School: SJK (C) Choong Wen
    Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

5 students, ages 12 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 20, 2004. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 2003

Classes and Teachers: Ms Ng Lee Huang , Mr. Yap Chee Keen, Sze Mei, Tsz Chung, Tze Chen, Sin Yee, Chen Joon

E-Mail contact:

Our School's Web Site: http://www.choongwen.edu.my/

1. Description of Our Team

Our Doors to Diplomacy team consist of five members and two coaches. All members are 12 years old. We are Sze Mei, Tsz Chung, Tze Chen, Sin Yee and Chen Joon. We joined together to do this project because we were hardworking, interested in designing web page and so on. We felt very proud to become one of the members to do this project. Our group divided into four part, research information, data analysis, web page design and graphic design. All members were involved in the four main tasks. Every group member must responsible to do one topic because our project had five main topics. We learned to do all these works together. One of our coaches, Ms Ng Lee Huang taught us to use Microsoft Image Composer, searching information and data summarized. And Mr. Yap Chee Keen, our coach also, he taught us how to use Ms FrontPage to create web site, searching information and techniques of web page design. Lastly we felt very happy because we can finish a project on a date.

2. Summary of Our Project

Our project is about Malaysia's 4th Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who was just retired as Prime Minister. He had leaded the country for more than 20 years, and make the country well-known by world. He had showed his good leadership in developing the country. He has become one of the model for us to learn about leadership. In our project, we also discuss the roles of diplomacy to play in the making a successful leader, Tun Dr Mahathir contribution list to Malaysia, motivate of Tun Dr Mahathir to become a world leader. We hope that those people who visit our web site can know more about Tun Dr Mahathir contribution to Malaysia, how to making a successful leader and so on.

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:more than 6

C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection

D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:4-6

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

The school has two computer lab consists of 104 networked PCs and 2 servers, a joint effort between the school and TMEduTech (M) Sdn Bhd, a local company which helps the school to implement the Smart School concepts strongly encouraged by the government. TMEduTech stationed the computer teachers and managed the lab for our school. As the IT coordinator for the school, they help the school to obtain the broadband internet access service from TMNET. Our dedicated computer teachers, headmaster, PTA (Parent Teacher Association) members have always encouraged us to participate in any collaborative projects. Our computer lessons emphasizes on project-based activities, as they believes in the teaching, which leads to help the students to earn a life-long learning skills.

4. Problems We Had To Overcome

Language – our school is Chinese primary school with Mandarin as the main communication language. We faced language difficulties when proceed to the data summarization because all the information we founded were in English language. We used many methods to improve our English. We flip through the dictionary and the English dictionary software to understand and summarized our content. We also seek help from our computer teachers, parents, brothers and sisters. Communication – since this is a team work, different people will have different point of view. When we finish design the whole project, some of the project members not satisfied with some of the design, so that we need to sit down together and discussed what should need to redesign and this take some time. Web Page Design – Since we did not use Ms FrontPage about half year, so some of the features of the program we forgot already. Luckily our coaches taught us how to use Ms FrontPage. Searching Information – We did know how to use search engine to search the information that we wanted, and Ms Ng and Mr. Yap had taught us. Searching information through search engine need to use many different way to type the key word. Overall we felt that these were not very big problems to us because there were many friends want to help us.

5. Our Project Sound Bite

The whole project is meaningful to us as it helps us to know more about Tun Dr Mahathir. We can learn from Tun Dr Mahathir about his leadership. We also feel happy because today our country becomes a modem and fast advancing nation.

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

In our school, computer lesson is one of the core subjects in our syllabus. This computer lesson is project-based, which emphasize on smart learning approach. The project-based activities involve a research and presentation. The 6-year lesson consists of 12 levels. We learn MS FrontPage in level 12. After completion of the project, the students has to come up to present the projects done. Through the participation of the Doors To Diplomacy project, we have gained a hand-on experience in constructing a web site includes the homepage designing skill. These can help us to do better in our future school projects. As the normal school syllabus only allows us to learn things theoretically from textbook. We seldom use Internet to look for more information other than the textbook. So we found that there is much more resourceful information can be found on Internet. We cannot fully depend on our textbook only. We also realized that we could go to the Internet for more information if the textbook is not descriptive enough.

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

Hardware Intel Pentium multimedia computer – To process our data Laser printer- To print out the information found from the Internet for our reference and understanding. Telephone – To contact our team members and our teachers Broadband as our Internet setup Software Chinese Star 2.97 (Chinese – English Dictionary) – To look for the new English vocabulary (very important tools to us) Internet Explorer version 5 – Use to browse our homepage, browses Internet web sites Ms Front Page – To build the our homepage Paint Shop Pro 5 – To edit pictures and photos Ms Image Composer – To edit photos and design titles Ms Paint – To draw pictures Macromedia Flash – To draw pictures and create simple animation Ms Word – To word processing stuffs CuteFTP - To upload our homepage to the server All the tools located at school computer lab. School provided some of the tools and TMEduTech Sdn. Bhd provided some. We felt that all the tools were very important to us, lack one of the tools we cannot complete our project.

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

While we doing research for our project, we need the facts. We had interview some of peoples. We found that all of them feel that is a good topic for us because he was a successful world leader. He made Malaysia well known in the world, and he was just retired on 31 October 2003. We would like to know more about him and take him as a model. We also would like to share his leadership with other people around the world.

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

Our project is unique because we included a lot of information about Tun Dr Mahathir, such as Profile of Tun Dr Mahathir, Award, making a successful leader and contribution of Tun Dr Mahathir. Our web site also can let people pen their thought on Tun Dr Mahathir.

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

Our school very support us to do this project and provided all the tools that we needed during we doing our project. Our computer teachers – Ms Ng Lee Huang Wan and Mr. Yap Chee Keen who guide us through out the whole project. They provide us with the technical support in both hardware and software aspects, planning and teaching us how to use Front Page to build homepage, cheer us up with strong encouragement. Our parents who spent time to fetch us to school during this Doors to Diplomacy project. Our classmates also helped us in gathering information, giving ideas wherever appropriate and drawing pictures for the project. Last but not least, we would like to thank for ourselves (all the team members) for staying together until we completed the project.

5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)

The actual learning experience in project-based activities is so useful. We found that a good team spirit is so important to make a project successful. Integrating technology into the learning process can make the lesson more effective, fun and enjoyable. The feeling of achievement is so great if we always try until the very last minute instead of give up half ways.