The examination-oriented education, de-emphasis of hands-on practical work in science lessons and the lack of interdisciplinary curricula are some of the major constraints or obstacles for STEM education in China as reflected from their deficiency or ineffectiveness in nurturing gifted students or talents. In this presentation, we will report two different innovative ways to employ technology and field-based learning for effective STEM education as based on our prize-winning educational device (called mobile logger for science and environmental studies with a corresponding software/app called SESlogger). In the first case, a cartoon video was specifically developed for teaching the primary school students on how to use the device and then students were arranged to practice it for field-based learning in a Guangdong school campus. In the second case, the mobile logger was used to collect on-site environmental data for hiking through all the ten sections of the MacLehose Trail with a total distance of 100km and then the best section of the Trail was designed as a kind of technology-enhanced field trip for trial run by some university students in Hong Kong. To evaluate the educational effectiveness, students' attitudes and views towards the STEM lessons and activities have been collected using questionnaire survey (together with the pre-test and post-test scores on the students' cognitive understanding and level of practical performance) or interviews. For these two cases, we will also present the findings on students' learning difficulties and field-based implementation problems or issues together with reflections from the researchers themselves. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

Prior studies have highlighted the importance of General Education in reinvigorating higher education. In spite of the significant contribution of General Education, students' engagement in the course is also frequently negative. Formative e-assessment is supposed to enhance undergraduates' learning engagement due to the nature of formative assessment and the relative affordability of technology. A formative e-assessment intervention was included in General Education foundation course tutorials which used Kahoot, Mentimeter and Google+. This study adopted a quasi-experimental design to demonstrate the effectiveness of formative e-assessment intervention on student tutorial engagement in terms of cognition, emotion and behavior. At the end of one-term tutorial, two experimental groups and one control group completed a survey on course engagement and eight students from experimental groups attended two focus group interviews. The findings reveal that in general, formative e-assessment increased students' course engagement but not in a significant way. The significant change in course engagement only exists in students' sense of belonging to their group and their effort in assignments. The participants preferred Kahoot and Mentimeter to Google+ and reported some inhibiting factors in using Google+ including their unfamiliarity with it, examination-oriented learning attitudes, low course learning motivation, and time constraints. Copyright © 2020 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

The study aimed to explore the effectiveness and both teachers' and students' acceptance of using three types of e-learning activities, namely online teaching videos, Internet resources, and digital games, to learn classical Chinese (CC) in the out-of-class context. Thirteen Chinese language teachers and 551 students from five secondary schools in Hong Kong participated in the study on a voluntary basis. The findings of pre- and post-test comparisons indicated that students used CC reading strategies more frequently, improved their self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation in CC reading, and participated in more self-learning activities after using the e-learning activities. User acceptance of e-learning activities was examined based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Findings of regression analysis and structural equation modeling generally support the hypothesized TAM, suggesting that students' perception of the e-learning activities would affect their intentional use, and, in turn, their actual use of the e-learning activities. Students' perceived playfulness and teacher encouragement of the e-learning activities were the most critical reasons for them to accept and participate in the activities. Implications of the findings are discussed to provide insights into the applicability of using e-learning as a new learning approach in a traditional school subject.本研究旨在探討在課外使用三類電子學習活動（包括網上教學短片、互聯網資源及網上遊戲平台）對促進學生學習文言文的成效以及教師和學生對於這些課外電子學習活動的接受程度。研究共有來自5所香港中學的13名教師及551名學生自願參與。比較學生填寫的前、後測問卷結果，學生採用了這些電子學習活動之後，增加了使用文言文的閱讀策略，提高了閱讀文言文的自我效能感和內在動機，以及較以往更經常參與了文言文的自學活動。本研究同時以科技接受模型為理論基礎探討使用者對這些文言文課外電子活動的接受程度，多元迴歸分析及結構方程模型的統計結果支持本研究的假設模型，證明學生對這些電子活動的觀感會影響他們的使用意願，再進而影響他們的實際使用量，在眾多因素之中，學生對電子活動的趣味觀感和教師鼓勵是影響他們接受和參與這些活動最關鍵的因素，本研究的結果對於在學習文言文這傳統學科採用電子學習這種新的學習模式的可行性有重要的啟示。 Copyright © 2021 世界華語文教育學會.

