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Title: Journey to Singapore's Yesteryears (Project ID:
2891) 7 students, ages 15-16 worked together to complete this CyberFair project on March 21, 2003. They have participated in CyberFair in the following year(s): 1990, 2000, 2001, 2002 Classes and Teachers: Mr. Alvin You E-Mail contact: itclub@vs.moe.edu.sg School: Victoria School Our School's Web Site: http://vs.moe.edu.sg
1. Description of "Our Community" Our local community is the Republic of Singapore, an island state on the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia, in a central strategic location in Southeast Asia. Singapore is known for one of the busiest seaports in the world and her world-class Changi Airport. Singapore has no natural resources, our only resource is our citizens. With a population of 4.4 million, Singapore has a very high populat0ion density on a land area of a mere 692.7 sq km. Our local community is made up of a multi-racial harmonious society. There are four main races in Singapore, namely, the Chinese (76.7%), Malays (14%), Indians (7.9%), and others including Eurasians (1.4%). This also means that there are many religions in Singapore, such as Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Taoism and Confucianism. The diverse cultures that exist in Singapore thus lead to a variety of local and foreign delicacies, traditions and festivals. The racial harmony that exists in Singapore shows how united Singaporeans are.
Singapore, although a small country, has a rich history. The Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, together with the National Heritage Board and its arm of Museums, constantly promote our national heritage through educational outreach programmes. Also, the Ministry of Education included Social Studies as part of our education curriculum, allowing students to better understand the roots of Singapore. The National Education programme instils loyalty in students and let students learn more about the importance of history in Singapore. Our project is about the educational outreach programmes in the community that celebrates the importance of the Historical Landmarks, Street Names and other landmarks in Singapore. These programmes are organised by the National Heritage Board and the various Government Ministries in Singapore. Our project describes the history of the various historical landmarks in the Singapore Civic District in downtown Singapore. Also, we will talk about the roots of the names of roads and streets in different parts of our community. Some of these places are popular among students in Singapore. Our project hopes to help the younger generations of students in
Singapore and foreigners to better understand and be familiar with
the history of our local community. In doing so, students will be
able to get to know the roots of their country well, and hence realise
and understand the history of landmarks related to other races and
cultures. Thus, students are able to understand one another better
through education, and this unites the different cultures
and people. Also, Singaporeans would get to know and be proud of
the unique historical landmarks in Singapore. 3. Our Computer and Internet Access
4. Problems We Had To Overcome We had to take time off our busy school lives to work on this CyberFair project. Firstly, we had trouble deciding on the category as each of us had different opinion on the categories. We had some arguments and initially, we actually decided on Local Attractions. However, after some consideration on what to do for the project and some deep thinking, some of us compromised and gave way to the rest, and finally we decided on our final category - Historical Landmarks. Initially, we had trouble interpreting the theme and guidelines of this year’s CyberFair. Hence, we consulted our teacher in-charge, Mr. Alvin You for help. We also consulted our school’s Subject Head for History, Mr. Khoo Kay Yong, to advice us on what to do for the Historical Landmarks category. The different members of the team had different schedules and hence we were busy with different activities everyday. Thus we had trouble getting all of us together for a meeting for the CyberFair. However we managed to solve the problem by distributing the work and meeting up later to compile our work for the website. We were also considering how we would source information and graphics for the project. Fortunately, one of us has a digital camera, and hence we decided to visit the Historical Landmarks in Singapore and collect information on each place, and also take some photos. The project has allowed our students to see the hard work, dedication, and commitment to the project and this has allowed our school and community to become more aware of the unity and harmony that is present in Singapore, through learning and educating about the historical landmarks. Furthermore, it teaches us co-operation, responsibility and teamwork, and without it we would not have completed the project. 6. How did your activities and research for this International Schools CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards? Our project focused on the educational outreach programmes in Singapore that promote the historical landmarks. Knowing about the history of Singapore is part of the Ministry of Education’s Social Studies and History subjects’ curriculum. However, the curriculum of these two subjects only briefly sketches on the historical landmarks in Singapore. Hence our project goes beyond the curriculum and talks about the historical landmarks in detail. Through this project, we have learnt a lot about the heritage of Singapore, enriching our History and Social Studies lessons. We realised that there are a lot of interesting facts about the history of Singapore in which we never knew. This is in line with our National Education curriculum: Singapore is our homeland; this is where we belong. We want to keep our heritage and our way of life. In creating this project, we learnt a lot of life skills such as teamwork, co-operation and accountability. We realised that it is necessary to reflect on what we have done in order to process our ideas and work, and to make changes to what is necessary. In doing so, we used our creative thinking skills and Information Technology. When researching information for the project, we realised that our educational system is very board and extensive, providing a wide range of subjects like Social Studies and History which touch on different aspects of Humanities. Our website hopes to serve as enrichment to these subjects and we hope that students will find the information on our website useful. The Internet has been a very useful for research as there is a wide variety of information from various sources. Thus, it has made our traditional methods of education more enriching and interesting, as we have outsides sources of information that helps us better understand the curriculum.
