The mission of the marketing team is to popularize the platform.  Underprivileged children will be able to use the platform for learning.  We’ve had an interview with Mr Radiant Jiang and Ms Fang-Ting Chang, Teaching Specialists of Junyi.  Mr Jiang discovered his aspiration after meeting the children in Yuli Township, Hualien.  He wants to help more children.  Ms Fang-Ting Chang was a teacher in Longpu Elementary School in New Taipei City.  She wants to provide children with learning experience that is suitable to them.  They shared with us their experience and stories. 

      The society is a research group for tutoring service for indigenous people.  The Indigenous children have to go through tiring routine every day.  They start harvesting daylily before dawn until the evening.  They hardly have any time left for homework.  A lot of them are raised by grandparents instead of parents.  These grandparents speak in vernacular languages whereas these children do not.  The content the current schools are different from those in the old days when these grandparents were in school.  They cannot afford the phone charges for calling their parents.  Those children have nobody to seek guidance from as far as homework is concerned.  We went there to help those children during summer holidays when they had no school.

        I was leading a worry-free life at that time. I wanted to help supporting my family but my parents wanted me to focus primarily on pursuing knowledge so that I got to go to good college and find a good job.  When I visited Hualien, I noticed that people managed to find job even though they are not very well educated.

      I have been trying to learn to teach, to build relationships with children since I joined the Society of Tutoring Service for Indigenous People.  I initially thought teaching children is straight forward.  I thought it would be done once the class finishes reading the textbook even though that is boring.  I ran into a lot of problem subsequently and tried to improve myself by reading and surfing the internet.  For example, a child asked me for help in solving the question ¼ plus ½?  I wanted to know where he was stuck but he just looked at me and said nothing.  I wondered if he could put it on paper.  Do you think he would have done as I said?  I was upset.  I had tried my best but he still didn’t respond to me.  Children are afraid of or even frightened by teachers sometimes.  Eventually I took part in some external courses to polish my teaching skills.

      I wanted to help the children in rural areas.  When they are stuck in coursework, they would not take initiative to ask teacher.  If a teacher asks you to work out 20 questions in mathematics, you may think that is a lot.  What if the teacher asks you to finish a mission on the Junyi platform?  I am upset when I meet those who don’t finish homework especially the kind that pay no heed to my very strong words.  I asked myself if I was being too confrontational.  Do I have to soften up and reason with them?  They do not act upon it because they do not know how.
        Children love to play with handphones, computers instead of paper based homework.  Changing the paper and pencil to online exercise would give them a stronger motive.  The effect was apparent when I asked them to try out the platform.  The whole class played with the Junyi platform at the same time.  It was fun.  Their eyes lit up happily when they found out that they would be using the computers.  Other teachers used blackboard or projector as visual aid and seldom used computer.  The pupils knew that if the effect on learning is not good, computer as teaching aid would be considered incorrect.  Good examination results can be a good evidence for using computer based teaching.  We can show the results to headmaster, teachers that computer improves the learning experience for mathematics.  All pupils in Hualien sit for the ability assessment in every May.  Our pupils performed well and the whole class used the Junyi platform for learning mathematics eventually.

         I have joined Junyi for 2 years.  Marketing is about putting the Junyi platform in front of more teachers and pupil and enrolling more users.  The target audiences are mostly school teachers.  We basically preach to teachers instead of pupils.
        After you’ve learned during lesson and finished your exercise, you normally would not share what you’ve learned with your classmates.  When the class is big, teacher may ask you to assist other classmates.  Let’s assume that there are 6 pupils in a class.  Classmate A falls behind the most and needs more assistance.  Classmate A doesn’t get along with B.  A has finished his exercise while A needs help, but B doesn’t help A.  If B is forced to assist A, B would help but with grievance.  With the Junyi platform, B would be promoted to next level according to the mechanism of the platform.  Those who fell behind can be instructed on one-on-one basis.  The rest of the class would be given missions.  Classmates of similar level or good friends can form small groups in the class.  The course would be conducted according to the degrees of readiness of pupils while classmate A can be taken care of.