Information About
Our Site
1. Link to
our CyberFair 99 Entry
2.
3. Link to our School Home Page
4. Date of
Project: March 31st, 1999
5. School: King's
English School KUMANODAI
District: Kumanodai
City:
Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan
6. Teachers or Classes:
Ms.Kana Masutani, Ms.Maho Shiraishi,
Mr.Shouhei Kajikawa, Mr.Naotake Takahashi,
Mr. Hiroki Ochiai, Mr.Kazuya Masuda,
Mr.Kazuki Shimizu, Mr.Takeru Iwamoto,
Mr. Munemasa Chosokabe, Mr.Terutaka
Akimoto
7. How
many students worked on this project? 10 students
8. Their
ages were: : 14 - 18 years of
age
9. Project
Contact Email: masaki@dokidoki.ne.jp
Project Overview
1. We entered our Web site in CyberFair
Category: Local Specialities
2. Description of "Our
Community"
Our city of Matsuyama locates
in the south-west of Japan on Shikoku Island, where Ehime Prefecture
lies. The growing number of its population, approx. 450,000, is the
middle size city in Japan. And it enjoys rich nature and the easy
access to Kyushu Island by ferry boat or to the Honshu Main Island by
both ferry boats or the world famous and longest connected bridges
"SETOOHASHI BRIDGE". In the center of downtown, we have a beautiful
castle called Matsuyama Castle, and it has been loved by people of
Matsuyama many years since it completed its construction in
1602.
3. Summary of Our
Project
Our cyberfair project is called
"Time Machine MATSUYAMA" and it will describe the four main features
of Matsuyama City: Matsuyama Castle, Dogo Hot Spring, Downtown Area,
and Tobe Pottery through many events of its history. For example,
over 3,000 Russian POWs from the Russian-Japan War in 1904 were here
in Matsuyama and they were allowed to go outside the concentration
camp and enjoyed visiting to the oldest hot spring in Japan, Dogo Hot
Spring, or attended a bicycle race among the Japanese citizens, some
of them invited their family to Japan and lent houses near the camp.
And our city was once famous for the unbelievable hospitality among
those Russian soldiers who were fighting in the front line. Our
students made a field trip to these historical site in Matsuyama on
their bicycle this summer and report what they found there on our web
site. "Time Machine Matsuyama" will also take the readers back in
time in the post-war of Japan in Matsuyama with precious pictures
were taken by the residents at the time.
4. Our Internet Access
Our school has an ISDN line by
its own, but since we have asked our local companies for their help
for our project, our Internet provider, Magical Island, kindly
offered us a free space on their server computer for us to work with.
In the beginning of our work, we didn't have Local Area Network, but
we do have it now and it has been a great way for us to work on the
project.
5. Problems We Had To
Overcome
- English is not our most favorite
language
English is not our most favorite
language, specially when they are 14 or 15 years old. Since the
English writing skill of each student was different, we gave our
each student a sentence to translate it to English in every class.
First they made several simple Japanese sentences from what they
have found from their field trips, pictures, or stories we
heard.
- Getting the Budget to
Work
Last year, our cyberfair project was
self-supported. And we found that things you can do was limited.
And this year, we figured that we need some help from our
community to introduce our project and our city in the world
through the net. We visited local companies for their support, we
asked other students to donate their time and money. As we
introduced Okaido Shopping Arcade in our work, we visited people
at the office of the Association for Okaido Shopping Arcade, and
we demonstrated how we conducted the work and how it will be
introduced on the Internet.
- Copyright Awareness
There are many other interesting
pictures, and stories that we wanted to share. We asked our local
newspapaer company to introduce some picutres of Russian POWs in
Matsuyama in 1890s, but we could not get the permition to use them
on the Internet thought they allowed us to use other photos. But
is was a great lesson that there are rules that we must follow and
the rules will also protect us in many ways.
- Publicity
As we are working as "ambasadors" for
Matsuyama City, we believe that letting local people know more
about the International Schools CyberFair was one of our job. We
contacted several TV companies, and newspaper companies to
introduce about us and the CyberFair with the tools and
instructions given by the Global Schoolhouse. All the sttudents
were very nurvous when they were first appeared on TV, but they
really enjoyed being the "ambasadors."
6. Our Project Sound Bite
History is something we all
related to somehow, but also many of us often forget the connection
and live without it. The main reason our school worked on this
project was to re-establish the connection between our studnets and
the history of where we were born and we have been living for many
years. And we had our studnets to discover the interesting stories
have been taught for generations on their feet.
Project Elements
This section explains how your project
addressed the project elements found in the CyberFair Assignment to
Schools.
1) How did your activities and research
for this International School CyberFair project support your required
course work and curriculum requirements?
- How did this project fit into your
required school, district, or state curriculum
guidelines?
Since our school is a language school,
there is no official requirement. But our goal is to let our
students have the motivation to study and use English, and we
organized from field trips to text papers to study about our
project.
- What new skills did you
learn?