1) What information tools & technologies did you used to complete your CyberFair project? We used the following tools in our project: Software
The technologies used in the CyberFair project are equally important as they all played a crucial role in the development of our website, each playing their own part. The tools that we used are either owned by us or loaned from the school, and thus we have the opportunity to handle new technologies.
The Internet was the most helpful technology as it was our main source of information. Thus the materials for our research are readily available and thus it was very efficient. 2) In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your CyberFair project both on-line and in person. We have acted as "ambassadors" in the sense that we have contacted various organisations and people from our community such as the National Heritage Board and Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts via phone calls, letters and email. We also talked with staff at the various historical landmarks to find out more about the landmark and tell them about our CyberFair project and our school. We extracted the email address from the National Heritage Board website and contacted them by various means. They were simply delighted to help us out on the website, providing us with useful and relevant information on the historical landmarks in Singapore.
Furthermore, we made our way down to visit each and every historical landmark that is featured in this website. We walked through the Civic District Trails 1 and 2. We also spoke to the staff at Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts. There were impressed with us as, we being teenagers had embarked on a journey, an education trip for our CyberFair 2003 project to find out more about the historical landmarks in Singapore. Also, we asked members of the public community such as our schoolmates, friends and the general public. When we told them about our project, they were very interested to view our completed website and they participated in some of the initial surveys that we conducted to help us in our research. 3) What has been the impact of your project on your community? We have presented our CyberFair website to the some of our fellow schoolmates and teachers. Both the student and teaching bodies have gain knowledgeable information on the historical landmarks in Singapore and how they impacted on the different communities in Singapore. We also presented the preservation of the historical landmarks by the numerous different organisations in Singapore. The website, which we have designed and built with our own effort, serves as pool of data whereby information on historical landmarks could be extracted from. People who visit our website will definitely leave with new knowledge on historical landmarks in Singapore. We hope that students who need to find information on Singapore's historical landmarks to enrich their curriculum and studies will visit our website and gain valuable knowledge. Our friends and schoolmates who have visited our website have gave us positive feedback about our project. Furthermore, when we showed this project to selected people from our neighbourhoods and our community, many of them revealed surprised expressions on their faces in finding out facts that they never knew about. Many of them took greater interest in Singapore's historical landmarks and they realized that it is not only on a local scale that they have made an impact in, but also on the global scale. Our website hence has united the various communities by providing reliable information about the historical landmarks. This has enabled people from different communities and cultures to understand one another better through this educational project, and thus unite the different communities. Therefore, in conclusion, we made positive impacts on the different communities in Singapore. 4) How did your project involve other members of your community as helpers and volunteers? Our helpers include our teachers and friends around us. We would to thank our teacher in-charge, Mr. Alvin You, for helping and supervising us during the creation of this website. Our School's Head of Department for Information Technology and Media Resource (HOD-IT & MR), Mr. Anuar Ikhwan, also provided valuable advice to us for the website. Mr. Khoo Kay Yong, Victoria School's Subject Head (SH) for History, also helped us by answering our queries and helping us understand the Historical Landmarks and Educational Programmes in Singapore. We would also like to thank people from business organisations and the staff from the historical landmarks whom we have consulted. Schoolmates and friends and people from the public community also helped us in our research and participated in the initial investigations we conducted for our project. It was with this community help that the theme “Educate and Unite” has its meaning. While researching for our website, we have become educated in the various history of the landmarks, and in turn, we have become united with the various communities by understanding their history and cultures. 5) Discoveries, Lessons and Surprises (Optional) We have discovered a lot about Singapore, especially the history of some landmarks that we never know about. We have learnt a lot about the history of the various communities’ historical landmarks. At times, we were surprised as we found out many interesting facts about the places. Through this project, we learnt that as a team, we need to co-operate with each other in teamwork. We also learnt that we should always start to plan our project early in case there are unforeseen circumstances later in which we could not overcome. We hope that students who are interested to find out more about the historical landmarks in Singapore will visit our website for information. |
We use the latest Dell Pentium 4 computers in our very own Developmental
Computer Lab to create this project. The dedicated Local Area Network
(LAN) connection in our school provides fast direct access to the
Internet for information. Thus, our computer facilities and Internet
access are very efficient. 
Hardware
The most
valuable tool was the Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC PDA, because it really
proved useful in helping us record information on the go. This mobile
device enabled us to take down information from the various historical
landmarks as we visit them. The portability and mobility of this
PDA enabled us to complete our research easily. Also, its voice
recording capabilities allow us to record conversations we had with
the various staff of the historical landmarks and conversations
with the people of the business organizations and with the community.
Designed and created by Victoria School IT Club.
This website is created for International Schools Cyberfair 2003.
