Category /  Our Community / Project's Summary / Computers and Internet
Problems Overcome / Sound Bite

1. Category: Local Specialties.

2. Description of "Our Community":

Jiancing Village is located in the center of Wanrung, Hualien County, with Silin Village in the north, Wanrung Village in the south, Nanping Village, Fenglin Township in the east, and Central Mountain Range in the west. Jiancing Village is the smallest village in the township where residents are unsophisticated and hospitable. Approximately more than 90% of the residents in the village are Truku people. The Truku people are now highly populated in Sioulin Township and Wanrung Township in Hualien County, and a few of them reside in other villages, Lishan Village in Chuosi Township and three villages in Jian Township – Chingfeng, Nanhua, and Fusing.

In terms of the labor structure in Jiancing Community, most of the residents engage in agricultural, industrial, and service industries. There is no specific industrial operation in the community, and the labor forces have to look for working opportunities outside the community. As a result, the family functions in the community are incomplete, resulting in many educational problems and the population’s sense of loss. Therefore, the role and status of our school are particularly important. In addition to taking into account the physical and psychological development of children in the community, our school should also attach importance to the thematic courses of local culture and cooperate with private and government units, in order to systemically preserve the culture of Truku people.

Our school established a cultural club to explore and investigate the culture, and the research projects of many themes have been completed and published, including Truku weaving, Truku rituals, Truku hunting, and Truku facial tattoo. Our school instructs students in basic academic abilities through education process, which also enables them to indirectly obtain abundant cultural intelligence.[up]

3. Summary of Our Project:

This project introduced the cuisine culture of Truku people and conveyed the Truku culture through the sharing of respondents and the text or image records of the knowledge and cooking skills of Truku cuisine culture.

The food culture of Truku people is simple and environmental-friendly. They can live on the ecosystem nurtured by the nature. Briefly speaking, they will use any ingredient in their living environment to cook food. In the past, they lived a self-sufficient life without intentionally hunting a large number of animals or collecting excessive amount of wild vegetables and fruits. It is their common belief to obey the ecological laws of Nature.

In recent years, because in-depth tourism and healthy food are quite popular in Taiwan, Truku people have started to think about how to bring tourism into their tribe. With the assistance from public departments and enthusiasts in the tribe, the cultural ecology and industry of the tribe have been activated and put into marketing. Although there isn’t any natural and ecological landscape in Jiancing Village and its economic value of sporadic industries is limited, there are diversified cultural ecology and valuable industries in the areas where the Truku people reside.

This year, our school selected traditional cuisine of the tribe as the research theme to provide courses where students can experience local cuisines and to conduct interviews. The sharing of female community volunteers and the person in charge of local cuisine enabled all the students to understand the traditional food in the past and creative cuisines in modern days. Moreover, the introduction to the tribe’s cuisine restaurants also enabled them to better understand the history and ecological landscape. More importantly, all the text or image records were transformed into knowledge and posted on the information platform to be shared with the world. More people can understand the cultural insights into Truku people from the perspectives of conveyance, respect, education and affection.[up]

4. Our Computers and Internet Access:

Our school supports wireless Internet access, and the computer classroom is equipped with high speed fiber broadband. In Taiwan, which is now a country with advanced information technology, most Internet access problems have been solved. Our school upgraded the computer information technology equipment in 2011, and purchased equipment for interviews, such as video cameras, sound recorders, and digital cameras. Students have a complete set of interview tools in groups.

Our school has received outstanding awards in the Cyberfair for the past few years. One major reform is to include the Cyberfair project into the school curriculum planning, which teaches students about the use of information media, interview skills, upload of research records, and webpage making in class sessions. The school has established community websites at the Ministry of Education and Facebooks, allowing students groups to upload afterthoughts, reports, and comments.

By integrating the curriculum, hardware, and software, the teachers and students can produce reports and complete assignments for the project theme, and publish their learning experiences and afterthoughts. It is difficult to collect data and organize data during the research process, however, it is the process of knowledge creation and sharing, and all of us enjoyed the process.

