In Hong Kong, the new Senior Secondary curriculum was introduced at Secondary 4 level in September 2009. The curriculum documents emphasize that textbooks not only provide the core elements of learning in the subjects but should also be designed to develop students’ critical and creative thinking and other generic skills through the information and activities they provide. In addition, textbooks should provide a ‘one-stop shop’ of teaching materials so as to help teachers plan the scope and sequence of their lessons. As teachers still rely on textbooks as an important source of information to support their teaching, all textbooks for Senior Secondary Education have been rewritten for the new curriculum. In this paper, the author presents a case study which aimed to develop a framework for designing a new set of Senior Secondary Information and Communication Technology (ICT) textbooks for use by Hong Kong students. In the study, the author conducted a documentary analysis of textbooks pertaining to the previous version of the curriculum, and interviewed experienced teachers, both in order to examine the design strategies for the new textbooks. The paper also discusses how supplementary teaching materials can be used to support learning, teaching and assessment.
[Copyright © 2011 Common Ground, Yiu Chi Lai, All Rights Reserved.]

In 2007, the Comparative Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong co-published with Springer a book entitled Comparative Education Research: Approaches and Methods (edited by Mark Bray, Bob Adamson and Mark Mason). The book was well-received. It was translated into six languages (Chinese, Farsi, French, Italian, Japanese and Spanish), and became a core text for comparative education courses in five continents. It has also been a core text in the editors' own courses, especially at the masters and doctoral levels. In 2013, the editors and authors decided to embark on a second edition which was published at the beginning of 2014. Some chapters were dropped, one was added, and all were revised. This presentation will reflect on the strengths of the book and will summarize the changes. It will consider on the one hand the ways in which the changes for the second edition respond to the evolving field, and on the other hand the ways in which the editors and authors hope to shape further evolution.

This paper introduces a scalable virtual learning environment of the Chinese University of Hong Kong; an explicitly geographical, immersive, and sharable 3D learning space with comprehensive social elements. It is characterized by multi-user collaborative modeling, group learning approaches of geo-collaboration, social space-oriented hierarchical avatars, and knowledge exchanging and sharing based on virtual geographic experiments. Applications for the purpose of public education and virtual geographic experiment, and indicated future works prove the possibility to offer a greater opportunity to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, revitalize teaching patterns and learning contents, improve learners' cognitive abilities to solve problems, and enhance their understanding of scientific concepts and processes.
[Copyright of Taylor & Francis. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2010.535028]

In order to pilot a shift towards greater use of collaborative learning in the university's higher education programs, the University of Hong Kong has invested in the development of a prototype technology-enhanced collaborative learning space. The space was created by retrofitting a vacant studio, turning it into an innovative classroom space in which collaborative learning is promoted and facilitated both through the provision of technology and by the physical layout of the room. The space has been used to pioneer collaborative learning both by holding professional development workshops for faculty in the room and also by helping academic staff to run experimental courses in the learning space. The opportunity to offer professional development and support for academic staff in this environment is particularly valuable as it ensures they do not simply deliver traditional didactic lectures in a space designed to promote interactive student learning and engagement. By using the space as a 'student' they are able to consider how they may use collaborative learning environments with their students. This article describes use of the room for professional development of academic staff and also provides two examples of the use and evaluation of the room by faculty who used the room to teach experimental classes in an undergraduate environmental studies course, and a graduate-level education course. In all instances it was found that the innovative classroom space stimulated new practices, both on the part of the teachers and students, and was key an an increased collaborative student-centred natures of all courses taught in the room.
[Copyright of Higher Education Research & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.777033]