The study looked into how school partnership generates benefit. It aimed to identify the structures of partnership among collaborating schools and to examine elements that can contribute to sustainable eLearning development. Six cluster project cases were purposefully selected from an e-Learning pilot scheme in Hong Kong to investigate how school partnership functions in e-Learning implementation through semi-structured focus group interviews. The findings identified five types of partnership structures that were adopted by the six e-Learning cluster projects, namely, a traditional leader-centered team leadership; a fusion of traditional leader-centered and distributed team leadership; a distributed-coordinated team leadership; an intermediate form of distributed-coordinated and distributed-fragmented team leadership; and a duplicated distributed team leadership structure. Elements including mutual benefit, active school engagement with dynamic communication and interaction, reasonable team size, and co-building of online sharing platform for channeling ideas and actions efficiently are critical to keep e-Learning school partnership sustainable. Copyright © 2019 National Taiwan Normal University.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the design and evaluation of an inter-university collaborative project entitled "Blended learning for building student-teachers' capacity to learn and teach science-related interdisciplinary subjects." The project is a response of the science education faculty of three Hong Kong tertiary institutes to the challenge of catering to the diversity of academic backgrounds among student-teachers. Design/methodology/approach: E-learning modules have been produced covering four content domains of science. These modules are designed based on the 5E learning model and are delivered to students using the learning management system provided by Moodle. The design of the modules is iterative, based on the evaluation of three consecutive rounds of trials through student surveys, and focus group interviews with students and course lecturers. Findings: The evaluation findings indicate positive outcomes for certain attributes such as conceptual understanding, eagerness and confidence in learning science, and metacognitive reflection on students' own learning. There are challenges to be met in relation to instructional design to cater for the diversity of student abilities, and enhance motivation in self-directed learning. Practical implications: The project indicates the ways to develop students' basic science knowledge in a mixed-ability setting through the design of self-directed e-learning modules blended with their major courses and possible measures to address the limitations of such design. Originality/value: The study represents a conscious effort for the science teacher education faculty of different universities to pull together to tackle a perennial teaching and learning problem. The findings provide important insights into possible ways to blend e-learning with face-to-face learning approaches to better cater to the needs of science learners with mixed abilities to prepare them for interdisciplinary teaching.
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This study aimed to investigate parents' understanding of, support for and concerns about e-learning and proposed a school–parent partnership distributing responsibilities to parents and schools based on the results of the study. A total of 61 parents from 21 schools in an e-learning pilot scheme in Hong Kong responded to a questionnaire survey and focus group interviews. Results indicated that there was a high correlation between parental understanding and support for e-learning although parents demonstrated only a basic level of understanding. Four types of parental support and six major areas of parental concern were identified. These results shed light on the school–parent partnership whereby parents should implement a proactive e-learning policy at home to monitor, support and inspire e-learning. Schools should formulate a holistic policy to address parents' concerns responsively and proactively to gain support. Schools can enhance parents' pedagogical understanding of e-learning and address parental concerns through school–parent communication and peer support among parents.
[Copyright © 2017 Association for Information Technology in Teacher Education.]

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.]

The acceleration of e-Learning around the world has driven the major cities/regions in the Asia–Pacific region such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Beijing to plan and implement official policies on e-Learning for enhancing the quality of school education. This article aims to review experiences and then draw lessons of these four major Asian cities/regions in the development of e-Learning policies on the dimensions of infrastructure, curriculum integration, students learning, teacher professional development, as well as leadership and capacity building. It is identified that each of the four major Asian cities/regions has its own area of emphasis in the planning of future e-Learning policies, with Singapore focusing on scaling up good practices of e-Learning among teacher community; Hong Kong focusing on creating digital classrooms supported by wireless networking for student-centered learning; Taiwan focusing on cultivating students with 21st century skills through daily subject teaching; and Beijing focusing on providing digital resources and e-textbooks geared to school curricula. Five implications with regard to e-Learning policies are further made in order to provide a point of references for other cities/regions to develop future e-Learning policies for school education in the 21st century.
[Copyright © Springer].