Students from Mainland China are the largest group of non-local students for Hong Kong universities in recent years. To attract more Mainland students and smoothen their application processes, the admission policies of Hong Kong universities are becoming increasingly more compatible for students from Mainland by recognizing various qualifications and standard examinations (e.g., Joint Entrance Exam For Universities in PRC, College English Test and Test for English Majors). However, the quick increasing amount of Mainland students in Hong Kong universities has brought various social issues concerning arguments about the medium of instructions, Hong Kong-mainland contradictions and so on. To understand how the various policy text, this essay reviews the admission policies of Hong Kong universities and related issues from three aspects: institution categories, programme levels, and place of origin. Furthermore, research questions such as what broader politics surround the policy issue, which institutions/actors are involved in the policy process and what the outcomes are answered by employing the political system theories. The social problems related to the admission policies will be examined and discussed, solutions for which will also be proposed. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

With the fast development of mobile technologies, mobile learning has been adopted by more and more students and staff in higher education institutions. However, most students and staff tend to explore mobile learning as individuals, and there is a lack of systematic exchange of ideas and strategies related to mobile learning among them. This chapter reports on a project on building a mobile learning community (MLC) to promote mobile learning in a Hong Kong tertiary institution. The research questions are as follows: ‘What are the key factors in building a successful mobile learning community?’ and ‘How can the effectiveness of the MLC be evaluated?’ The key factors identified in building a successful mobile learning community are recruitment of community members, establishment of a mobile learning community website as a platform for exchange of ideas, organization of sharing seminars/workshops, making an impact on students’ learning and on staff development. The evaluation of the effectiveness of the mobile learning community will also be deliberated. It is hoped that this chapter can provide some practical guidance and useful references for those who wish to establish a mobile learning community in their institutions in order to promote Scholarship of Learning & Teaching (SoLT).

Higher education institutions around the world have increasingly been concerned with staff professional development (SPD) programmes for academic and teaching (A/T) staff. Since its establishment in 1994, an education university in Hong Kong (which we will refer to as the University) has offered primarily teacher education to foster the development of quality teachers. To meet the demand for students’ holistic and whole-person development for the twenty-first century, the University has sought to broaden the range of programmes offered, introducing the concept of ‘Education-Plus’. Under the ‘Education-Plus’ vision, the University has been expanding non-education programmes rapidly since 2010. Many new A/T staff with limited teaching experience have been recruited, needing professional development (PD) to enhance their skills and knowledge. Since 2013, the Centre for Learning, Teaching and Technology (LTTC) has designed and developed an SPD programme to allow A/T staff to enrich their PD and ultimately enhance student learning. The evaluation of the current SPD programme activities revealed that the PD activities were beneficial to A/T’s teaching and their PD, but the question has arisen as to whether the current SPD programme is effective, e.g. whether A/T staff have obtained and applied new knowledge and skills to teaching. This paper will discuss the design of the current SPD programme and analyze its activities. The design outlined in ‘Three Stages of Professional Development: The Cycle of Change’ (Bellanca, 2009) will be referred to in order to develop an effective SPD programme. The paper will also design and propose a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of the SPD programme and its implementation cycle.

Although Hong Kong government has done a great job in various areas for active aging such as social security, residential care services, community care and support systems, the English education for elders is a weak point. This paper analyzes the current situation of English education for elders in Hong Kong from four perspectives: barriers, motivations, styles and methods of English learning for elders. Suggestions, possible solutions and necessary actions are also proposed accordingly.

This study explores the influence of digital portfolio on reflective practice of prospective teachers (PTs) with the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework (TPACK). A total of 36 PTs studying in a teacher education course (one-year full-time) at a tertiary education institute in Hong Kong took part in the study. Blended learning approach was adopted to facilitate the completion of digital portfolio with various applications of Web services as a pedagogical tool. At the end of the course, the PTs completed the same questionnaire again as a post-test. Results showed that engaging PTs in digital portfolio integrated with different levels of Web services can increase their degree of readiness and maturation in different dimensions under the TPACK framework. The findings shed light on the development of teacher readiness for their entering of teaching profession in terms of technical, pedagogical and content knowledge individually and holistically, and further cultivated a higher degree of sustainability in reflective practice for the prospective teachers.
[Copyright © 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.]

This study aimed to explore the relationship between students’ online participation in Moodle and their learning achievement. Participants in the study were 78 undergraduate full-time students who were enrolled in a general education course entitled “Digital Citizenship” at a higher education institute in Hong Kong. They were required to choose from and participate in different types of Moodle activities including information access (e.g., reading online supplementary resources), interactive learning (e.g., running online simulations), networked learning (e.g., discussing in online forums), and materials development (e.g., writing reflective journals). The online participation of a student was measured by the number of completed activities, while the learning achievement of a student was determined by his/her essay grade. This study applied the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method to the collected data in order to identify whether there was a link between online participation and learning achievement. The results indicate that online participation in networked learning or in materials development, but not in information access nor in interactive learning, was positively and significantly related to learning achievement. This finding highlights the importance of social interaction and individual constructivism for effective online learning.
[Copyright © 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.]

This paper reports and discusses on the initial stage of a study aiming to explore the relationship between students’ learning styles and their acceptance of using Second Life (SL) for learning. Par- ticipants in this study involved a small group of undergraduate students (N = 17) taking a Visual Arts course called ‘Digital Imaging’ at a university in Hong Kong. They were asked to create and showcase their own digital artwork in SL. Furthermore, they were also required to present their work and critique peers’ work in SL. Their learning styles were measured by the Index of Learning Styles (ILS), whereas their acceptance of Second Life for learning was evaluated by a questionnaire designed by the author. Preliminary findings of this study reveal that most participants were identified as visual learners (i.e. the ones who prefer to see in graphical/video representation). However, active learners (i.e. the ones who prefer to try something out to see how it works) were found more likely to accept the educational use of SL.
[Copyright © 2012 SciRes.]