The proliferation of screen-free programmable robotics allows teachers to implement age-appropriate integrated activities that can promote child learning and development. However, very scarce is known about the challenges of using programmable robots as a tool to empower children in minority communities. This mixed-methods case study examined a Free Quality Kindergarten situated in a low-income public housing estate in Hong Kong to explore the affordances and challenges of robot programming (RP) in early childhood education (ECE). Both quantitative and qualitative data were generated through videotaped observations, child assessments and teacher interviews to journey with the teaching team as they managed to implement the newly introduced RP curriculum. Child assessment evidence revealed that there was a statistically significant improvement in CT scores over 6 weeks of RP activities, while the pretest–posttest change of child self-regulation scores was nonsignificant. Video analysis results further revealed that children's interaction level with the robot kit significantly predicted the change of self-regulation over time. Qualitative results are presented to explicate the micro, meso and macro conditions that constrain the implementation of RP curriculum, including the following: (a) teachers' limited TPACK in RP education, (b) a disconnect between the RP curriculum and the school-based curriculum, (c) limited resources and (d) the Confucian tradition and cultural barriers. These illustrate the intricacies involved in the implementation of RP education to empower marginalized children in under-resourced ECE settings. This study will help bring systemic change to the ECE field by uncovering ecological difficulties in integrating new technologies to promote inclusiveness and sustainability for the future. Copyright © 2022 British Educational Research Association.

Today’s learning environments are providing unique challenges and opportunities for learners to interact with different technologies in meaningful, relevant, and innovative ways. The advent of digital educational game-based technologies has precipitated a growing need for faculty to engage learners and keep them motivated and challenged. In digital game-based active learning, immersion and flow are two essential elements of the player experience that occur during game play. Both these concepts are theoretically distinct, but significantly related from an empirical perspective. Immersion focuses on sensory cues that engage the player’s mind via sensory stimulation, such as how involved the player is in the gaming experience and what response is expected on the part of the player. Flow centers on the cognitive aspects of the gaming experience, emphasizing the relationship between a challenging activity and the skills of a player, but also comprising of engagement, control, challenge, and feedback. A motivation for using digital games to support learning is that well designed game-based learning can provide experiences of immersion and flow, thereby simulating authentic problem-solving tasks that combine instruction, learning, and assessment. Players are immersed through interactive " game-like” activities in a competitive game play format and subsequently driven by optimally challenging tasks. Hence, digital game-based learning technologies have the means to immerse players by retaining motivation within the game by providing mastery feedback at multiple levels. Using Badaboom!, a game-based classroom response system developed by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, this paper sets forth a conceptual framework for immersion and flow in digital game-based learning. Copyright © 2019 Common Ground Research Networks, Ronnie H. Shroff, Fridolin S. Z. Ting, Wai Hung Lam, Some Rights Reserved (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

Art educators claim that Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE) can facilitate students' critical thinking skills and creativity. This article explores a study conducted in Hong Kong senior secondary schools that analysed the extent to which VCAE promotes creativity and critical thinking skills using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The discussion identifies the ways that VCAE students made connections between their everyday life experiences, social lives, and culture and in the process developed their creativity and critical thinking skills. Copyright © 2021 Art Education Australia.

This article reports on the results of a qualitative interpretive pilot study investigating the role of comic strips on tertiary ESP learners’ motivation and discipline-specific language learning. The participants were 10 third-year students enrolled in two discipline-specific English courses at a university in Hong Kong. The results show that integrating multimodality through comic strips helped to transform the traditional delivery of instruction and also motivated and facilitated learners’ understanding of discipline-specific concepts and vocabulary. Participants also indicated that technology contributed to more student agency and fostered language creativity as they expended more effort in their learning. The findings suggest the need for ESP teachers to explore technology and integrate creativity and multimodality in the delivery of discipline-specific course content. Copyright © 2021 Asian ESP Journal.

