In the last two years, the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been actively promoting the use of IT in schools. Virtually every school in the region is now well aware of the implications of these government initiatives and has embarked on the path toward integration of new learning technologies in the classroom. While many teachers may already be well down the track toward use of IT in teaching and learning, the impetus of government initiatives has meant that, all teachers now need to have clearer notions and directions about how to make the transition. Teachers need a strong foundation on which to build their skills toward modifying their teaching strategies to realize the potential of emerging technologies in enhancing student learning outcomes. In the Hong Kong context it would appear that several things would have to occur before schools are able to mount any meaningful use of IT and where teachers are then able to integrate use of IT in their daily teaching and learning activities. It is with this focus that this paper will address some of the broad issues related to change in schools associated with the use of IT and attempt to provide some suggestions based on research findings and worldwide experience.

The presentation describes a Learning Study conducted on Picture Description for teaching English in a Hong Kong Primary school. The research team, composed of Primary Three teachers and academic staff from a tertiary institute, designed and taught a research lesson that aimed to improve students’ speaking confidence through “look and say” activities regarding a picture shown. We will report research findings from this study, including the learning outcomes achieved and teachers’ professional development opportunities afforded, with recommendations on instruction for speaking competency.

Teachers in Hong Kong as elsewhere express deep concern about classroom discipline. This paper looks at this area and reports the findings of a qualitative study into teachers’ and students’ social constructions of classroom behavior in six Hong Kong secondary schools. From the perspectives of interactionism and social constructivism, the study investigated their constructions of good behavior and indiscipline, and those classroom rules and practices that teachers currently used to manage indiscipline incidents. The research methods of classroom observation, focused-group interviews and unstructured interviews were employed. Eighteen classrooms were observed. Sixty teachers were interviewed. Eighteen focused group interviews for sixty students were conducted. The data were categorized and contrasted with the use of method adopted for grounded theory. Main themes generated from the data illuminated the social construction of classroom discipline, and confirmed the centrality and importance of the issue not only in the classroom but also in other contexts of schooling. The key finding has suggested that the classroom behavior cannot be separated from the school context where they are performed and have a close connection with the discipline at school-wide level. Implications for the promotion of positive discipline, the development of teacher training programmes and the curriculum design and teaching strategies will also be given.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using mobile devices for promoting subject learning in school education. A total of 43 Chinese students from two Primary 4 classes in a primary school in Hong Kong participated in this study. One class was randomly assigned as the experimental class, while the other class as the control class. Students in the experimental class used mobile devices to learn about perimeter of polygons while those in the control class learned the same topic with paper-based materials. The results of pre-test and post-test show that students in the experimental class achieved a significant improvement in their learning performance. Furthermore, the responses from student interview indicate that students in the experimental class were generally satisfied with classroom learning with mobile devices because of two reasons: i) an increased level of student control, and ii) an enhanced communication between peers and between the teacher and students. These findings reveal the pedagogical potential of mobile devices to promote deep learning through classroom-based dialogic interaction in class time.
[Copyright © 2012 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.]

This primary school (students aged 6 to 12), uses small class teaching, cooperative learning, promotion of self-learning skills, and "invitation education" (i.e., teaching practices based on respect, trust, optimism and intentionality). The school widely employs ICT facilities: Teachers, students and parents can share materials (e.g., with the "electric schoolbag"), there is a distance-learning classroom for joined projects with other schools, and a "smart classroom" equipped with electric whiteboards. The school has a garden and library that are both taken care of by student teams. Every classroom has a mini performing stage and a reading corner; books are also spread all over the school to stimulate children to read there after school. The school offers reading programmes for children who arrive early in the morning at school, and intensive after-school tutoring and supervised homework sessions. Social activities include mixed-age "caring groups" who have one mentoring teacher and meet monthly, commendations for academic and social behaviour, and celebrations like birthday parties. The staff regularly attends seminars for professional development and engages in collaborative lesson planning, and peer lesson observation.
[Copyright © OECD, 2012.]

After the handover of Hong Kong to China, a first-ever policy of "bi-literacy and tri-lingualism" was put forward by the Special Administrative Region Government. Under the trilingual policy, Cantonese, the most dominant local language, equally shares the official status with Putonghua and English only in name but not in spirit, as neither the promotion nor the funding approaches on Cantonese match its legal status. This paper reviews the status of Cantonese in Hong Kong under this policy with respect to the levels of government, education and curriculum, considers the consequences of neglecting Cantonese in the school curriculum, and discusses the importance of large-scale surveys for language policymaking.
[Copyright © SpringerOpen].

A study was conducted for creating digital classrooms to support students to develop information literacy competency and critical thinking skills through domain knowledge learning in digital classrooms. A total of 107 students from four Secondary 1 classes were invited from a secondary school in Hong Kong to participate in the study. In the 13-week trial teaching, every three students shared a Tablet PC for learning two topics in the Integrated Humanities subject. The pre- and post-tests of the two target subject topics found that the students had a statistically significant growth in domain knowledge. The three identical information literacy tests and critical thinking tests throughout the trial teaching found that the students had a statistically significant growth in information literacy competency and critical thinking skills. The semi-structured interviews found that the students and teachers positively perceived the effectiveness of the pedagogical designs of the digital classrooms on supporting the development of information literacy competency and critical thinking skills. Three implications are drawn for enhancing the pedagogical designs in digital classrooms that put emphasis on fostering students' development of information literacy competency and critical thinking skills through day-to-day domain knowledge learning in class.
[Copyright © Pergamon Press].

This paper aims to explore whether Learning Study improves teachers' subject content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and attitude toward teaching mathematics. A Learning Study was conducted in a Hong Kong primary school for a research lesson on comparing the size of fractions to explore the new teacher roles.
[Copyright © Korean Society of Mathematical Education].

This paper reports data from a study about the challenges of educational reform through play carried out by three in-service preschool teachers in Hong Kong. Intending to abide with the new paradigm shift to quality teaching and learning originated from the West, these teachers tried to adopt the Vygotskian social constructivist theory and the Deweyan learning theory through the application of scaffolding technique to foster a democratic child-centred classroom through play. Case study methodology is employed in the study. The findings highlighted the differences and similarities between the types of scaffolding techniques employed and the situation on which to apply respectively by the West and those adopted in the East in the case of Hong Kong. The paper concludes with a discussion that education is a complex and complicated endeavour involving a plethora of judgments, ideologies and belief system which will affect diverse people and the "meaning" of their experiences, lives and Institutions. Implications are drawn through some reflections gained in this study. Future research work on the comparative studies on the belief system of the teachers and its relationship with the application of pedagogic approaches for a 'democratic' early childhood classroom between the East and the West is recommended.
[Copyright © Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong.].

Peer teaching and learning are learner-centred approaches with great potential for promoting effective learning, and the fast development of Web 2.0 technology has opened new doors for promoting peer teaching and learning. In this study, we aim to establish peer teaching and learning among students by employing a Wikibook project in the course 'Introduction to Linguistics' in the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Students were asked to work in groups to write an academic book online, and the Wikibook technology allows students to peer-edit and peer-comment on each other's academic works online. Peer teaching sessions were arranged as well based on the content of the Wikibook. To determine students' perceptions on peer teaching and learning occurring in the course, two surveys and follow-up interviews were conducted. The findings suggest that the Wikibook project is an effective way to promote peer teaching and learning in higher education.
[Copyright © Springer Science+Business Media New York].