5. Problems We Had To Overcome:

(1) Technical difficulties:

1. Problem: there are numerous files on the sound recorder and video camera after the interviews that need to be transferred to the computer, organized, and converted. These works require more time than the class sessions. If these works are regarded as a part of the curriculum, it is too time-consuming for the students.

2. Solution: the course content strengthens the instruction on the use of video camera, digital camera, and sound recorders, as well as file transmission. In February, lecturers have been invited to teach related courses, which have benefited the students. If these works cannot be arranged into hands-on courses, the teachers and students would share the workload. The teachers would transfer the files to the computer, and organize and convert the files, whereas the students are responsible for transcribing the interviews.

(2) Reaching consensus:

1. Problem: every year, the Cyberfair project is a presentation of the research efforts, and the team should face the work with a positive attitude. The project covers a wide range of work, including meetings, division of work, data collection, interview skills, upload of afterthoughts, operation of information equipment, organization of digital data, image processing, webpage making, etc. These works exceed the scope of regular teaching environment and learning scenarios. The members of the project team may feel helplessness and frustration.

2. Solution: the school has established a teacher organization for research projects, which integrates the internal and external manpower, materials, and funding resources. The organization holds regular work reviews and forums. Building mental toughness and seeking school administrative supports are very important. Without mental toughness, the team members would feel exhausted, and be unable to finish the works; without administrative support, the teachers and students would be working alone, and eventual be exhausted.   

(3) Interview outlines:

1. Problem: the interview outlines must match the research theme, while the theme is determined based on a large amount of reference materials. Students have insufficient data collection and organization ability. Finding answers would be easy for them, but transforming the data collected into interview outlines is difficult for them.

2. Solution: the guidance of the teacher is very important. When search for information on the Internet, the information must be read carefully, in order to ensure that the information matches the research theme, and facilitate the interviews.

(4) Project planning:

1. Problem: this is the fifth time for this school to enter the Cyberfair. In the past, the director served as the project head. However, due to the busy schedule of the director, the project progress fell behind, especially the report upload time. If the reports are not made in time, the subsequent reports and works may not be completely with sufficient time.

2. Solution: in order to complete this project and maintain the educational features of this school, besides establishing teachers’ learning community, we asked other staffs to serve as the project head, expecting the project head to lead the research team with a different leadership style and perspective. The teacher community has established trust mechanism, and the teachers took turns to be the project head. The experienced teachers would also share their experiences.  

(5) Funding:

1. Problem: in the past years, with the teachers took the students on a field trip, the teachers had to pay for the transportation, meals and beverages, insurance, gifts for the interviewees, and even the interview tools, which are extra burdens to the teachers.

2. Solution: since this year, the school has applied to the private children’s’ welfare organization for subsidies, which include transportation and fuel costs, insurance, hourly compensation for the interviewees, meal and snacks, etc. With the assistance of the school administrative personnel and private organization, the teachers of the research team can focus on the project, without worrying about the funding. 

(6) Language and expression:

1. Problem: after using the Mind Map to complete the interview outlines, the students had problems in questioning the interviewees during the interviews. The poor expression would make the interviewees unable to answer the questions. During the transcribing process, as the vocabulary of the students is limited, the transcripts contain many errors, which causing problems in the subsequent works.

2. Solution: the teachers served at the interviewees for practice, and instructions were given afterwards. If the students still had problems during the actual interviews, guidance was given immediately, and the teachers would explain the students’ situations to the interviewees. The transcripts would be reviewed and corrected by the teachers. 

6. Our Project Sound Bite:

Li-jie Yan

I joined the Sinbaiyang Cultural Club because the teachers would take us to interviews and guide us to search for information online. We could also eat delicious foods. It’s very interesting. [up]

YI-hsuan Lin

I’m very excited to participate in the Cyberfair project because I could compete students from other countries at Cyberfair, and I could win honor for my school, as well as myself. I hope that our team could win an award, and that would be a memorable experience. After all the hard work of data collection, winning an award would make the efforts worthwhile. This year’s project theme is aboriginal food, and I’m very excited because I love aboriginal food. I believe that I could make this project a good one. Delicious food is an important part of our life, and making delicious foods requires full devotion.  [up]

