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1. Description of Our Community
We are living near the Taipei City government, this is a very prosperous area and has convenient communication like the Taipei MRT and Sung-San Train Station. The Taipei East Christian Church (TECC) is located near the center of this area and about 10 minutes away from our school. The 'Happy Kids Weekend' community service is initiated by TECC since August 1998, this service is provided for children to let them live in an environment fill with love and rejoicing. Here, the volunteer teachers designed quality children activities and provided kids a place where they can relax and grow up. Therefore, we call 'Happy Kids Weekend' a place of 'Happy Kids Heaven'. For Cyberfair 2005's topic 'Prepare and Unite', we imagine this community service is just like a place to prepare the kids to unite their soul with Faith, Rejoicing, Hope, and Love. It's just like 'Happy Kids Heaven'. Children are just like the seeds to the future, through this involvement, It will take the family or said the community into a prosperous future.
2. Summary of Our Project
In the east of Taipei city, there is a group of warm hearted volunteer, they pay their efforts for the kids and teenagers, and let them have a place fill with love to grow up. Through creative activities , games, and dramas, they wish the kids in the community can grow up in a place of faith, rejoicing, hope, and love. We are very encouraged by what they have done here, and we wish through our interview and present in the internet, we can showcase the love in the Happy Kid Weekend to the public, so everyone in the other place can also be inspired to build a kids heaven in their local community.
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):
Teachers and students use MSN to have net discussions and use the FTP site to share our documentation.
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
A. Limited time: Most of us have study or hobby classes after school, it's hard to gather all of us, so we rescheduled our time to solve this problem.
B. New member didn't have sufficient experience: In the beginning our schedule was delayed for this reason. When we spent time teaching the new member, then our schedule started to catch up.
C. Unclear or insufficient data: When we went to the street to interview other kids about their feelings concerning happiness, lots of kids had answers that were not clear, we proceeded to ask more kids to increase the amount of data.
D. It was hard to finalize the web structure: In the beginning, we built the project structure too big and found lots of the data was hard to acquire or we didn't have sufficient information, so we reorganized our structure and made it more realistic and achievable.
E. Didn't have good skill on the computer: Because we are still learning, we are not mature in all skills. Therefore, our teachers worked with us one on one and let us absorb the experience from other Cyberfair projects.
F. Too many pictures: We had too many pictures, and not all could be used. Therefore, we divided them into different categories and selected the important ones we really needed.
G. Group spirit not enough: In the beginning, we preferred not taking certain jobs, so some jobs become the ones that no body wanted to do. Later, we learned we needed to be united and willing to take the responsibility to do them.
H. Our writing ability wasn't good: We were often hindered in writing, so we tried to layout the key points and reorganized them, and then discuss them. Finally, we asked parents and teachers to rephrase or check our writing. After this, we think we should spend more effort in writing to have good progress.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
A. Only when we actually participated in the activity, did we really know what was inside.
B. If we don't have love and share in our heart, we will not feel what true love is and share it. For this, we spent over 6 month and then we started to realize and grow up in this field.
C. If we only care about ourselves, and not willing to do more, the group work will not progress.
D. Only through actual interviewing and surveying, we started to understand the deeper story.
E. To join an activity is one thing, to participate in the activity preparation is another thing. We found it will need lots of effort.
F. To complete this Cyberfair project was not that easy, it was not just making a web page, the work was so huge and bigger than our imagination. When we felt our job easy, it was because we had just taken an easy part. When we do more, we found we need to know much more.
G. Project problem solving was hard, after solving one another come. We started to understand 'Unite will Bring Power'.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
A. 'Building a Kids Heaven in Our Community' Cyberfair Project enable students to learn about the communities near their school. It expanded their learning and helped them understand the progress and development of local community. Through the incorporation of school, community, and family sources, we learned and worked together to conduct this project.
B. It enabled student to experience and explore the community, to know the service groups in the community and the change and impact of the culture in the community.
C. From interaction in the project, students realized what the volunteers had done for the community, and by taking action, they learned how to care and help other people.
D. Students learned how to correctly use information tools. They also learned some practical tools and computer applications, like media processes, documentation, camera, video and audio recording. Internet lets us break the limitation of space, and expand our learning.
E. Through participation in this project, the students learned how to accept each other, prepared them to be patient and merciful, and taught them the importance of group incorporation. We believe these will become their most precious experiences - to conduct the project by real experience and to feel the heart of the volunteers by on-site participation.
F. Students realized the value of life, that the content of community service should not be evaluated from outside, and you need to participate to find out the motivation - 'Power of Love'.
G. This project challenged their potential. The research scale is greater than what they had learned in their school, like organized writing, ability of conduct research, combined application, interactive relationships, computer applications, building a web site, and multimedia procession. Maybe students did not do things perfectly, but the result of a 'kids style' web project, we believe, will make them more touched and inspired to learn more.
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