Flipped-classroom learning has been shown to improve students' learning experience and performance in tertiary education. However, few studies have been done in Asia where the learning culture is vastly different from the West. Here, we studied the effect of flipped-classroom learning with the use of interactive videos on the academic performance of a group of first year undergraduate physics students in Hong Kong. By employing a conceptbased pre-test and post-test, normalized gains of 35% and 13% were obtained for the flipped and control class, respectively. A very strong correlation (r = 0.72, p <.001) was shown between the post-test score and the exam results of the flipped class, while the control class showed a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.37, p =.013). Our results showed that the conceptual knowledge of students taught in flipped-classroom improved significantly more than the students taught traditionally, and that their understanding in conceptual knowledge served as a stronger indicator of their exam performance. The interactive videos were well-received and were shown to be one of the most valued components by the students. Copyright © 2019 SPIE.

The aim of this research study is to investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of innovative use of an open-source digital technology, Arduino, which is an information and communications technology (ICT) tool for practical work in physics in the senior secondary curriculum. The study also seeks to ascertain factors affecting the effective use of the technology in students’ learning of physics with a view to informing possible extensive use of the Arduino technology in senior secondary science education and its application to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. The importance of harnessing ICT in education is well recognized in the education arena. Educators have viewed ICT as an enabling tool for higher levels of analysis to take place in science teaching and learning. However, the use of technology does not guarantee meaningful and effective learning. What is crucial is the transformative, appropriate use of ICT to enhance students’ learning. In this regard, proper integration of ICT into the curriculum, or even across disciplines in the context of STEM education, for meaningful study is an area of concern. While ICT integration has been advocated for many years in the senior secondary physics curriculum in Hong Kong, there remains a gap in its holistic integration into the curriculum. This study demonstrates successful development of seven Arduino-based experiments and an entire set of courseware that covers a wide range of experiments in the topic of “mechanics” in the senior secondary physics curriculum. Design-based research (DBR) methodology is adopted in the development, which is characterized by rounds of systematic iteration, feedback gathering, and modification. The final outputs are encouraging for performing the series of experiments in “mechanics”. The study bridges the gap between theoretical framework and practical application in an authentic setting, and it informs of the suitability of DBR in developing ICT tools for

Recently, many universities have shifted to online teaching and learning employing synchronous teaching apps. Such practice is a logical consequence to respond to the needs of students in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, not much has been known about its effects on students’ experience. Particularly, given the lack of physical presence, it is worthy to explore how online teaching and learning may influence classroom interaction, students’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in second language (L2) English, and classroom enjoyment in English Medium Instruction (EMI) higher education context. This study explores students’ views and experience in relation to these three aspects by comparing online and face-to-face classes. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted with four students in an EMI taught postgraduate programme at a university in Hong Kong. These students experienced half of their courses conducted in a face-to-face mode and half in an online synchronous mode throughout an academic year. Results indicated more teacher-student interactions and heightened WTC mostly due to a lower level of anxiety. However, students reported less opportunities for peer interactions and had mixed views on classroom enjoyment. Implications are discussed in relation to how teachers can improve students’ learning experience in EMI classes conducted using online technology. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

對以中文為第二語言或外語的學生而言，漢字無疑是學習中文的難點。怎樣才能加速學會大量漢字，從而提高學習中文的效率，相信是所有教師都共同關注的議題。通過考察中國兒童學習漢字的過程和方法，崔永華（2008）曾提出過“語文分開，先語後文”、“先認讀，後書寫”、“分層次教學”、“認多讀少”等對外漢字教學的主張。然而，限於不同教學條件，中文二語的漢字教學往往擺脫不了“教材為本，隨文識字”的路徑，同一課文裡出現識漢字和學中文互相牽制的情況──由於漢字難學，課文的篇幅不能過長，內容容易流於膚淺，學生無法學習更深刻、更嚴肅的題材。教與學雙方對每篇課文以致每冊教材的漢字教學缺乏系統科學的認識，更遑論根據所學的漢字，設計反復閱讀和應用的練習，處理好語言教學和漢字教學的關係，提高中文二語的學習效益。有鑑於此，本文以一套專為香港非華語學生設計的教材為基礎，通過全套教材的文本字詞統計、字詞分級、漢字與詞類關聯、漢字構詞位置等層面的分析，探索可以配合該教材的漢字學習系統，並為採用該教材的師生，建議一個與學習內容相關的漢字教學框架和程序。其中研發過程的經驗，相信對中文二語的漢字教材設計也有一點參考價值。 Copyright © 2019 第九屆漢字與漢字教育國際研討會.