Guided by the Boundary Activity based Learning (BABL) principle, mobile technology-supported inquiry learning activities were implemented in a primary four science class in Hong Kong. An exploratory study was conducted to examine the effects of the BABL guided inquiry activities on students' learning performance and to explore how the key element, the boundary object, operated in different learning spaces. In the study, mixed research methods were used to evaluate students' conceptual understanding and their engagement in and attitudes toward BABL activities. The reciprocal interactions of students' cognition were qualitatively analyzed in terms of the forms and functions of boundary objects in the BABL environment. The results showed that students made significant improvements in conceptual understanding and were engaged in BABL activities. The study also revealed that the generation of abstract boundary objects, together with physical boundary objects, promoted students' learning and thinking as they shuttled between the classroom and the outside. This research contributes to informing educators about how to design and implement technology-supported teaching and learning through the use of boundary objects in crossing learning contexts. Copyright © 2020 International Forum of Educational Technology & Society.

This study aimed to explore the principals’ perspectives in terms of their understanding, support and expectation towards programming education among primary schools in Hong Kong. 147 primary school principals (30.2%) responded to the survey. The results indicated that all principals have positive perspectives towards programming education in all three aspects. Their major concern was the competency of teachers in teaching programming. They suggested that more teacher development courses should be provided to address this problem. Copyright © 2019 Central China Normal University.

Teaching professionals are crucial for the successful realization of e-Learning in school education. Major Asian cities/regions such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Beijing continuously invest in teacher development on e-Learning to empower frontline teachers and school leaders to advance school education in the digital era. This article aims to review and discuss the activity contents, delivery approaches, and scaling-up methods of teacher development on e-Learning in these four major Asian cities/regions. There is a unique trend identified in each of the four major Asian cities/regions. Singapore focuses on professional peer-learning communities for supporting practice-based teacher development on the effective use of ICT for learning and teaching in the classroom. Hong Kong focuses on building teacher communities for observing, engaging, and reflecting and succeeding school-based e-Learning initiatives for student-centered learning. Taiwan focuses on offering university-supported teacher development on the effective integration of e-Learning into students' learning, especially for learning twenty-first century skills. Beijing focuses on promoting self-directed teacher development on the advancement of ICT infusion in classroom teaching, especially the ICT-supported innovative pedagogies for K-12. Implications are drawn in order to provide a point of reference for other cities/regions in tailoring the future provision of teacher development for e-Learning in the twenty-first century.
[Copyright © 2016 Beijing Normal University.]