CyberFair Project ID: 1862

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International Schools CyberFair Project Narrative
Title: Dancing Art in the Air -- Kite
Category: 8. Local Music and Art Forms
URL: http://gsh.taiwanschoolnet.org/1862
Bibliography: No bibliography page cited

School: Tai-Shan Elementary School
    Taipei, Taiwan, Taiwan

6 students, ages from 12 to 13 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on February 10, 2002. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): none

Classes and Teachers: An-Mei Li; Yun Feng Charng; Xue-Mian Hu

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.tses.tpc.edu.tw/

Project Overview

1. Description of Our Community

Shi-Men County is located in the north part of Taiwan, east longitude 121.6; north latitude 25.3, and enclosed by the hills on one side and waters on the other. It adjoins Jin-Shan County in the east side, and neighbors San-Zhi in the west side, connected to the Bamboo Lake of Shi-Lin area. And the whole area is a fan-shape. And it has a name of "Stone Gate."

2. Summary of Our Project

Kite flying is a custom in our country and is becoming a popular activity nowadays. It is one of the best activities for people living in cities. Most kites are made of canvas, and with simple modeling. However, it can have hundreds of variations. In our project, we will not only introduce the history of Chinese kites, this special art form of kite making, and the procedures of kite making, we also will visit the hometown of kites,Shi-Men County; and interview some of the famous kite making experts who have taken part in the "International Kite Festival".  We also will show you how these experts make their communities different and better through their expertise.  And finally, we hope all the dreams and originality will be along with the dancing fairies flying in the blue sky forever.

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:1

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:1

E. Additional comments concerning your computer and/or Internet access (Optional):

There are two well-equipped computer labs in our school, and so we can access Internet through ADSL to connect to Taipei County Education Resource Center, and then get on to TANet. However, we still have to use modem to connect to Internet when we are at home, and count on the service of our ISP.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

While we were doing the project, we had to overcome several barriers. First, we were new to interview people, so we need to learn some interview skills from the very beginning. Second, we needed money to complete every activity. The school was willing to help, but it cannot offer too much financial support, therefore, we had to raise some funding from places other then school. Third, since we had to travel around places to visit experts, but it was quite inconvenient if we only take public transportation. Therefore we encountered some transportation problems, and had to find ways to solve the problems. Forth, since we are members of the school volleyball team, but we have to follow the school routine, so the schedule was quite tight. And we had to learn how to take advantages of the spare time to do the research and finish our report. And the last is the computer problem. We had to do the project online, though there are 2 well-equipped computer labs in school, we still had to fight with others to get a chance to use computers.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

This is a brand new learning experience for all of us. We realized that learning could be interesting and diversified. We learned how to ask question right to the points and how to solve problems we encountered, how to search for information needed and figure out the final answer. This special experience helps us grow up and widen our fields of vision. We also learned a lot from those kite-making experts. Take Grandpa Li as an example, we cannot help admiring his dedication and selfness. He determined to pass down his knowledge about this folk costume, kite making. And so he gives out great efforts to do so in his community. We learned from these people that even if you were just an ordinary person, as long as you do your best, you would make things different.

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

We learned several new skills in using software, especially software people using to design WebPages. This project guaranteed many opportunities for us to the new skills, since we had to upload our reports online. And later our fruitful results will be save in the school website to share with every viewer. Teachers will be able to use it as their teaching material. Although nowadays everything is getting advanced, it doesn't mean that we should dump the old but good things in our tradition. We try to introduce this traditional activity to every viewer through Internet, the latest technology. Isn't it the best example of the blend of tradition and modern? During the research was ongoing; our community had held a kite coloring contest. Many kids and parents in the community took part in the interesting activity. It was a way to increase the binding force between parents and children. Teachers, parents and the community all work together for this project, all of us were working hard for the same goal. This is the best example of social education.

