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How did your activities and research for this International Schools Cyber Fair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?

We have witnessed the progress made by each member in the Cyberfair project, not only our students, but also teachers. With a series of activities, the teachers were faced with the eager eyes of students, who kept asking: “can we carry out other activities?” at that time we knew that the students were whole devoted to the project and the results were rewarding despite frustrations and disappointment. We have not only polished some skills and abilities, but also gained a lot of experience.

1. Our gains
1. For teachers:
(1) Better understanding of the community: Our teaching activities used to be confined within the school. Despite the rise of local knowledge teaching in recent years, the teaching methods were still traditional book reading, and the students knew little about their hometown. During the selection of the topic for the project, we have discussed a lot about the local community, and learnt a lot about our community.

  (2) Improved teaching skills: Such kind of activities involved a lot and required diversified abilities, such as research methods, tools, the application of internet, the integration, study and application of knowledge from various fields. The teachers have to work together to uphold the strengths and offset each other’s weakness. By the discussing and studying process, the teachers have improved their teaching sills as well as the leadership, which could only be gained by leading the students to carry out various activities.
2. For students:
    (1) Unusual study and experience: Unlike the lessons in class, the Cyberfair project was a completely different way of studying. According to the Nine-year education program, the ability of integration is stressed. In this project the students have learnt some experience from a series of activities, for example, how to cooperate with others for the work, how to demonstrate themselves in activities (playing the stone soup with a lot of rehearsals and preparation). Among others, one thing the students learnt in these activities was the importance of planning, which could facilitate the whole project to go smoothly. This experience could not be acquired from books.
    (2) Better understanding of the local people and hometown: Luchou used to remind people of flooding. However, there were many interesting people living there. Mr. Wen-fu Hsiao, the owner of A-fu’s Bookstore, was one of them. He tried his best to advocate reading, even when his bookstore was losing money. This project has helped us to gain a better understanding of the local people and hometown.

2. The combination of the Nine-year education program:

1. Chinese language skill: During the whole process of the activities, every aspect was deeply involved with the use of Chinese language, including writing daily log, management of the website content, designing of questionnaires, interviewing skills, summary, writing reports, etc. So the students have polished their language skills (reading, speaking and writing).
2. Social knowledge: Based on the school, we approached the community, exploring the stories of the local people, and gained a better understanding of the humanistic features of Luchou. We identified the problems we were faced during the process, and tried to solve them on our own.
3. Knowledge about the nature and our lives: By searching on the internet, field interviews, audio recording, photographing by DC and DV, we have learnt to deal with the power of modern science and technology. With this project, the students were trained how to observe, raise questions, make plans and summaries, analyze the results, cooperate and coordinate with each others. Their creative ability and the spirit of science were also polished. Now they have tasted the pleasure of being initiative and independent in exploration.
4. Art and humanistic knowledge: By designing the posts and the website, the students have improved their creative ability and artistic taste.
5. Comprehensive skills: During the activities, the students were allowed to express themselves and think over their experience, and learn to attain their goals with cooperation and coordination.
6. Health and sports: The interviews required the careful planning of time, agenda and place in advance, and the proper attitude towards interviewees. This would help the students’ personal development and lives in future.
7. Information technology: the students made use of various information skills to search, sort, analyze, integrate, demonstrate and use data. The information technology has become an important tool for them to expand their study and communicate with others. The design of the website also helped them to improve their IT skills.

3. School program and community classroom

1. School program: According to the Grade 1-9 Curriculum, 20% of the curriculum is decided by the school. The Cyberfair project was a good project worthy of the participation of all students and teachers. The students demonstrated their vigor and eagerness in the activities as it is another way for them to learn from their lives. We should advocate such kind of education to promote the diversified culture and knowledge.
2. Community classroom: Community is a classroom itself. This has become an important topic in the field of education in recent years. Different from the past education on local community, which was usually confined within the place we lived or the culture and special products of the hometown, the community classroom leads the students out of classroom and teaches them knowledge by practice and experience. Moreover, apart from understanding the hometown, it also stresses the feeling towards the hometown, and the role you play in its history. The students are taught to be proud of their hometown culture and promote it among the community. It is an important mission of the Cyberfair project.

What information tools & technologies did you use to complete your Cyber Fair project?
Tools	Usage
Digital disc	Data backup and documentation
Audio recorder	Record interviews.
Telephone, mobile phone	Communicate with interviews and project members
Internet	Search for data, E-mail, transfer of website documents
Digital camera	Photograph the activities.
DV	Record the play of the Stone Soup, record the interviews
Video card	Collect the video records in computer
Printer	Print data, make posts and cards
Copy machine	Copy materials
Computer	Write reports, search data on the internet, process images, make statistic analysis, etc.
Computer software	Namo-making webpage, SwitshMax- making animation, PhotoImpact- image processing, Microsoft Excel—questionnaire statistic analysis, making charts, Microsoft Word- writing daily log, Microsoft powerpoint—making reports ......