Teacher De-lin Ai

This year’s Cyberfair project is under the theme of Truku food. As in the previous years, my objective of this project is to help the students learning about their tribal culture. The Cyberfair project not only could enhance the knowledge base of the students, but also bring new thoughts to the traditional culture and modern culture. The students always find the Cyberfair project meaningful, with a sense of achievement. For example, the owner of the Masai Restaurant expressed her persistence in the Truku food. From the interview, we learn about the traditional ingredients and the innovation in modern foods. Mr. and Mrs. Doyong built a paradise of fine cuisine by growing various food ingredients that we often heard but never seen before. Mr. Doyong gave interesting explanation on the food ingredients, which are valuable to our research. Mrs. Guo of Dageeli, despite of the various obstacles, managed to sustain the business through applications of subsidies and support from her family. It was regretful that Hongyeh High-raised House closed down, which showed that difficulty in managing aboriginal restaurants. The failure experience is also worth of learning. The students have cooperated to complete their tasks, and the learning experience will be memorable to them.   [up]

Director Shou-liang Hsu	Since I have been in the teaching position, I often accompanied students in performance and field visits. As the Chinese saying goes, “It is better to travel far than to read voluminously”. At every performance or field visit, I see smiles on students’ faces that I don’t see in school. Field trips can cultivate good learning atmosphere, and I enjoy leading the teachers and students to research trips. I also work my colleagues to design courses, especially meaning and goal-oriented activities. The students have learned how to develop interview outlines, how to conduct interviews, how to operate equipment (video camera, digital camera), how to communicate with others, as well as transcribing, software use, community website management, writing reports, at Sinbaiyang Cultural Club. I really envy them having the chance to be exposed to the course contents that are only offered in university. My colleagues have encouraged and simulated each other throughout the course, and I hope that our teaching competency and students’ learning outcomes could both be enhanced. [up]
Teacher Ke-yu Chen	This was just a simple succession of courses designed for teachers and students to learn and research together, but in this process of mutual learning, I once again experienced the value and uniqueness of cultural heritage. We learned of tribal plants and prepared them so they became delicacies on the table, and the inexpressible joy we felt was not only manifested on the children’s faces, but evidenced by the fulfillment and gratefulness we felt in our minds and bodies. I sincerely hope that this learning process will leave beautiful, indelible memories for our tribe and our people. [up]
Teacher Xin-yi Li	Our school has been participating in the Cyberfair for five years, with the guidance of a team of outstanding teachers, the students have each year achieved excellent records, and I am deeply honored to have joined such an outstanding team in exploring traditional Truku cuisine. As a member of the Truku tribe, I am often asked, “How much do you know about your culture?” and more often than not I answer with a smile, because I really am a Truku that knows very little about my own culture. Since childhood I have always been taught by my parents to be an obedient child and student, to learn diligently, and spare my parents from worry. My parents speak Mandarin Chinese to me, therefore I am awkward at speaking our tribal language. As for the “traditional foods” we researched for our school’s Cyberfair project, I could only recognize a few dishes out of many, and it was only because we participated in this project that I found out the gourmet dishes of our tribe were, in the past, only available during special festivities. Through their marketing efforts, innovations and incessant improvements, restaurants have finally successfully built names for themselves and developed menus that truly appeal to tourists and visitors. I hope that our interviews of these restaurants may contribute to our continuous efforts in promoting the cuisine of our traditional culture. [up]
Teacher Chen-yuan Li	When You Close Your Eyes Take from the mountains, live with the land, that’s the spirit of a Truku life. The plants growing along the mountain streams yield abundant tender shoots that make fresh, green ingredients. The animals that abound in hills and valleys provide the tender meat completely free of PayLean. Prepared in the simplest ways, these ingredients are made into dishes that elucidate their superior natural flavors, flavors that linger both on your tongue and in your mind. The aboriginal restaurant owners that travel between townships and villages persevere in preserving tradition, in promoting their indigenous culture and heritage, the spirit of which called forth great respect from the students. By experiencing traditional culture themselves, students not only learn of the rich tribal cuisine, how to eat healthy and be environmentally friendly, but also grow to hope that more people may also experience and appreciate the essence of Truku cuisine. A gourmand deeply touched by the rich flavors of tribal cuisine, Chen-yuan [up]