The successful implementation of blended learning depends on many factors, but the interactions between academics and students far outweigh technology and all other factors put together. However, so far, no satisfactory research has been conducted relating to teacher education or to providing a comprehensive analysis on academic and student teachers’ perceptions. For the purpose of this study, thirteen academics were interviewed or attended focus group meetings to share their views on blended learning. Some of them were classified as information technology (IT) academics whilst others were not. The academics had a very positive attitude towards the concept of blended learning and there were no notable differences between IT and non-IT academics. Their findings are also cross referenced with findings from students who participated in a questionnaire survey. There were a total of seventy student teachers, who participated in the survey. Forty-four of them were regarded as IT students whilst the rest was regarded as non-IT students. These two groups of students gave high ratings on most of the questionnaire items. There were some minor differences between the two groups of students but the differences were not very statistically significant. These thought-provoking findings not only serve as practical and beneficial information for The Hong Kong Institute of Education, but they also serve as an invaluable source of knowledge and information for all individuals in the field of teacher education.
[Copyright © 2010 IGI Global.]

This chapter is based on a research project on hybrid teaching and learning. This emerging hybrid mode is gaining popularity in tertiary institutions because the new technologies have integrated the classroom and online teaching and learning into an organic productive environment. The research project adopts a discourse analysis approach and intends to investigate issues arising regarding the hybrid mode in a higher education institute in Hong Kong. These issues include 1) the discourse features of teaching and learning in the classroom face-to-face (FTF) and online computer-mediated communication (CMC); 2) the changing roles of teachers and students in the emerging hybrid environment; and 3) the implications of the hybrid mode on the effectiveness of teaching and learning. In addition, this research project also adopts questionnaire surveys among the teaching staff of a language education faculty and students of three courses offered in the hybrid mode to discover their attitudes towards the hybrid teaching and learning mode. The research findings suggest that in the hybrid environments, the traditional roles of the teachers as information providers, knowledge transmitters, supervisors and assessors, and the students as learners, participants, and respondents are still dominant. However, the teachers are also increasingly putting on new ‘hats’ as expert learners, facilitators, course designers and organizers. Apart from being learners, the students are also taking on new roles as topic contributors, meaning negotiators, information providers, strategic communicators and monitors.
[Copyright © 2010 IGI Global.]

Today, Information Technology (IT) continues to bring tremendous changes in society. One of the challenges facing educational institutions worldwide is that the student body has dramatically changed, thus enlarging the range of individual differences in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to design an effective teaching and learning environment to accommodate individual differences in order to produce high-quality learning outcomes. The present study, undertaken in Hong Kong, analyzed student population diversity to identify its characteristics in terms of background, experiences, and subject knowledge, and designed instructional activities using IT (Blackboard) as a platform to cohere these diversities into a source of knowledge. Tow steps were taken in this study. First, specific instructional activities to guide students’ collaborative experiences were designed. Second, the Blackboard platform was employed to conduct collaborative interactions between instructor and students, and between students to accommodate diversity. A Blackboard-based course design was utilized as an example to demonstrate the executing procedures. The present study illustrates an innovative instructional structure that uses IT to establish a multiple-way communication network which transforms teacher-centered educational activities into student-centered collaborative learning activities. Through this innovative approach, students’ diverse experiences, physical and mental characteristics, attitudes, and perspectives are converted into a collaborative learning environment that transforms diversity into a positive source of knowledge.
[Copyright © 2008 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

資訊科技發展迅速，對特殊教育(特教)學生的學習有深遠的影響。本文回顧香港學校的特殊教育資訊教育發展，分析教師的疑慮及發展的工作項目，透過了解電腦輔助學習及Web 2.0 的技術發展，特教學生將來也需要於網路上互相溝通及分享資訊，個人與個人之間(person to person, P2P)的溝通模式，將是發展新趨勢。展望將來，特殊教育資訊科技將會擺脫單一的傳統電腦輔助訓練及提供多媒體刺激的任務，反之，透過發展的硬體及環境互動與生活需要，特殊教育資訊科技更能為特教生提供體驗、溝通、分析與反思的平台，促進學生個人成長及與社會融合，從而達致平等學習機會。
[Copyright © 2013 香港青年協會.]