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Project Elements

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

Computer: AMD K6-2 400, 128MG RAM

Telephone: To arrange interviews

Television Set: To watch video tapes related to kites

Video Player: To play video tapes related to kites

Digital Cam: To shoot the interview

Digital Recorder: To record the interview

Scanner: To scan photos we collected

Tape Recorder: To record the interview

Digital Cam: To shoot the interview and the procedures of kite making

Software: PhotoImpact5.0, Coreldraw9.0, FrontPage2000, Office2000, Dreamweaver

Library: Tai-Shan Primary School, Tai-Shan County, National Normal University, National Central Library,to search for information about kites

Museum: To view the exhibition in Jiu-Fen Kite Museum

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

To collect all the information we needed for our project and to understand kites thoroughly, we not only had to search online, also visited several kite making experts. And in order to have fruitful results, we had to do some research beforehand, collect and digest information, design questions for interviews, and rehearsed many times to avoid mistakes. We first went to the Kite Museum in Jiu-Fen. The curator, Ms. Lai, explained all the details to us, and allowed us to take pictures there. That's why we got a lot of special and precious pictures. Then we visited Grandpa Xieh in Taipei. He is more than 70 years, but he answered our questions enthusiastically. He even taught us how to make small kites, and how to fly them in hallway. We learned that Mr. Li often guided his students to attend kites contests before he retired. Now he retired, but he still works on promoting and passing down the skills of kite making in Pearl Community. Mr. Li's daughter in law told us that Mr. Li's health condition is not as good as before after his retiring. But he still accepted our interview invitation readily. And besides, he introduced us Sanma Stunt Kite Workshop and the leader, Mr. Feng. Therefore this time we got fruitful results, we not only completed the interview, but also brought a very special memento, a small kite. We learned information about another kite expert, Mr. Huang, from the "new arrival" section of Eslite Bookstore online. So we invited him to our school and interviewed him. At last we interviewed people from Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taipei County Government and Shi-Men County. They hosted the International Kite Festival for 2 years. We try to understand how local people contribute to remain and carry forward our traditional culture.

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

Our living environment is changing, the tradition of our hometown changes as well. Many traditional customs and culture have been influenced by new lifestyle and the latest technology. Our community held a kite-coloring contest under the influences of our project. And this is just the first step. We have seen how several experts made their community different by their great efforts. And since we have learned a lot from this project, we plan to find out the special characteristics in our own community and try to make use of that uniqueness. And then we can affect other local people.

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

First, we want to thank to the Parents Association of our school for the financial help. And we also want to thank Ya-Chen's parents for driving us to places we wanted to go and made the whole interviewing process goes smoothly. Our class director, Ms. You, tolerated our temporary inattention while we were working on the project. And she always support us, encouraged us when we sometimes got frustrated because of the obstruction we encountered. Mr. Jian-Xin Zhou taught us extra web page-making skills, and he also used his knowledge in art, help us to create unique web pages. So that we can have a website with good taste. And the last but not the least, our school reunion association hosted a kite-coloring contest in our community. They all contributed to help with our project willingly, but none asked for any kind of rewards.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

After having finished all the interviews for this project, Jun-Heng said," I wonder how come all the people we have met are so nice and kind. Is it because all the kite makers are born this way?" He was right; all the people we interviewed are kind. They all eager to share what they know about kites, no one wanted to hide part of a full account of kite. And no one looked down on us just because we were 6th graders. The only one time that we were denied the entrance was the visit to Dong-Shan Primary School. And it could be a result of ill communication. After that particular experience, we always kept in touch with the person or group that we wanted to visit closely before we really went to visit. And we made sure who was in charge so that we wouldn't waste any time on nothing. Although Art is something without boundary, but after this project, we found that Chinese kites are very different from kites of other countries. We're all very happy that we had the chance to take part in the whole project. We learned so much from the process and we all had a lot of fun, too. Thanks to all those who had offered their kind help, and of course thanks to our teachers for their guide!

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