CALGARY'S CHINATOWN: 

A TOWN WITHIN A TOWN

PROJECT NARRATIVE

https://masters.ab.ca/bdyck/China 

Description of Your Community:

Our school, Master's Academy and College is based on a former Canadian military base in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As part of the Grade Six Social Studies curriculum, students cover a unit called China: A Pacific Rim Neighbor. Each year, as part of this unit, our class makes a trip to Calgary's Chinatown. Here, students visit the shops, the Chinese Cultural Center, the museum and have lunch at an authentic Chinese restaurant. During one of these trips we discussed the value of creating a CyberFair project that would celebrate the place the Chinese people have had in the history of Calgary and to profile the beauty of their culture in Calgary's Chinatown. Those who live in Calgary's Chinatown told us that nothing like this had ever been done before so we decided that our CyberFair project this year would celebrate this jewel within the bustling downtown area of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 

 

Summary of Our Project

In Calgary's Chinatown: A Town Within a Town, the Grade Six students have identified components that make this area of Calgary unique and worth documenting. The executive director of the Chinatown Business Center in Calgary told our students that little had been done to document the history and cultural uniqueness of this part of Calgary and nothing using technology. For this project, each student took responsibility for creating a web page for at least one of the nine categories. They worked diligently to uncover information and to learn the FrontPage program so they could create a web page to house their topic. The end result has been compelling and a testimony to the hard work of these students. 

Problems We Had to Overcome

A severe virus hit our school server last summer. This caused us to begin work on our CyberFair project later and since the school server continued to have problems,  we had difficulty accessing our files and even the Internet. Problems improved around November, but we had lost significant work time. 
Not enough lunch hours: Since students are involved in other lunch hour activities it was difficult to open up additional work times.
There were very few resources available on Calgary's Chinatown. We could find plenty on San Francisco's or Vancouver's Chinatown but resources about Calgary's Chinatown were scarce.
We lost project members 
We would have benefited from more time at the Chinese Cultural Center and at the Cultural Centers' museum.
There wasn’t enough of Mrs. Dyck to go around. It would be helpful to have another person to help with technology issues.
Student do not have direct access to the web page building area of the school server. They were therefore not able to work on their web page at home or on their own- Mrs. Dyck could only log them on. This was often inconvenient..
Coming down to extra work times that fit everyone’s schedules
Missing school days that CyberFair was on
No sound on most of our computers
Hard to keep up with other school work. 

We overcame these problems by starting early and by making use of non-digital materials whenever we could. The lack of resources caused us to make extensive use of one of the biggest resources available to us- The Calgary Cultural Center's museum. The museum generously allowed us to take many pictures during our visit. These pictures have greatly enhanced the web pages of our CyberFair project. Many of our problems were tackled by 'sticking to it' and the students didn't let the glitches along the way deaden their enthusiasm to make this project a reality. 

What Our Project Meant to Our Students, School or Community 

The CyberFair 2004 project not only helped us to discover the proud history behind Calgary's Chinatown, it fostered a new found respect for the challenges that the Chinese immigrants endured when arriving in our city as well as an awareness of the spirit of perseverance these people had in order to carry on. Not only did students learn how to research and create their own web page, they were touched profoundly by what they learned about Chinese immigrants in Calgary. This 'deep learning' will stay with them for a long time.  

How Did Our Research and Activities Support Content Standards and Curriculum Content?

To answer these questions, we created a web page to house the following project content information. I have also linked it to our project web site. 

Alberta Content Standards Addressed: 

Language Arts: 

https://masters.ab.ca/bdyck/china/Standards/ 

Information and Communication Technology Standards  

https://masters.ab.ca/bdyck/china/standards/two/ 

We learned many new skills for this project. We learned how to:

use Microsoft FrontPage
write a request to use copy written material
use graphics to enhance communication
document resources and sources used
conduct an effective search on the Internet
carry out a long-term work commitment
combine individual effort to create a large group project
follow copyright restrictions
make use of primary and secondary sources
respect and honor the Chinese heritage in our city

We practiced a number of group skills:

Cooperative skills
Learning from each other
Affirming each other
Learning about each other
Valuing everyone’s opinion
We learned that it doesn’t necessarily need to be your friends that you work with. You can accomplish things without your close friends.
Commitment to the group when you didn’t feel like coming at noon
Lean on each other to get the work done.

What Information Technology and Tools Did You Use to Complete the CyberFair Project?

We used:

Computers
Microsoft FrontPage
Experts from the Chinese Cultural Museum
Books
Magazines
A Scanner
Each other's knowledge and skills 
Printer
Digital camera
Libraries
Email
Internet

The Internet proved to be the most valuable tool for this project. It lead us to an large variety of resources.

In What Way Did Students Act as Ambassadors?

Our students acted as community ambassadors as they dealt with:

Parents (parents frequently stopped by after our work times. We would show them our progress and explain what we were all learning. Students shared their learning at home as well.
Friends (peers would peek in as students worked. A number of students regretted not joining CyberFair and have let us know they will next year. 
Museum and Chinatown businessmen (these people were excited to hear that a group like ours was researching their beloved Chinatown).
When we asked for permission to use a graphic (students learned how to articulate our mission as they asked for permission to use graphics for their web pages).

Will your project make a difference?
Teaching others about our local Chinatown has been a privilege. We believe our project could be linked to the Chinese Cultural Center's web site resources and serve as an additional information resource for those visiting Center's web page.

What kind of feedback have you received?
The parents, school colleagues, museum people and Chinese business men thought it was wonderful. They were amazed that the students were so proficient at researching and creating their own web page.

What Has Been or Will Be Impact of this Project on the Community?

This project has introduced the students and parents to the power of the Internet to promote learning and connect students to enriching resources. Students have expanded their technology skills, not for the sake of technology but as a tool to further their learning and communicate important information to the public. 

How Has this Project Involved Other Members of Your Community as Helpers and Volunteers?

During the later stages of our project, Mrs. Shelley Bedford, one of our class parents, came to help us work on our web pages. Mrs. Bedford is a web page designer. Her expertise helped us improve the look of our project and to sort the glitches out. She also provided that 'extra set of hands' that Mrs. Dyck needed at the end of the project. We were very grateful for her willingness to work with us. 

 

Share Any Discoveries, Lessons or Surprises.

Students experienced a great deal of satisfaction as they began to see the CyberFair work merge together into a thought-provoking web-based project· Because they stuck with the project, great things happened: a pizza work bee, a Kentucky Fried Chicken work bee, a trip to Calgary’s Chinatown for lunch, missed school to go to Chinatown and an opportunity to get to know their peers and their teacher in new ways. Students enjoyed being able to eat lunch in the classroom at noon each week as we gathered to work on our project. Students learned that there was real-life history inside Calgary's Chinatown, an area of their city that they had previously known little about. One student spoke about being shocked that racism actually existed in our city during those early days and was troubled by the hard things that Calgarian Chinese immigrants experienced. Students were excited about their newfound technology skills. Students commented on how interesting the museum exhibits were. It made the history come alive!