Field experience at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) is viewed as a central aspect to our programmes. The proposed chapter will discuss a project that aimed to enhance student teachers' professional development in FE by adopting mobile technology and cloud services. Also, the use of digital forms of FE documents such as TP supervision forms, FE portfolios, and reflective journals enables student teachers and Institute supervisors to build their own e-portfolio for further sharing of their professional practices within and outside the Institute.
[Copyright © 2016, IGI Global.]

In its latest IT in Education Strategy, the government of Hong Kong is committed to develop an online resource bank of curriculum-based digital resources for supporting learning and teaching in school education. The study reported herein aimed to conceptualize the framework for developing such online resource bank in Hong Kong. For collecting solid information from a wide spectrum of relevant stakeholders, 12 sessions of focus group discussions were conducted with school leaders, teachers of major subjects, students, parents, government officials, and educational publishers in the school education sector in Hong Kong. The results found that teachers in Hong Kong were experienced in using digital resources, in particular PowerPoint, video and animation, for supporting subject teaching and learning. The results also asserted the need of an online resource bank in Hong Kong for teachers to accurately access curriculum-based learning and teaching resources. Based on the expectations identified in this study, three options are recommended for the development of the target online resource bank. The first option suggests the compilation of digital entities, such as electronic texts, presentation slides, images, videos and animations, for curriculum delivery. The second option suggests the organization of the digital resources into teaching schemes for delivering subject curricula, especially for those subjects with limited textbooks available in the market. The third options suggests the compilation of learning materials, such as guiding worksheets, with digital resources for students, especially those with average and high learning motivation, to conduct theme-based or project-based self-regulated learning.

Smartphones could be the fastest spreading technology in human history. These mobile devices change the way we communicate and enable mobile and ubiquitous learning at a different level. This study evaluated the use of mobile instant messaging tools to support teaching and learning in higher education. A total of 61 undergraduate students enrolled at a teacher-training institute in Hong Kong who have smartphones with WhatsApp were assigned into experimental and control groups. Besides the traditional classroom learning for both groups, the experimental group was also supported with bite-sized multimedia materials and teacher-student interaction via WhatsApp outside school hours. The participants of the control group used WhatsApp only for academic communication. Pre-test scores were used as the covariate. The marginal means on the post-test scores showed that the participants in the experimental group performed better than those in the control group. The intervention of WhatsApp improved the learning achievement of the participants. The strength of the intervention between the two groups was medium to large. A questionnaire designed by the author was administered at the end of the study. The participants showed positive perception and acceptance of the use of WhatsApp for teaching and learning. The participants slightly rejected the view that receiving instructional materials and questions outside school hours could interfere with their private lives. The typical usability issues on mobile learning were found to be valid. The experience learnt in this research was discussed.
[Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc.]

The use of educational technology by Hong Kong primary school teachers has been realized by the government’s long-term support to the technology infrastructure, professional training, technical support, and development of teaching resources in local primary schools. However, the high adoption rate may not reflect the willingness of teachers to accept technology for educational purposes. Presently, there is no existing research investigating in-service primary teachers’ technology acceptance in Hong Kong. The aim of this study is to investigate teachers’ acceptance of technology and the influencing factors behind their acceptance. This study takes a quantitative approach to investigate 185 primary teachers in Hong Kong using Structural Equation Modeling on a customized Technology Acceptance Model. The results suggest that contrary to common belief, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the technology have little influence on behavioral intention of use in our research context. Rather, a pragmatic consideration of facilitating conditions is found to be a strong dominating factor. A context-specific interpretation of the results is provided. Implications on school policy are also discussed to provide insights for the development of educational technology.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer US.]

智慧教室以自動感知、識別、互聯、設備便攜等特徵，充分滿足了新一代學習者對強交互的要求。智慧教室環境下的課堂互動較之傳統課堂具有高度的複雜性，已有觀察工具很難滿足其研究需要。本研究在充分調研已有互動觀察工具基礎上,結合智慧教室特點，設計開發了面向智慧教室的中小學課堂互動觀察工具，共分為基本資訊、教室類型、教室硬軟體配備、技術支援的課堂互動過程、智慧教室環境對課堂交互的支援等五個主要部分。該工具在香港、北京和深圳的中小學進行了八輪30次現場課堂和10次錄影課堂的觀察、討論和修訂，經驗證具有較高的信效度和良好的使用體驗。
[Copyright © 2015西北師範大學.]