Many Hong Kong students find learning organic chemistry hard as the subject requires them to master complex knowledge and higher order thinking skills. This paper reports a case study of adopting ChemSense, a computer-supported collaborative learning package for learning and teaching of chemistry, to support the learning of organic chemistry for a group of matriculation level students in Hong Kong. Data regarding the students' views of the usefulness of collaborative learning and ChemSense were collected and analyzed. Although there is no statistical evidence to conclude that students who worked collaboratively can improve their individuals' knowledge of the subject matters better than those who did not, evidence of knowledge construction was identified when examining the content of students' discussions. The students in the experimental group also showed improvement in learning attitude and were positive towards the adoption of collaborative learning in studying organic chemistry.

Vocabulary learning is often perceived as boring by learners, especially for those who grew up in the digital age. This paper reports a study of the usefulness of online games in vocabulary learning for some undergraduate students. Three teachers and 100 engineering students participated in a quasi-experimental study for approximately nine weeks. The experimental group learnt some vocabulary from two carefully selected web sites with games, while the control group learnt the same vocabulary through activity-based lessons. A pre-test and post-test were conducted in the first and ninth weeks. The findings indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group statistically in the post-test. The students in the experimental group generally preferred online learning supplemented with digital educational games to conventional activity-based lessons. The teachers thought highly of the online games, but they expressed concern that extra support was required if the online games were adopted as a core part of their teaching.
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