Mathematics is widely perceived as an abstract subject to learn. However, information technology can be used as a tool for enhancing the students' understanding of the abstract concepts behind and also arousing their interest in learning a variety of topics of mathematics. This paper reports the design and implementation of Java and Flash programs for teaching and learning elementary number theory in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Illustrative examples with screen dumps for topics such as Greatest Common Divisors, Eratosthenes Sieve, Prime Number Distributions and the Chinese Remainder Theorem will be provided.
[Copyright © 2001 The Association for Advancement of Computing in Education.]

Schön's notion of artistry of professional practice as defined in the notion of 'framing' offers a way to capture an essential process of the practitioner's learning in practice in professional development. In the process of interacting with the practical situation, the practitioner has to rely on his/her past experience and understanding to experimentally impose meaning on the situation in action (Furlong et al, 1988). This involves 'a constant proves of interpretation, action, reflection and adjustment' (ibid: 123) in action-learning cycles, which is important to teachers' development of expertise (Pang, 2005). Applying such a notion of teaching to understand the processes provided in the action-learning cycles inherent in the design of Learning Study carried out in Hong Kong, this paper aims to report on a Learning Study carried out in the context of English language teaching at primary level, in which four primary ELT teachers were involved in an Institute-school collaboration project. In the process of the Learning Study which consisted of 10 to 12 meetings, the teachers involved and the researcher contributed in a collaborative manner their experiences and understandings to the framing of the lesson in focus. While reporting on the stages of the Learning Study, and the effectiveness of learning of the topic in focus, the paper will focus particularly on how the teachers had benefited in such a process of collective framing in addressing the pedagogical problem in focus. Implications will be drawn on the use of Learning Study as a tool for expertise development in teaching.

Curriculum change in Hong Kong usually involved subject revision rather than curriculum framework consideration. Subject revision may improve the learning of the subject knowledge and enable a more effective teaching or assessment. However, such changes do not touch on the element of students' behaviour and attitude. Civic education in Hong Kong is implemented through subject contents of Arts and Crafts, Music and others, but the main burden of civic education is still on the subject General Studies. It is obvious that civic education at the moment is not effectively implemented in the primary schools, otherwise it cannot explain the increasing deviated behavioural problems among primary and secondary students. Reports on problems faced by school counselors suggest that it is time to rethink the curriculum structure of the primary school in Hong Kong at least for the betterment in civic education. The present civic education in Hong Kong primary schools is usually implemented by a) extra- curriculum activities, b) issues in the studies of general studies like drug education and sex education, c) seminar conducted by schools, d) assembly during school hours, and e) visits outside school hours. However, many of these involvements are passive and a more active learning process for the students in terms of their attitude is desired. As there are many constraints in the primary education, for example, bi- sessional mode is one, the inclusion of Drama in education is one feasible possibility as it enables students to participate actively in the learning process. The mode of operation of Theatre in Lducation in Hong Kong is mostly drama delivery to school plus one follow up discussion or drama workshop and games conducted by tutors employed by the subsided theatres. The workshops offered are usually performance linked, that is, related to a product like annual Parents' Night. Though there are certain encouraging effects for the students in terms of the building of their personality

In the last two years, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been actively promoting the use of IT in schools. Virtually every school in the region is now well aware of the implications of these government initiatives and has embarked on the path toward integration of new learning technologies in the classroom. While many teachers may already be well down the track toward use of IT in teaching and learning, the impetus of government initiatives has meant that, all teachers now need to have clearer notions and directions about how to make the transition. Teachers need a strong foundation on which to build their skills toward modifying their teaching strategies to realize the potential of emerging technologies in enhancing student learning outcomes. Teachers themselves need to be willing to change. In the Hong Kong context it would appear that several things would have to occur before schools are able to mount any meaningful use of IT and where teachers are then able to integrate use of IT in their daily teaching and learning activities. It is with this focus that this paper will address some of the broad issues related to change in schools associated with the use of IT and attempt to provide some suggestions based on research findings and worldwide experience.
[Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

This colloquium addresses the issue of the effectiveness of content teaching and learning through English in Hong Kong secondary schools in the context of the current moves to change the eligibility of schools to adopt English as their medium of instruction. It brings together some recent classroom-based research and development on teaching and learning through English in Hong Kong secondary schools in order to promote debate as to how this can be improved. Cummins will present an overview of the value of integrating second language and content learning. Kong and Hoare will focus on the use of English by teachers and students in the local English medium classrooms, based on data drawn from two studies on teacher explanations and student writing. Man will discuss some adaption issues of Secondary 1 English medium students switching from Chinese medium primary schools and will examine some support measures for their content learning. Walker will report on some of the difficulties students face using English for content learning in S4 and the role of an enrichment programme in supporting them. The colloquium will include an extended time for discussion on ways forward in English medium teaching and learning.

In the Hong Kong Institute of Education (abbr. HKIEd), a vast amount of lesson plans for primary and secondary teaching practices are prepared by our pre-service teachers. These valuable documents are being wasted each year. One reason for this is that there are lack of formal mechanism to keep them. The other reason is that the non-standardization of these electronic documents prevents an effective exchange and retrieval of their contents. In this paper, a formal markup language for lesson plans is proposed and developed using XML. The formalization for the various components of lesson plans helps to foster a non-ambiguous data model. Using XML technology, not only we can relevantly query the lesson plans, we can display their contents in a variety of formats and styles using web-based technologies such as XSL and XSLT.