How did your activities and research for this International Schools CyberFair project support content standards, required coursework and curriculum requirements?

Since our school adopted the Cambridge International Examinations, the objectives of the project should were based on its objectives. For instance, this was initially project in our History class which aims to ‘encourage the development of historical skills, including investigation, analysis, evaluation and communication skills’ as well as to ‘encourage international understanding.’ Our lessons were on the aftermath of World War II and the fall of European empires including those in Asia. The Indonesian Revolution was mentioned in passing. As Indonesians, we believe more should be mentioned about that topic.

 

As we were doing the interviews, we had to keep in mind our Bahasa Indonesia skills where we had to ‘communicate clearly, fluently and purposefully’. Later as we were writing our articles, it also touched on our English classes wherein we had to ‘articulate experiences and express what is thought, felt and imagine’ and ‘use a range of appropriate vocabulary’ as well as to ‘use register appropriate to audience and context.’ The skills that we have learnt in our IT classes were also helpful when we were building the website.

 

We have been using the internet almost daily for fun but we have never fully grasped what a powerful tool it is in sharing our ideas. Thus, we have to be very responsible in making sure we don’t post anything that may give negative impressions. Because of this project, our school is considering doing more interdisciplinary projects in the future. They have noted that even among ourselves we were able to express our ideas, collaborate, critique or peers and delegate and assign tasks. Our learning experiences indeed went beyond the four walls of the classroom.

 

What information tools and technologies did you use to complete your Cyberfair project?

The internet was greatly harnessed in gathering most of our information. We used our laptops during our History class’ designated ‘project time’ to conduct research and write our articles while some utilized their smartphones. The ‘project time’ was usually held inside the school library as it has a wi-fi connection. Also, there are some books in the library that has a write-up about the Monas. Instead of scanning some pages, we took pictures of the books using our phones.

 

Prior to the trip, we called up our contact persons to make appointments. During field work, we used digital cameras or our smartphones to take pictures of the surroundings and videos of interviews. We visited the National History Museum of the Monas to get additional information about Indonesian history.

 

To finish the website, we requested a room with a dedicated wi-fi connection. We used wix.com, a free website developer, to host our website. We went through numerous trials and errors to get the look that we wanted. To exchange information, we sometimes traded flash drives or sent e-mails to our classmates. Those who do not have laptops used the computers in the school’s computer lab.

 

In what ways did you act as "ambassadors" and spokespersons for your Cyberfair project both on-line and in person?

Because it’s the first time our school is participating in this competition, we had to justify why we are having this project. We had to brainstorm how to connect the project to our lessons and how this project would be beneficial not only for us but to the community as a whole in order to allow us to conduct a field work at the Monas.

 

Many of our peers made fun of us at first as to why we are studying the Monas. Some commented that it is a field trip ‘for children’ or that it is ‘just a gold foil’. We had to calmly explain that the youth’s cynical attitude towards the Monas is exactly the reason why we needed to study it – to rediscover its significance and relevance While conducting the interviews, we had to introduce and explain our project to our interviewers in order to convince them to give honest inputs. We also had to encourage our tour guide to give interesting information.

 

We asked permission from the Jakarta City Government Tourism and Cultural Office to use their logo in our website and link it to theirs. We hope that those who are interested in Jakarta will get more information through their website.

 

Before publishing our website, we invited some of our teachers to view it and give their critique. We received helpful comments from the Language and IT teachers regarding the content and appearance. With this experience, we plan to become mentors for our schoolmates who wanted to do a similar project in the future.