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.

This paper reports the key findings of a territory-wide review survey on the current development of Information Technology in Education (ITEd) in Hong Kong. 711 schools in different sectors had taken part in this study. Five areas regarding ITEd were reviewed: (1) IT facilities and accessibility; (2) Resources; (3) IT deployment in schools; (4) IT deployment for learning/teaching; and (5) Students' awareness/competency in use of IT. All schools had basic infrastructure to support the development of ITEd while teachers and students were competent to adopt IT in teaching and learning. The present progress of ITEd has posted a solid foundation for further development which aims at developing 21st century skills.
[Copyright © 2011 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.]

This article reports the results of an attempt to integrate a collaborative technology, a wiki, into learning within a course in a teacher education program based on social constructivist learning theory. The current study aimed to explore student-teacher acceptance of the proposed pedagogy and to identify specific learning style preferences that might be favourable to accepting the proposed pedagogy. A total of 56 student teachers studying a General Education (GE) course in a teacher education institute in Hong Kong participated in the study. They completed a number of collaborative tasks using a wiki during the learning process, and were then invited to complete a questionnaire designed to solicit their perception on the usefulness of wikis and their attitudes towards using a wiki, and 39 of them also returned a learning styles inventory which was used to identify the learning styles profile of the student-teacher samples. The findings reveal favourable perceptions of the use of a wiki as a collaborative learning tool in the course. Qualitative data collected from open-ended questions also reflects similar favourable results. Active learners were also found to be significantly different from reflective learners in accepting the wiki as a learning tool.
[Copyright of Australasian Journal of Educational Technology is the property of ASCILITE]

In the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Co-operating Teacher Scheme (CTS) is an important element of the School Experience. Its aims are to let students obtain various forms of support as they first enter the school, progressively learn about a teacher's work and progressively develop professional ability and reflective skills and habits. It was implemented in the initial primary teacher education programmes in 1994. The focus of the present study is to view from the perspective of student-teachers and study what they have really learned from the CTS; how they perceived the relative effectiveness or importance of different phases of the scheme; how they perceived the difference between the roles of the co-operating teacher and the practicum tutor. In the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Co-operating Teacher Scheme (CTS) is an important element of the School Experience. Its aims are to let student teachers obtain various forms of support as they first enter the school; progressively learn about a teacher's work and progressively develop professional ability and reflective skills and habits. The study was conducted within a month after the completion of the CTS. There are quantitative and qualitative components. From the list of 130 schools participating in the Scheme in 95-96, eighty schools were selected randomly. School heads and co-operating teachers were invited to complete a questionnaire. At the same time, in the Institute 71 practicum tutors and 707 student teachers also completed a questionnaire. Futermore, 6 school heads, 12 co-operating teachers, 10 practicum tutors and 10 student teachers were interviewed in order to collect information in addition to that obtained from the questionnaire. The present paper only focuses on the data obtained from the student teachers in order to study the CTS as a learning experience from the perspective of student teachers. From the data of the questionnaire, on the whole, the student teachers supported the implementation

The Hong Kong Institute of Education, the major teacher education institute in Hong Kong, is launching a personal tutorial system project in an attempt to providing student teachers with advice on personal and professional development in the process of whole teacher education. This paper aims to examine the student teachers' perceptions of the project and its effectiveness. A questionnaire will be administered to the whole sample involved in the project, followed by an interview of a selected sample. It is hoped that the results will have some implications to the 'Whole-Teacher Development'.

Educational Technology has long been a major component in the teacher education programme in Hong Kong. However, its application in actual classroom teaching is very limited. Recent studies in the science teaching in secondary classes and the trend of using instructional media in primary schools in Hong Kong revealed that the types of media being used are limited to those traditional ones. Textbook, blackboard and printed text materials remain the dominant instructional media in current practice of teaching although there are varieties of other choices (Yeung et al, 1996; Li et al, 1999). Other traditional media such as photos, graphics, OHTs and video were used occasionally and were mainly used as information delivery aids in a teaching process. Reports on the use of computer technology were rare. This phenomenon of limited use of technologies and little use of computer technology in teaching may have relation with the general adoption of directed teaching strategies by most teachers currently or may be a result of insufficient preparation in initial teacher education programme. Teacher educators have been being too emphasised on the teaching "about" technologies- the skills for operation of -equipment and computer software rather than the concepts and knowledge of their applications in real learning situations. That is how teachers and students teach and learn "with" technologies. This study aims at verifying the effects of a new teaching approach in which portfolio was used as a guide, a record and a monitor of the learning process of the revised technology competencies for teachers in a group of pre-service teachers in a primary teacher education programme. A conceptual framework that governs the design of the revised competencies was also established and will be discussed in this paper. Preliminary investigation shows positive result in the acquisition of concepts, ideas and skills in the newly revised technology competencies.

A qualitative research approach which was used to gather data on teachers’ perspectives on Information Technology in Education (ITEd). Data, drawn from three primary schools in Hong Kong uncovered four major themes. First, the definition of ITEd was inconsistent among schools. Secondly, most teachers were concerned about whether or not students could be motivated to learn by using IT. They viewed knowledge enhancement as the main objective when IT was incorporated into their teaching. Thirdly, ITEd was viewed only as one of the events in the movement for education reform in schools. Successful implementation was mainly determined by the perception of principals and veteran teachers. Fourthly, schools used information technology mainly for school administrative purposes in the early stage of the development of ITEd. This study reveals that insufficient consideration was given to the use of information technology for interactive and communicative learning in our case study schools.
[Copyright © 2007 James Nicholas Publishers.]