Comprehension skill is an important aspect of conceptual change in science learning. Researches have shown that low academic ability students who received comprehension training can perform just as well as the high academic ability students. Students' comprehension skills can be improved through a number of ways: text construction, multimedia presentation and comprehension strategies. In the present article, I will describe and discuss several ways of improving text comprehension, hence fostering conceptual change, via on-line text reading.

This paper reported an investigation into the non-response cases in student evaluation of teaching (SET). Data were collected through an online system called COSSET during regular SET exercises and through specially designed questionnaire surveys. Two kinds of response rates were studied. One is sectional (class) response rate which is the percentage of students in a section (class) who successfully complete the SET questionnaire. The other is individual student response rate which is the percentage of SET questionnaires completed by an individual student in a single SET exercise. Results showed that sectional response rates are affected by various factors relating to the data collection process and students' background. Individual student response rates are affected by various factors including students' background and attitudes.

While the teacher's role is generally recognized to be important in supporting knowledge building, it is an undeniable fact that most teachers do not have a deep understanding of what knowledge building is, or even the experience of engaging in knowledge building. This paper reports on a study of students' collaborative inquiry conducted on Knowledge Forum® under a situation where the teachers were generally supportive of the educational idea but did not have the exp ertise or commitment to engage in sustained facilitation of the learning process. The findings reveal that students will still occasionally be able to engage in knowledge building discourses even without teachers' facilitation. Students' ability to engage in meaningful exploration of ideas depends very importantly on whether they can locate inquiry questions that are within their zone of proximal development. This facilitation role is even more important when the students involved have relatively lower academic achievement.

This paper reported a project that initiated the development of electronic portfolio among in-service teachers of Postgraduate Diploma in Education. Teachers were encouraged to integrate portfolio development process with multimedia strategies, for the purpose of enhancing reflection on learning and teaching, as well as developing IT skills. Teachers' e-portfolios were analyzed to find out the major content teachers tried to include in the portfolios and the different multimedia strategies teachers used in the process of portfolio construction.

The cookbook-style implementation of practical experiments in schools and colleges has prompted a critical re-evaluation of their values and needs. Various studies have revealed that the use of new technologies, e.g., computer simulation, in practical experiments does not necessarily result in learning enhancements. In fact, in some cases, the opposite happened. In the present article, I will describe and discuss a case where a computer simulation was used to help students learn practical skills in a pre-lab. The result of this investigation indicates that the use of virtual lab actually gives rise to virtual, rather than real, understanding.

This paper is to share the experience gained during deployment of smart card technology to enhance campus service of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. The Institute has been issuing smart card based identity cards (IEdSmart) to all its teaching and administrative staff, students, and other campus users for a few years. Surrounding the technology, many applications were deployed and planned to enhance its campus services, and facilitated its teaching and researching quality. They include access to both physical properties as well as information in its computer network, e-payment services toward a cashless campus, rooms and facilities management, etc. This paper reports the objectives, applications deployed and planned, difficulties encountered and resolved, benefits realized, and the future opportunities available to further enhance the campus services.

With the rapid development of information technology (IT), various schools of thought and approaches have been developed to apply technology in education. This paper starts with a discussion on the assumption of the development of a computer-based project: Knowledge Base in Video Post Production, and then the project is revised and initiated into another working project about constructing knowledge of digital video production through a networked learning environment. After years of development in these projects, the authors reflect that integrating technology in education fundamentally shifts the traditional teaching model to a learning model where a fixed time and space teaching model has been changed to a technology enhanced student-centered learning environment.

Facing recent holistic curricular reforms, project works and action research are key learning tools and methods at primary level in Hong Kong. By integrating information technology (IT) into general studies curriculum in the form of student-based project works, the authors tried to highlight several key stages, accounting for intra-teacher and inter-teacher dimensions of teacher professional development, by conceptualizing qualitative data patterns of organized learning activities, IT-induced pedagogical strategies and collegial collaboration in a local primary school through an action research. The reflexive teaching experiences could help improve teacher professional development when implementing similar school-based reform.

The author has helped to develop IT educational projects in various departments at the tertiary level for the last three years, and is alarmed by the many technological writings on the benefits of IT in education, which arguments look suspiciously simplistic and all pervasive. The author also witnessed the frustrations of teachers who are often disempowered under the impact of the IT education reform. This paper is a result of such concern and dissatisfaction of the seemingly uncritical and narrow approach in theorizing and implementing IT in education. It is hoped that by offering a more in-depth inquiry of the subject, that researchers and education professionals alike can take a holistic approach towards their work in teaching and learning with or without IT