With the surging demands for the use of network-based learning environment in primary and secondary schools, the knowledge and practical skills on school LAN management is increasingly critical for our pre-service and in-service IT teachers. Many of our IT graduates will assume the role of IT coordinators in their employed schools on top of their regular teaching duties. Training on network concepts and hands-on communication skills are essential to them. In this paper, we describe our model LAN project for teaching and learning. The model LAN stimulates a school¡¦s networking environment so that our student teachers can acquire the relevant knowledge and practical skills very close to the real school networking environment.

This paper will present why and what transformational leadership is needed to pursue school effectiveness and development in the rapidly changing education environment and in the coming new century. First, the challenges to school leadership and the need for new leadership will be discussed in the light of the pursuit of multiple school effectiveness and the worldwide educational reform trends. Based on the recent research on principals' leadership in Hong Kong schools, some important insights will be drawn for leadership development and school development particularly in both local context and international contexts. Then the paper will illustrate the shifts of leadership concepts and explain why transformational leadership is do critical to meeting educational challenges in the changing environment. The conception of transformational leadership and its relationship to school-based management, strategic management, and school effectiveness will be illustrated and explained. Finally, a number of implications will be proposed for school principals to practice transformational leadership and achieve long-term and multiple school effectiveness. Establishing a principal centre for leadership learning and development will be a major direction.

In facing challenges form the rapidly changing educational environment, numerous educational changes and school reforms have been conducted to pursue educational effectiveness and educational quality in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, most of school development, and inevitably have experienced serious frustration if not failure. This speech aims to elaborate the new school functions and meanings emerging in the new century and draw implications for ongoing and future school reforms in both Hong Kong and international contexts. There are five basic school functions including technical/economic function, human/social, political, cultural, and educational functions at the individual, institutional, community, society, and international levels. Based on this, a set of new meanings, values and goals for school development and practice can be established and pursued as the criteria of school effectiveness and quality. Continuous and systematic learning and development of students, staff, and schools is a necessary condition for the dynamic development of local, regional, and international communities. Most of the past educational reforms with focus on fragmentary improvement and remedial treatment are not sufficient to bring holistic school development and long term effectiveness. Integrating my recent research and thinking on school effectiveness and school-based management with the insights from new school functions, I propose a new mechanism for re-engineering schools, facilitating continuous development of students and staff, increasing support of parents and community, improving technology in education and management, and pursuing new functions and meanings more effectively. Hopefully, all those concerned particularly our students and teachers can benefit from the coming educational reforms.
[Copyright © 1996 The Hong Kong Institute of Education]

This research focuses on building a computer-supported learning environment for fostering inquiry learning process, which is an essential quality of life-long learners. This research discusses how computer- mediated learning resources are designed and implemented for supporting inquiry learning of primary school children to have better understanding of puberty - a core element in the Health and Living Strand of General Studies in the Hong Kong primary curriculum. The computer- mediated learning resources include virtual devices and case studies. The various virtual devices of balance, meter rule, magnifying lens, and x-ray machine helped learners look into the body changes and sexual development during puberty, as well as reproductive anatomy. The case studies provide situations of harassment and questions early adolescents may encounter. Teachers can guide pupils to work individually or in groups to search for supporting information from the virtual devices for making wise choices. Hence, the learning resources serve to support teachers to provide a computer-supported classroom learning environment for inquiry learning of puberty.

This paper shares the personal experience of a teacher educator in Hong Kong who took the opportunity of lecturer attachment to a local primary school to field-test the application of information technology (IT) in teaching a primary school subject in Hong Kong. This is with the aim to get herself familiar with the application of IT in teaching primary pupils, as well as to initiate more discussion and demonstration in promoting the use of IT to the pre-service teachers. The paper also reports on how the teacher educator planned, implemented and evaluated her teaching, along with the difficulties encountered. The paper concludes with practical suggestions for teacher educators and pre-service teachers in Hong Kong on how to implement IT effectively in primary classrooms.