1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project?
We used a variety of tools to create our project. We used four laptops for the majority of our work, which was to research, create our website, and write our information/project narrative. We also used our school phone and mobile to call attractions, to ask about economic and tourist data. We used a video recorder to create our introduction movie, computer software to produce this movie and make our bibliography, and pamphlets and brochures to assist our research. These tools helped immensely, as we were able to easily find all our information, and then compile and produce it. We already had all these tools available. By far the most used tool was our laptops, as we used these all the time to research and make our website.
2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person.
We acted as ambassadors and spokespersons for our Cyberfair project both online and in person through making phone calls and emails to various organisation we felt could help us with the project. We made phone calls and emailed various radio and TV hosts to ask them for publicity for our website, as well as to see if they could run a story on our website so that the people of Sydney would know we were doing a website on the city. Unfortunately, we only received an affirmative response from Alan Jones on 2GB, whilst the others (7 News, 9 News and the ABC) did not respond or accept. On the call to 7 News, we told them that we were students working on an international competition, and we heard laughter on the other side before the call was cut! We also called up and emailed newspapers to ask for publicity for our website (Hornsby Advocate, North Shore Times, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and the Daily Telegraph), with us representing our Cyberfair project and talking about why we felt it should receive publicity. Most newspapers responded positively to our project and congratulated us on the work. The private organisations that we contacted included the Sydney Aquarium, Wildlife Sydney, Sydney Markets, Sydney Fish Market, Merlin Entertainments and Luna Park Sydney, all of whom were happy to provide us with information for our project when asked. Finally, the main government bodies that we contacted for information were the NSW Minister for Tourism, Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, NSW Board of Tourism, City of Sydney Council and the NSW Department of Trade and Investment, which all were again happy to provide us with information for the project. It was a daunting experience, talking to adults through official means about our project, but we are happy with what we achieved and are happy with the experience gained.
3) What has been the impact of your project on your community?
The main communities that have been affected by our website, and out tourism outreach, are Knox Grammar School – our school and the Australian public. The students of Knox now have a greater understanding of what Sydney has to offer to Australia’s tourism. The team has successfully shown to other people the importance of tourism to Sydney – and its effects. The students and peer of Knox are surprised of a lot of places and attractions that they did not know of that were very interesting Australia. Another group, competing in the Doors to Diplomacy, had expressed that our website was very insightful, and was describing the greatness of Australia. It has educated many of Knox’s students, and has given insight on Sydney’s attractions and landmarks. The Sydney community is a very large socio-economic group that has contributed in helping our website. Many of the members of tourism organisations kindly gave us some very insightful information. We believe that the community can be proud of the work that we have just completed and also learn and visit these tourist attractions. Asking many friends and family from different areas of Sydney, they believe that the site that we created, allows people understand the real culture of Australia. Overall, our team believes that we have positively impacted the community as it gave an insight to all the people, and can see its greatness.
4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
Our project involved a mix of teachers, students and other helpers in the creation of our website on the local attractions of the City of Sydney. During the project, we received much help from our school, Knox Grammar School, with the Dean of Studies Mrs Yager and ICT Integration Master Mr Beilharz. Our team of four students also received much help from a Doors to Diplomacy team from our school running concurrently with, which were Jerson Balaton, Christian Holman, Michael Liu and Dan Schofield. Finally, we received much help from various organisations and government departments that we inquired for our research on tourism.
Special thanks are in order for Mrs Yager, who organised the participation of our team in the Cyberfair competition. She was involved with the administration and general guidance of our team, registering us for the competition and also giving us advice on how to handle the project. She was also of immense help when she organised a full day incursion for us to work on this project. We thank her sincerely for the help we received from her. Mr Beilharz must also be thanked as he assisted us with the IT aspect of creating the website, and was also involved with giving us a room to work in during the incursion. His help was greatly appreciated and we thank him sincerely for that. The organisations and government departments must also be thanked as their responses were of immense help. Throughout the project, we received responses from various organisations such as the NSW Board of Tourism, Sydney Town Hall, City Council of Sydney, NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Sydney Aquarium. We thank them all for replying to us and providing us with much needed official data to authenticate our website.
5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional)
We learnt that there were a lot of things about Sydney that the group did not know about. This was because the group had not visited all the landmarks and attractions in Sydney – mainly due to business in lives. Sydney has a lot to offer, and we believe that we can now explain what Sydney has to offer. There were other skills and morals we had grown in such as patience and teamwork. Having previously worked together, we had already known our skills and strengths. Although we knew that we would work together well, having spent the whole day together, we had to be patient and understanding that each of us were tired and would easily get frustrated. This taught us that we needed to rest a lot and not to get too stressed. We were very surprised that we were able to finish the website so soon after just registering a week ago. We thought that it would take a while for us to complete it, and we were even worried that we would not even complete it by the due date. However, we strived very hard and were able to complete it very easily. In the end, we were very happy with our website, as it portrayed the exact result we were looking for. The website, in our perspective, was excellent and was of a high standard.
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