Project Information
Link to the Homepage of Looking For Light in the Dark
http://librarywork.taiwanschoolnet.org/gsh2012/gsh7128/index.htm
Link to the official website of Wuxing Elementary School
Project Completion Date：Feb 22, 2012
School：Taipei Municipal Wuxing Elementary School
Location：Xinyi District, Taipei
Instructor： Sue-ching Li, Zhen-Yu Lin, Jia-Xiang Liang, and Su-Lan Yao
There are nine students attending this research project:All these students are 11 years old.
Contact to the research project:nathalie@wsps.tp.edu.tw
Project Overview
The contest category we are attending is：Community Groups and Special Populations
Description of Our Community：
Wuxing Elementary School is located in Xinyi District, which is the heart of Taipei City. The natural landscape of the nearby Elephant Mountain is rich and beautiful. The natural and cultural atmospheres are both satisfied in the area. For years, the surrounding area of Wuxing Elementary School has been developed into a prosperous community, which is a mixture of residence and commerce. Taipei Medical University Hospital and City Hall Station of MRT are both only 10 minutes’ walk away from the school. The Research Project of “Looking for Light in the Dark” starts from Wuxing Elementary School. We interviewed people in the cafeteria of the Hospital, the massage stations, and the beverage shops on Guang-Fu S. Road, which only take 10 minutes’ driving from the school. We also take MRT to the banks in Shuanglin Station and Benqiao District in New Taipei City. Thanks to the convenient public transportation in Taipei, we can conduct our research not only in the campus but to expand to the great Taipei district. We are absolutely looking forward to that one day all the visual-impaired friends can enjoy the convenient travelling in Taipei.
Summary of Our Project：
One of our attendee students, Yen Qing, her father’s eyes will go blind soon. She wants to make a website related to visual-impaired people. She hopes to understand them better through making the website; moreover, to explore how our surroundings can be improved to be much friendlier to these visual-impaired friends. We gathered the related information and news articles online, after we figured out who we should interview with, we contact with them and ask for permissions. After receiving the permissions, a series of interview missions were undertaken. We also focus on the comparisons of the interview process to the accessibility facilities found in daily life, and then to review whether there are improvements among those facilities. On the other hand, we designed questionnaires for our students for the first statistic record. By doing this, we got a better idea about how the elementary students think about visual-impaired people and accessibility facilities. In the end, based on the interview content, we designed our website structure.
Our Computer and Internet Access：
The Internet Access in the Campus: Students and teachers use local area network, T1, in Wu Xing Primary School. There is a virtual host in the computer lab. Teachers can set each computer to cooperate with the learning schedule process before class and make students learn more efficiently.
Problems We Had To Overcome：
We were hoping that the website can match the theme of the research project, to make visual-impaired people can browse “Looking for Light in the Dark” website without any inconvenience. Due to the complicated rules of designing a friendly website, students haven’t been trained into those advanced skills. Students only learn how to use photo-editing programs in grade 11. They haven’t learned the video editing, animation, and web design.
Our Project Sound Bite：
At first, we thought that “Looking for Light in the Dark” is a mission-impossible. But we made it eventually! Just like one of our interviewee, Miss Zhen, she told us that as long as you want, blind people are capable for anything. So, we should learn from Miss Zhen, to believe in ourselves and try our best to do everything we want to do.
Project Elements
How the Research Project combines with the Nine-Year Integrated Curriculums?
| Nine-Year Integrated Curriculums | The Combination |
|---|---|
| Language Field |
To enhance the listening, speaking, reading, and writing ability from interviewing and writing articles. |
| Mathematics Field |
To train the basic ability of statistics from gathering and extract information from the questionnaires. |
| Social Study Field |
To learn how to respect and care the minorities in the society by interviewing and doing researches. |
| Integrative Activity Field |
To train the ability of teamwork and enhance EQ by designing the website in a group. |
| Art & Humanity Field |
To help students enhance their sense of beauty and art taste by editing and beautifying the photos on the website. While visiting Mr. Cho and his Clarinet, students learn how to appreciate great music by understanding the performance of the street performers. |
| Health & Physical Education Field |
To learn the importance of our eyes and how to take care of ourselves by understanding the blindness reasons behind each visual-impaired person. |
| Science & Technology Field |
To enhance computer skills by designing the website, the skills like typesetting, photo-editing, and video-editing are |
What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your Cyberfair project?
