This paper argues that the planned introduction of visual literacy into the New Secondary School Curriculum can play a crucial role in enabling students to think critically and creatively in Hong Kong's highly visual landscape. As Hong Kong's educational system remains entrenched in long-established and conventional pedagogies, the primacy given to the written word is in sharp contrast with the pragmatic roles that visual images play in students' day-to-day life. Hong Kong is well-known for its extremely high level of Internet / broadband penetration and media saturation, yet visual literacy is still in a state of infancy in Hong Kong. Therefore, from a curricular standpoint, as Hong Kong society relies to a greater degree than ever before on visual communication strategies, it is vital that visual literacy be integrated as part of the new curriculum under the current educational reforms. As contemporary Hong Kong culture becomes increasingly dependent on the visual environment, developing visual literacy to enhance students' learning can be an important step in the future towards a more successful implementation and development of the New Secondary School Curriculum.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge]

With the Internet-evoked paradigm shift in the academy, there has been a growing interest in students' Web-based information-seeking and source-use practices. Nevertheless, little is known as to how individual students go about searching for sources online and selecting source material for writing particular assignments. This exploratory study focuses on the Web-based searching and reading practices of a group of undergraduate students at a university in Hong Kong in preparing their end-of-semester written assignments. The data drawn upon included interviews and the students' process logs and their notes from reading. The study revealed that the students employed a range of search engines to conduct online research, they skim-read and read around search terms to select sources and source content, and they took indexical notes to document their decisions over citations for their essay. The paper ends by pointing out some pedagogical implications of the study and suggesting in-depth case studies as an avenue of further research.
[Copyright of Educational Media International is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2012.738013]

This new century has witnessed the rapid and frequent emergence of many new information and communications technologies (ICTs). On one hand, digitalisation enhances our economic, social and political lives. But on the other hand, it leads to certain negative social impacts. One prevalent problem is digital divide -- the gap between different social groups (namely, the 'haves' and 'have nots') in access to and in their different usages of ICTs. It has been of concern that digital divide will exacerbate existing inequalities, erode traditional community ties, socially exclude the disadvantaged and hinder the growth of the knowledge economy. All these will pose damage to the social fabric internally and international competitiveness externally. This article aims to examine the recent policies and coping strategies adopted by Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to bridge the digital divide and their economic, social and political implications.
[Copyright of Globalisation, Societies & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2012.710118]