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1. Description of Our Team
Our group members are David (17), Vincent(16), Duc (17), Nhat (17). We are all in the St. Joseph's Institution Infocom club.
Although we are from different countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, we share the same passion in Information Technology (IT), web design to be specific.
For this reason, we decided to take part in Door to Diplomacy competition, which will not only improve our skill in web design but also enable us to contribute to the society by sharing our knowledge of world issues.
We divide ourselves based on our interests and strengths in various topics: David (peacemaking), Duc (Terrorism), Nhat (Singapore's role), Vincent (weapons of mass destruction). Mr. Wong is a helpful teachers in providing us with technology and his expertise.
2. Summary of Our Project
Our project is mainly about the world's safety and security, that is, how to achieve and maintain them.
We divided our topics into: peacekeeping efforts, terrorism, weapon of mass destruction and Singapore's role in maintaining world peace.
The peacekeeping efforts mainly talk about some of the world's famous peacemakers such as Aung San Suu Kyi and Mildred Norman. We discussed about their contributions in trying to establish the world peace so that eventually we may learn to do similar thing.
In terrorism part, we showed about how terrorists have caused destruction and damage throughout the world. Then we further discussed about various terrorists group in the world such as Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah. In the later part, we showed how the world combats terrorism.
Following on is the study on weapon of mass destruction(WMD) where we touch on the history and the past war that uses WMD. Also we discussed about the plan and treaties that are carried out, by the United Nation ,to prevent future misuse of WMD
To be more specific, we looked at our country's (Singapore) role in countering the terrorists' acts and providing peacekeeping efforts. For instance we talked about how Singapore has arrested some Jemaah Islamiyah members and prevented the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction through Singpore's strict rules.
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:more than 6
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
As our team members consist of students from different countries, we had some difficulties in communicating with each other. Although we use English to communicate in Singapore, English is our second language, so we had to take some time to understand each other.
The second difficulty is the limited acces to internet. Despite the fact that the school provides us with computers and internet access, we can only use it during our co-curricular activites time or certain times after school. Thus, we did not have enough time to search for all the information and improve the content as well as design of our website.
Lastly is the difficulty to balance between our academic work and finishing the web project itself.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
Our participation in the Doors To Diplomacy has widen our knowledge on global issues affecting all of us.
6. How did your activities and research for this Doors to Diplomacy Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
Our school follows the Cambridge O-Level Syllabus. One of the subject is Social Studies that teaches about issues all around the world. It also teaches us to think more about how to contribute to society by each of us playing our parts. Our projecet follows the curriculum to a certain extent as we discuss about causes and effects of terrorism and how to prevent the terrorist acts.
From this project, we learnt about various ways to achieve and maintain peace. This makes us more appreciative towards the peacemakers all around the world. We also learnt how to effectively use technology to spread useful information to others.
Also, we think that using internet to teach and learn is more effective than traditional methods as much more information can be exchanged quickly. For instance we can receive news from places tens thousands kilometres away from us with a single click on a computer.
Nevertheless, not all information on the internet is reliable and some even teaches us the wrong thing. Thus, although internet provides an effective way in teaching and learning, we need to be careful in taking in the informtion. Otherwise, the learning process would adversely affect us eventually.
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