|
1. Description of Our Community
Huei-Long community is situated at Ta-Liao-Kun Valley between Lin Ko Plateau and Guei Shan Hills (Shan Czai Jiao mountain range). In 1929, while Taiwan was still under Japanese rule, a north-south highway was built across the mountains from Mt. Guan Yin to Ying Ge. Because its topographic shape is akin to the backbone of a dragon, it was named Slain Dragon. This name was later beautified to Circuitous Dragon (Huei Long). Since Huei Long is conveniently located at the border of Quei Shan Village in Taoyuan County, and Hsin Chuang and Shu Lin in Taipei County, industry and commerce have thrived, along with a rising population that tended to be concentrated. In addition to Shu Lin Industrial Park and San Hsing Industrial Park, this area also houses Longhua Technical College and Paul Hsu Senior High School, resulting in a zone with self-contained education system. Spiritually, Chuan Jen Taoist Temple, Huei Long Temple, Czihui Tang Temple, and a Presbyterian church are found here.
Prosperity usually follows the changes of a region. Nowadays Huei-Long becomes the so-called city jungle, lack of humanistic and artistic atmosphere. Fortunately there are some enthusiastic people devoting themselves in the hope of promote this region into a place of being humanistic and artistic. They expected that artists could gather here and make a long-term stay or settle down in this region, and that residents could have more art exhibitions or art activities to attend.
2. Summary of Our Project
Xuan-San Wu, a Taiwanese-born artist full of strong personal touch, vitality and life experiences as well as of a diversity of works has been deeply attracting us. In a fate, Grandfather Ah Sam, a nickname given by us, came to set up his personal studio in Taoyuan. His coming added a great of artistic and cultural atmosphere there. He is the very artist that we want to study. In the title of “Grandfather Ah Sam Native Art” he displayed his personal background, learning experiences, travelogues, as well as his passage towards internationalization and so on.., For the international School Cyber Fair 2010, we made a complete record about our study and would like to put it on web pages to share with everyone.
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:1
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:4-6
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
With our deep respect to Grandfather Ah Sam, we spent much time studying his life and paintings and running web pages to show you his inward-profound creativity and the diversity of his paintings. Our persistence led us overcome problems we countered while doing the research. 1. Technical issues: To many of us, it was our first time taking part in International Schools Cyber Fair. Generally, there was not much trouble in designing our web pages, owing to a regular web design competition held in our school semester. The troublesome part was to deal with divergent views about how to compile and run web pages artistically . With our current knowledge, it was difficult to achieve our desired effect. However, everything turned out satisfactorily in the long run because of the guidance of our teachers 2. Group Discussion: First we met a problem about time arrangement. It was not so easy to find a suitable period for group discussions as some students went to after-school classes and teachers needed to go to class. Only was lunchtime and holidays available for conducting field investigations. However, we learned to manage our time and sought for supports and assistance from a number of people, we are happy we can present this study on our web pages now. 3. Visits to Grandfather’s Studios: Our first visit to Grandfather Ah Sam's studio in Neihu went smoothly, but it took us a lot of time to make our second visit to Ah Sam's studio in Lujhu , Taoyuan. Although the GPS was adopted for location search, it was still hard to find out. Finally by a direct phone call to grandfather Ah Sam, a significant landmark - green wall was mentioned for our location identification. There it was. We found it. It is in a very tranquil place, almost no traffic noise to be heard, and that is why he choose to set up the studio there. While entering there, a great impression touched our hearts. 4. Tight schedule: Besides written data, Making extensive interviews was one of our research methods. At school we interviewed our principal, administration heads, etc.. Grandfather Ah Sam will travel to Tahiti to seek for inspiration for his painting motives in December. Mr. young, the chief executive officer of Quanta Cultural and Educational Foundation and Mr. Wong, the instructor of Team African Drumbeating, had been busy with tight working schedules, and so it was sometimes hard to have time available for them to accept our interview. After all, we have made interviews with them and …
5. Our Project Sound Bite
The purpose of this project is to arouse the local residents for the arts and environment. We act not only researchers but also observers, to lead people experiencing the artist's works and life, and his love for the ground. And we also hope to transmit such love to more people.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
1. Expression, Communication and Sharing: We were passive learners, knowledge accepters. but this time we did the research ourselves. Due to research seminars held very often, our group members had learned to pinpoint the theme of this research and to make effective discussions. During the research period of brainstorming, we reached good conclusions and upgraded our reading ability. 2. Respect, Concern and Teamwork: Most of our learning experience in school has not so much collaboration, but this research project changes us due to self-motivated study and first-handed data collection and sharing activities, such as interviews, group discussions, etc. We got back our self-introspection and awareness to our life and community. 3. Planning, Organization and Doing : Self-motivated learning is a life- long lesson we have learned from this research . It makes us recognize that we have the ability of planning and carrying on our own plan as well as obtaining recognition from others. 4. Making good use of Information and Technology: It was the period that we used computer workstations so frequently. We experienced what so-called information and technology education integrated into subject learning domain. Now we are good at operating workstations for surfing and collecting data on Internet.
|