In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your Cyber Fair project both on-line and in person?

(1) Promotion activities in classes and community

We invited students from grade five, four and two to attend the entertainment hall of the school to watch our play, the Stone Soup. After that, we asked questions to impress them and reward those who were active. So they could become more interested in reading after enjoying your performance.

Furthermore, we also performed in the community during holidays for big audience, and called for support of the community people for our reading-promotion activities, which could bring about more resources for our school.

We were ambassadors to promote reading in the community

(2) Story-telling activities in low and middle grade classes
Based on our paintings, we made a digital edition by Powerpoint to introduce the touching stories of A-fu and played it among students of low and middle grades. It told about a man who started as a poor boy and never stopped his struggle for his dream of building a reading world for children. These students were deeply moved and actively participated in our interactive activities. We found they were really talented and creative.
(3) Interviews
we visited Mr. Wen-fu Hsiao, story tellers in the bookstore and Chungyi Elementary School. We also invited Teacher Shu-ying Tsai to Lujiang Elementary School for our interview. With these interviews people became aware that a group of students were working hard to pursue reading resources and promote reading eagerly.
(4) Reading online

We build a special Book Club page on the website of our school. We hope students could share their reading experience and happiness here.
(5) Reading volunteers
We hope that the reading volunteers in our school could establish a long-term reading volunteer organization. So we made questionnaires and issued invitations for the school master and director to attend the meeting in which the story-teller in Chungyi Elementary School, Aunt Yancui, made a speech. We made a lot of preparation works for the meeting, such as writing report and analyzing questionnaires. Aunt Yancui talked about the establishment of story-teller organization in Chungyi Elementary School, story-telling skills, and directly interacted with leaders of the school. The reading volunteers were also very active in the meeting. We were so moved that we promised to try our best to promote reading in Lujiang Elementary School. Several aunts volunteered to establish a reading volunteer organization. We were very happy to see that our efforts were rewarded.

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

At the beginning, seldom people around us knew about A-fu’s Bookstore or its location. We thought this was terrible: a fairy-tale bookstore was so ignored by people, was Luchou really a culture desert?
During the project, we interviewed Mr. Wen-fu Hsiao, story-tellers in the bookstore and Chungyi Elementary School, and Teacher Shu-ying Tsai. By walking out of school and introducing people into the school, the students built a sound bond with the local people. We hope the participation of students, teachers and reading volunteers could bring deep into their minds two core spirits.

1. The humanistic spirit
By playing the digital paintings, students were aware of Mr. Wen-fu Hsiao’s love toward his hometown and his struggle. Students need such a model to follow.
2. Reading spirit
Students were made aware that Luchou was by no means a culture desert. Many people were working hard to improve our reading ability and share the pleasure of reading. We could promote the reading spirit by the webpage we made.

Local media interviewed our project

How the local people provide any assistance for the project?

We are grateful towards:

1. the A-fu couple of A-fu’s Bookstore, who were generous to our disturbance and supportive towards our activities;
2. story-tellers in A-fu’s Bookstore and the story-telling organization of Chungyi Elementary School, who provided valuable materials and suggestions for us;
3. students and teachers who participate in our bookmark designing activity. They not only supported our work, but also designed beautiful bookmark for the A-fu’s painting story, promoting the reading in school by exhibiting their work.
4. reading volunteers in our school, who received our questionnaire investigation and provided us with many valuable suggestions and opinions about establishing a reading volunteer organization in our school
5. our respectable schoolmaster and director, who gave their selfless support to our activitiy, attended the volunteer discussion meeting and promised to offer further support. Without their encouragement and support our project would be impossible.
6. Teacher Shu-ying Tsai, who accepted our interview and gave us encouragement and support;
7. students in Class Five of Grade Five, who provided assistance in various activities. We also give our gratitude toward students from Class One Grade Four, who participated in the performance, and four students from Class 18 Grade four, who participated in the painting.

Intellectual property rights

All contents in the website were edited by project members. Those involve interviews are published with the consent of interviewees. Relevant literatures were noted for its origin and relevant website to protect the rights and interests of the original writers. Except for those taken by the project members, the photos and paintings were published with the consent of original authors. The paintings of bookmarks are published with the consent of original designers.

Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises

At the beginning, we thought the Cyberfair project was just about collecting materials, editing webpage, and conducting interviews. Gradually, with the help of teachers, we were involved into activities for the establishment of a school reading volunteer organization! We established our own online Book Club, staged our own performance, carried out painting story and bookmark designing activities, and held a reading volunteer discussion meeting. We felt the influence we made. We were really lucky to participate in this meeting.
Furthermore, throughout the process we had to work together. Now we realize the importance of team spirit. Even though there were many difficulties, but by working together we overcame them all. It also gave us a sense of achievement.