Network. Both for computers and for
human connections. Our computer system has been improved so that
our students now can use keyborads to input their commnets into
computers. We collected those as data through our Local Area
Network and put them together.
|
We love to use
Alphasmart keyboards.
|
|
|
You can transfer text
data to PC or Mac by simply connect them by a
cable.
|
For human connections, we learned that
asking people for information is still and probably the best
resoruce specially if we are looking for something local. We
wanted to use some photos of Okaido shopping Arcade in 1940's from
the Internet. We asked for the permition to use them but we were
allowed to use them only a part of that. We were frustlated. And
then, we kept asking if there is anyone who might have the kind of
photos we want. A couple of days later, we found out that one of
our adult students, Mrs.Mitsuru Kamikubota, used to live in the
Arcade before and after the WW2, and she allowed us to use her
family photos for our projects which we can find how people lived
around the area in those days.
|
A lady in
Kimmono
|
A man on a
motorbike
|
A meeting at
Bansuiso, the French-sytle building
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mitsuru
Kamikubota
|
Mitsuru
Kamikubota
|
Mitsuru
Kamikubota
|
- How does your project fit into the
requirements for your school or class?
All the stories about our city, we
translated them as much as we can, and we learned a lot through
the process.
- Has using the Internet for teaching
and learning been more effective than traditional methods?
If so, explain?
We think learning itself hasn't changed
much but its tools has developed a lot. It is important to keep up
with the technology but at the same time we are to cultivate our
own interests, view points, etc. Because we believe using the
internet is more effective if we can combine it with more field
work.
2) What information tools and
technologies did you use to complete your CyberFair
project?
- Tools we used:
- Alphasmart Keyboards
- Local Area Network
- RichLink Technology by Sentius Co.
- telephones
- TV and radio stations
- video and digital still
cameras
- digitizers and scanners
- tape recorders
- computer software
- libraries
- books, newspapers
- museums
- oral interviews
- Questions to Consider
- How did these tools help
you?
Time saving and could use as
effective tools for stundets to motivate
- Where did you locate each
tool?
Most of them are at our school,
except the RichLink Technology. We trasfered our raw data to
their server computer in California and have them processed.
Want to know more detail? Visit their website here
- Were any tools donated by
businesses or schools?
No. We would like to keep
asking.
- What were your most valuable
tools? Why?
Alphasmart keyboards. One was one of
the prizes we recieved from CyberFair 98. It gave our students
a new way for learning English. Since we loved it, we bought
another one for our class use. It is small so that we can
carry them anywhere outside, and it comes with spelling chcker
function. The most appearling poin is that it can hook into
either of PCs or Macintosh and send the text data to your
computer.
3) In what ways did you act as
"ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both
on-line and in person.
* An "ambassador" is a person who
represents his or her country or, in this case, school. In order to
accomplish this project your students probably contacted and talked
to people in your community... in person, through letters and phone
calls, and through email. During those contacts, students probably
had to tell them about this project and some of the other things that
you were doing at school.
In this section, tell about the different
ways that students contacted people in your community.
We would also like to hear about any
interesting anecdotes or stories or outcomes of those contacts. For
instance, did you get any visitors or donated services because of
your contacts? Are people impressed with the work that you are doing?
How did they tell you they are impressed?
Limit your comments to 300 words. If you
have a compelling story to tell, then create a Web page as part of
your project pages and make a link here.
4) What has been the impact of your
project on your community?
* Realizing that your web site may not have
been up very long, describe how your involvement in this project has
strengthened the "relationship" between your school and your local
community.
Questions to Consider
* How has your project made a
difference?
* What is unique about your presentation
within your community?
* Have people in your community learned new
things through your Web pages?
* Have other people around the world
learned new things about your community?
* Have you established some new working
relationships with people in the community? Who besides you and your
students has looked at your Web pages?
* What kind of feedback have you
received?
* How has your Web site helped them?
Be sure you tell about the good things that
your project has done at your school, among your parents, and within
your community... whether they have anything to do with technology or
not.
Limit your comments to less than 300 words.
If you have a compelling story to tell, then create a Web page as
part of your project pages and make a link here. **
5) How did your project involve other
members of your community as helpers and volunteers?
* Most CyberFair teams need lots of advice
and help to complete their entry... did yours???
Tell about your helpers: who they were, how
you found and asked them, how they helped. This is a great place to
give them a great big thanks. You can even link their stories to some
pictures if you have them. (Be sure you have their permission to
publish their pictures first, however.)
Also tell about those long-distance helpers
who provided assistance from across the miles via the
Internet.
Limit your comments to less than 300 words.
If you have a compelling story to tell, then create a Web page as
part of your project pages and make a link here. **
6) Discoveries, Lessons and
Surprises
* Optional Question 6: Were there
interesting discoveries you made, lessons you learned, or surprises
that occurred as a result of this project? If so, take the time to
share these insights and observations with your audience.
Limit your comments here to less than 300
words. If your answer is more than 300 words, then put it on a
separate web page as part of your project pages and make a hyperlink
to it from here.
If this question doesn't apply to you, then
delete it. **
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