Team
BeatriceSt. Nicholas Girl's School, Singapore
SoniaImmanuel Christian School, New Zealand
LugenciuVasco Da Gamma School, East Timor
NathanRaffles Institution, Singapore
Age Range
15 & under
Coaches
Aileen ChorRaffles Institution, Singapore
Lim Lai ChengRaffles Institution, Singapore
Category
History & Government
Audience
All ages
Language
English
Site Features
Online Activity / Game
Quiz
Teacher Resources (Lesson Plans, Worksheets)
Photo Gallery
Video / Sound
Team Collaboration
As our team is from 3 different countries, we have to collaborate through e-mails, internet chats and other media. The whole process, from gathering data to collating it and eventually putting it into a website was done in this manner.
In the process we built better friendship and learnt to work as a team. When we sat down as a group thinking for a topic, we thought of each other’s positive and negative points, and finally came out with the topic. From then onwards, we went on thinking about where and how to collate and research information. We spilt up and went into our individual research and only thereafter did we conduct our interviews.
We also came up with the survey questionnaires together, gathering the public’s opinion on our topic. Putting all the bits and pieces together and deciding on the design and layout of our final website of our project was a challenge for us, since not all of us were IT-savvy. We had to brainstorm the ideas and step into other’s shoes to find out how our website would appeal to a general audience. We divided our job, one designing the website, two doing the text-writing, and the other sourcing for multimedia sources.
We had some flaws in our website, the drop-shadows and the tidiness of the website was not ideal. We went through several rounds of editing and modifying to make the website neater and user-friendly.
Our coaches also played a key role in guiding and encouraging us to press on. We meet up together at least three times a week discussing on how to improve our website and what else we could add in. Many nights were spent discussing with our New Zealand counterparts. We recruited the help of voluntary workers in Timor Leste to aid us in this project especially in communicating with Lugenciu.
We searched for articles, books, and pictures relevant to our research topic and include them in out website. During the interview, we requested for permission to use some pictures and videos from the interviewee. We summarize and condensed all these into a user-friendly web site with a global perspective.
Team Diversity
Our team is diverse; we are from Singapore, New Zealand and Timor Leste. We are not only from different countries but different culture as well. This diverse background and culture allow up to have a better understanding of Timor Leste.
Having the survey at two culturally divergent countries i.e. Singapore and New Zealand, as well as interviews with the local Timorese, we have a balanced view on Timor Leste. This diversity allows us to enhance our website, having more answers from different point of view.. The comparative analysis of the surveys done in both countries allows us to put forwards some global recommendations on what we can do for Timor Leste.
Our work also comes from a variety of sources. We interviewed many people of diverse backgrounds. We also interviewed 2 UN peacekeeperse via e-mail. We were given permissions to use some images and videos from the voluntary workers. Through these interviews, we get to understand Timor Leste better.
This diversity makes our website more informative and less biased with a wider reach to the world audience both from the east and west. They would be able to understand more about the topic because of the greater variety of information we gathered throughout the whole research.
All these intercontinental and interpersonal communications contributed to a global perspective as we work on the web site. While tackling the current problems of Timor Leste, we also learn new things, and ideas. In fact, the most important thing about this website is not only about the information, but is about the new ideas and knowledge we take back from it.