Little research has examined the multi-faceted transformation of higher education by information and communications technology (ICT) in detail. ICT is also perceived to change the ways learners learn but not teachers teach such that its impact on pedagogy is not fully discussed. This paper examines new possibilities of learning and teaching in a networked virtual learning environment where both learners and teachers transform. It is based on a cross-institution collaborative research project on virtual pedagogy conducted in the City University of Hong Kong. Qualitative data were collected from the simultaneous teaching of face-to-face and non face-to-face students who were in an engineering laboratory and at a remote site, respectively. This paper presents the findings of a comparison of the two groups of students' learning with the teacher's reflections on his teaching. The significance of this study is also discussed.
[Copyright © 2011 Common Ground, Elson Szeto.]

Over the past two decades, the feminisation of primary school teaching has been identified by the media and government officials in Western countries as an important contributing factor to boys’ academic problems. This panic, which has been criticised by feminists as a backlash and a form of recuperative politics, has promoted the development of research into gender and education, particularly studies related to the gendered culture of primary schools and on the masculinities of male teachers. However, male primary principals remain relatively under-researched in the literature, despite the importance of their structural position and increasing concern over the masculinisation of school leadership. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion by critically analysing the interpretive frameworks of 12 male primary school principals. The findings reveal not only the complex, contradictory and at times culturally specific gendered discourses that some male principals employ, but also their feminising and masculinising effects on the school workplace and leadership.
[Copyright © 2011 Common Ground, Wai Man Vivienne Leung.]

This article highlights the benefits of multimedia and other activities through the examination of their effects in the on-going development of a first-year, team-taught module entitled “Introduction to Linguistics and Language Awareness” (ILLA) offered on an initial teacher education programme at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). After briefly introducing the educational and cultural context, the limited impact of government reforms on pedagogical practices in the upper secondary school is illustrated through a small-scale survey comparing the previous learning experiences and preferences of the HKIEd first-year students to data from Littlewood and Liu’s 1996 study. The strategically located ILLA module, its purposes and range of pedagogically “innovative” activities are then described and student responses gauged through a review of Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) data (2002-2006). A further survey, which allowed students to rate the module activities in terms of liking and relevance, together with interview data concerning personal learning and future pedagogical practice, are next presented. The findings confirm the beneficial effects of the module activities on both students’ own learning and their professional perspectives, suggesting the application of similar approaches in other countries where the “culture of learning” (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996) is largely traditional.
[Copyright © 2008 CUHK English Lanuage Teaching Unit.]

In view of the rapid need for using information and communication technology (ICT) in TVET, teachers need to realize and generate technology-based strategies. This study aimed to transform modules to online learning by using engaged learning theory via Blackboard system. Through a collection of students’ and teachers’ reflections, assignments and online records, it was found that students and teachers increased their level of participation in an e-learning environment but some costs and challenges were also identified. This paper employs a Business Studies module to illustrate the online learning transformation with Blackboard to report students’ and teachers’ responses. Furthermore, it identifies their changing roles throughout. The costs, benefits, and challenges of using Blackboard in TVET are also discussed.
[Copyright © 2010 International Vocational Education and Training Association.]

This paper aims to find out the views of 26 pre-service and 8 in-service English teachers in Hong Kong about the information technology courses in their teacher education programmes. The findings of the study show that while both software applications and technology integration in teaching are highlighted in the course outline, the instructor focused more on the application aspect, with the technology integration being less emphasised. Another important finding is that PowerPoint was still the most commonly used application in teaching and the involved pre-service and in-service teachers usually just simply used different computer applications as alternatives to traditional teaching resources. This may reflect the fact that the Information technology courses are not adequate to prepare teachers to teach with it.
[Copyright © 2011 Universidad Nacional de Colombia. The journal web site is located at http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?script=sci_serial&pid=1657-0790&lng=en&nrm=iso]