We use digital cameras, cellphones, computer programs, such as web design, illustration, video and audio, also the office programs. Library, books and newspapers, also the interview on the spot are also applied. Of course, the online resource plays the main role in our research project. Our website is mostly designed in Dreamweaver. We edited our pictures through the Painter, PhotoCap5.0, and Microsoft Office Picture Manager. And the videos were edited in the Windows Live Movie Maker. It is truly more efficient to use online learning programs than the traditional way. Because the first step of all our interviews starts from the internet communication. Without internet, we would not find so many interview targets. If we contact them by mails or phone calls, we could not complete our interview task within three months. Also, it was really efficient to read over the information we gathered online before the interview. The research project makes us experience the great convenience and the importance of the internet.
In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your Cyberfair project both on-line and in person.
Through the interview on the spot, we listened to the voice of these visual-impaired people, and to see the living environment for the visual-impaired people in Taipei. As a gogogo “ambassador” of Wu Xing Primary School, we want to lead everyone out of the original life, and to care the visual-impaired friends in this unfamiliar field. We want to introduce these people to everyone, and to let everyone understand the unknown parts of their lives. Our mission is to find light in the dark in this project.
What has been the impact of your project on your community?
According to the questionnaires, we discovered that there is a gap between the stereo types our general students hold to the visual-impaired people and the reality. We found the importance of the interview. Since the first-hand interview information will be even more valuable and true than the information spread online. The online information is only a media. We should seek truth from facts. Through the research project of “Looking for Light in the Dark”, we found that there are actually so many visual-impaired people related matters around the school. We totally had no idea about this previously. So, to open your heart and to care more about things around you will lead you a world with more and more explorations.
Respect to the Intellectual Property Rights and the References
Every single word and picture on the website of “Looking for Light in the Dark” is written and shot on our own. We did not re-post or take any online articles as references. Before interviewing, we told the interviewees that we will put the interview context on the website of “Looking for Light in the Dark”. After we got a firmly “yes” from our interviewees, then we let our recorder and camera start rolling. We sincerely understand and respect to the importance of the intellectual property right. We intended to use the music work of Mr. Wu Bai Yi as the background music of the website. Mr. Wu also agreed with that and sent his positive response through phone calls and Facebook. Due to a limit of time, we haven’t received the copyright license agreement from Mr. Wu, so we haven’t put the music on our website so far, which also shows the respect to Mr. Wu, the original composer.
Our Discoveries
After interviewing for the research project of “Looking for Light in the Dark”, we found that there are actually so many visual-impaired people related matters around the school. We totally had no idea about this previously. So, to open your heart and to care more about things around you will lead you a world with more and more explorations.
OurDiscoveries Surprises
Actually the visual-impaired people can surf and shop online, also play the computer games with turning off the screen. We might focus on this direction and go deeper to develop a more convenient online shopping system and more interesting computer games for the visual-impaired people in the future.
Project Contribution
| Participants | Work items | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
|
Students |
1 To come out with the theme of the website 2.o design the structure of the website 3.To discuss the title of the web design of competition and come up with the name of the group 4.To search information and news articles online 5.To design the questionnaires 6.To ask questions, record videos and audios during the interviews 7.To write the feedback 8.To make name card 9.To discuss related questions and problems 10.To beautify the photos and write descriptions |
60% |
|
Interviewee |
To provide the valuable information and share personal experiences |
20% |
|
Instructor |
To assist students with the web design and call team conferences. |
10% |
|
Parents |
the financial support to the interview project. Yen Qing’s father provides the consultation. Wen Hong’s and Ming Han’s parents, and Ru Chun’s father accompanied the team members to interview the Beep Baseball players. |
5% |
|
Grade 11 Students in WuXing |
To answer the questionnaires |
5% |
