School: Floresville Elementary
    Floresville, Texas, United States

50 students, ages from 8 to 12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 14, 2001. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2000, 2001

Classes and Teachers: Diane Berger, gifted/talented groups, grades 3 - 6

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.floresville.isd.tenet.edu/Elementary/

1. Description of Our Community

We are the residents of Wilson County, Texas, as well as surrounding counties in South Texas. More specifically, we are the members of the community who go above and beyond to lead. We are the ones who give of our own time and efforts to create this community in which we live. We are the students who wanted to learn about these leaders, and share what we learned with the world.

2. Summary of Our Project

Last year, we created a web page, "A Virtual Field Trip to Historic Wilson County", which highlighted some of the more interesting buildings, places, attractions, etc. of our community. This year, we wanted to show off our most precious resource, the local leaders of Wilson County and South Texas. We wanted the world to know what a special group of people we see every day, and we wanted those same individuals to know how much we appreciate all they do to make this a fine place to live.

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:2-3

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

We are lucky, here at our school, to have 10 networked computers (plus our teacher's laptop!) in our g/t classroom, all connected to the internet via a T1 line. The only drawback is that it's hard to know how your web page will work at home on your slow connection, when you build and test it here at school!

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Link to Problems We Overcame: http://www.floresville.isd.tenet.edu/elementary/fes/leaders/problems.htm

5. Our Project Sound Bite

We have learned to appreciate our local leaders for all the many jobs they take on, in addition to their many professional obligations. We hope they will come to appreciate us for our interest, and our desire to tell the world about them.

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

One of the primary goals of our gifted/talented program is to provide g/t students with the opportunity to demonstrate learning (in the four core curriculum areas) above and beyond that which other students would be willing or able to demonstrate. By participating in a project such as this, students used technical skills (a requirement of our state) as well as language arts and social studies skills.

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

Computers: We have 10 networked computers in our classroom, using a T1 to connect to the internet. More than half of our students have online computer access at home.

Digital Still cameras:We have access to three Sony Maciva Digital still cameras which also can take little MPEG movie clips (up to 60 seconds on one 3.5 floppy disk).

Digital camcorders: One student used her family's digital camcorder to create a movie clip.

Analog camcorders: One student used his family's camcorder to record his interview, then viewed the tape to help with his transcription.

Tape recorders: Many students had their own pocket tape recorders, and we had 3 available for check out from the school.

Software: (Front Page: We used Microsoft Front Page to create our webpages this year and found the resampling and thumbnail features to be especially useful. (Adobe photodeluxe: We used Adobe Photodeluxe to resize, improve, crop and otherwise manipulate our digital images so they would look as we wished on the web pages. telephones: Many of our interviews were scheduled on the phone; a few were conducted by phone. Some were approved of on the phone. email: We used email to show our "test" versions of the webpages to concerned memebers of the project; in one case, the interview was conducted by email. scanner: Some of our still photos were taken with standard cameras; we used a scanner at school to import those images and convert them.

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

Students were asked to sit down with their parents and come up with a list of five potential local leaders. They brought that list to their teacher and she helped them pick a first choice. The person to be interviewed had to be contacted and had to agree to do the interview as well as to have their name and image included online in the project. The interviews were conducted in person, for the most part, and before the project was complete, the subject of the interview was asked to approve their part of the project. See our web page for further information.

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

Students learned about the many contributions, above and beyond what might be expected, many of our local leaders make to our community. Adults in the community learned that students are interested in their contributions, and able to share that interest with the world. Again, we tell more about the impact of this project on our webpage, under the "Introduction: Problems We Overcame and Surprises We Found" link.

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

Please visit our web page to learn about all the wonderful help we acquired during the course of this project. See our "Introduction" and the web page called "Problems We Overcame and Surprises We Found". Those links are: http://www.floresville.isd.tenet.edu/elementary/fes/leaders/purpose.htm and http://www.floresville.isd.tenet.edu/elementary/fes/leaders/problems.htm

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

We learned many surprising things about our local leaders in the course of doing our personal interviews. Please see the "surprises we found" part of our web page. The surprises are at the very bottom of this page. That link is: http://www.floresville.isd.tenet.edu/elementary/fes/leaders/problems.htm