department Store become ashes overnight. What's worse, President Department Store soon became history after Shin Kong Mitsukoshi and Hanshin Department Store hit the market. As a result, Shinkuchan was no longer under the spotlight.
Not until 21st century did Shinkuchan win back its position. The construction of Urban Spotlight, which is a popular recreation space, brought in a great number of people. In addition, stream of consumers were attracted back to Shinkuchan after the reopening of President Department Store though it's only two-floored. What's more, KMT (Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit) is going to be finished in the coming future and it's undeniable that the construction of KMT would absolutely help Shinkuchan reach its peak once again.
2. Summary of Our Project
This project mainly introduces the geographical position and historical development of Shinkuchan shopping area and various ways of operating shops in Shinkuchan. The word “Shin” is the same as “new” in Chinese. Shinkuchan took place of “Old Kuchan” and got its name “Shinkuchan”. “Old Kuchan” had been famous for selling imported goods since 1960s and reached its peak in 1964. However, after the President Department Store opened, the Old Kuchan declined. The president Department Store located in the downtown area in Kaohsiung City-the biggest city in southern Taiwan. Due to its geographical advantages, the President Department Store attracted people from all over Kaohsiung. Because of the prosperity of the department store, businesspersons gathered around in the neighboring area and so did customers. After opening for a few years, the neighboring area got the name-Shinkuchan.
Nowadays, Shinkuchan has become a shopping paradise for all kinds of people, especially teenagers. Standing out from thousands of shops is not easy task. Therefore, shopkeepers try their best to make their shops second to none. They care for not only how to manage and stock up the goods but how to attract more customers by giving unique names to their shops. In this project, we introduce several representative shops for E generations, in which teenagers can always find out what's in nowadays. In addition, we interviewed some street vendors and street artists. It's difficult to survive from such keen competitions. Believe it or not, each of them has his or her own way to make a living. What's more, we provide suggestions to the questions that Shinkuchan shopping area may face at present and we truly hope that our project will make contributions to the development of Shinkuchan shopping area.
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: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):
There are two computer classrooms in our school. Besides, in every teacher's office, there are six to ten computers for teachers to search for teaching resources. Though there is only one ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) in our school, we've promoted the ADSL line rate from 1.544M to 3M. In addition, we've set up a fiber optic network (1G) one year ago and had access to Taiwan Academic Network (TANet) through Chung Cheng HighSchool and National Sun Yat-Sen University.After class,we made web pages by using the Internet (the ADSL line rate is 1M).
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
Because we just entered junior high school, we're not used to junior high school life. Besides, at the beginning of this project, we had such a busy schedule because our school held many activities and competitions for us. We managed to participate in this project and had monthly exams and school sports at the same time. In addition, some of our members even took part in English speech, composition and spelling contest and won prizes. What's more, we also had great performances in class web page design and Christmas card competition. After second monthly exam ended, we were back to the project and other coming activities. Although we sometimes feel tired, we admired everyone's contribution. Every group member is from grade seven and we have no experience in web page design competition. Hence, it took us a lot of time to translate, design webpage, interview, photograph and tape-record. Fortunately, we are willing to learn and we also encourage each other. Every Wednesday and Thursday, we spend four hours in the computer classroom discussing, gathering information, making webpage and translating. In gathering information, we spend more time interviewing new shops in Shinkuchan. During the project, we went to Shinkuchan several times. When interviewing, we were quite frustrated that most of the shop owners were not willing to answer all our questions in case that we would leak out their secret about how to make more money than other shops. Nevertheless, some shop owners helped us a lot. We'd like to send special thanks to them. Without their help, we can't complete our interviews.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
By interviewing various ways of managing shops, we admire owner's ability and flexibility. For E-generation teenagers like us, we should help ourselves in getting accustomed to the society instead of expecting the environment will help us. We also truly hope that the older generation will get rid of the image that we are “Strawberry Generation.” We want to prove that we are capable of handling stress, taking responsibilities and challenges. In a word, we want the earlier generation will be proud of us, the E-generation.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
The major teaching methods in the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum are small group teaching and team teaching. By making researches on such a special project, teachers can come up with the most appropriate teaching method. This way, we've learned how to communicate, make outline for discussion and then brainstorm. Also, we've learned a lot from this experience and improved communication skills and the ability to do independent research. What's more, we're more capable of translating Chinese into English since this is an international Cyberfair. By interviewing, we also had a better understanding of the influences the environment brought to business management. Furthermore, how owners used limited resources to make utmost profit impressed us a lot. From their experiences, we understood exactly the idea-learning by doing, which was emphasized a lot in the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum.
Before the project, most of us didn't know what can cameras, digital cameras, tape recorder, computers, scanners and card readers accomplish and facilitate learning. Now, we truly experienced the idea which the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculum emphasized-information technology integration.
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