Teacher feedback can be useful in helping English as Foreign Language (EFL) students revise their draft writing. Investigating how EFL students respond to various types of teacher feedback in draft revision has been regarded as an important field of study. However, such investigation is time-consuming and labour-intensive, which limits its practical application in EFL writing classes. To address this issue, this study was designed to explore an initiative to use a systematic method in tracking and analysing student revisions in response to teacher feedback. Firstly, an automated tracking method was proposed and applied to examine the technical feasibility of analysing the effects of teacher feedback on student revisions for 75 EFL undergraduate students from two Hong Kong universities. Secondly, the study explicitly sought to explore teachers’ perspectives on the automated tracking method by interviews. The quantitative results suggest that the automated tracking method can analyse teacher feedback and student revision with high accuracy compared to the manual analysis, while the qualitative results shed light on the benefits and limitations of the method. Overall, our findings provide a basis for further research on harnessing the potential of technology to support teachers in developing their professional feedback practice for EFL writing. Copyright © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) has been the focus of significant attention in recent years because of its growing social importance and pedagogical value. In Hong Kong, an increasing number of K-12 schools are planning or piloting their grassroots AIED incorporation practices. However, progress is reportedly slow due to a number of barriers. Unfortunately, because of their limited scope, disputed interpretations and contextual irrelevance, current research literature seems to be of limited referencing value in aiding schools to address the issues and overcome the barriers. This paper highlights the necessity of embracing AIED as wide-ranging given the current understanding of it as a collective notion. Three major directions of AIED are identified: Learning from AI, Learning about AI, and Learning with AI. A collective case study, which examined the perceived barriers to AIED incorporation in Hong Kong K-12 schools with different AIED directions, was conducted. Qualitative data were gathered via ten semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders from two schools. Ertmer’s (1999) typology was applied to segregate the barriers. The findings showed that both first-order and second-order barriers existed, although they varied between the cases. It was also found that the barriers did not hinder in isolation but appeared to be interconnected. The findings suggest that schools use differentiated strategies to tackle barriers according to their approach to incorporating AIED. Moreover, there is a need to trace the links between barriers and prioritise school efforts to remove or reduce them with high linkage. Several recommendations for practice are given. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Undergraduates are often advised to expand their discipline-specific vocabulary in order to cope with the rigor of reading and writing academic texts. For the students studying in English-medium settings, it is in their interest to acquire vocabulary in their disciplines as this is vital to academic success. While students recognize the importance of discipline-specific vocabulary acquisition, they are typically unable to do so due to their heavy work on learning and assessment tasks. With the advent of mobile technology, one way to address this problem is to create vocabulary apps. To meet this need, this paper presents a gamified, discipline-specific vocabulary learning app Books vs Brains@PolyU. It was developed to help busy undergraduates to build a repertoire of the vocabulary across seven disciplines. We explored students' perceptions and evaluation of this tool via interviews with sixteen student participants of the project. The results show that students found the tool useful and motivating, indicating the effectiveness of the app in helping busy undergraduates to build and expand their knowledge of discipline-specific vocabulary. Copyright © 2021 Hong Kong Bao Long Accounting And Secretarial Limited. All rights reserved.

While technology use is becoming increasingly common in education, teachers remain reluctant to use it and hesitant on how best to incorporate it into their teaching and practice.  There is a strong demand from institutions for English language teachers to cope with the changing landscape of teaching in the 21st century.  This explorative study investigated Hong Kong tertiary teachers’ beliefs on continuing professional development activities to enhance their teaching.  The study had a two-phase research design, with an initial questionnaire (N = 58) followed by semistructured interviews (N = 12) to unpack the participants’ hidden voices.  The findings illustrated that most teachers are enthusiastic about professional development activities, though there is a misalignment between what universities value and reward and what teachers see as most beneficial for enhancing their teaching practices.  The results suggested that professional development activities should focus on sharing good teaching practice (e.g., informal chats, mentoring) within universities rather than on rewarding attending conferences and on-off, nonintegrated workshops. Copyright © 2021 Lucas Kohnke.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive school closures worldwide and many schools were forced to adopt online teaching mode. Purpose: This survey study aims to examine the effectiveness of online teaching in physical education (PE) and support needed from the teachers’ perspective. Methods: Responses from 294 frontline PE teachers were collected via an online survey between 4 and 29 January 2021. Results: Four major findings were highlighted in our study. First, most teachers reported that online PE lessons were not effective to improve motor skill acquisition and physical activity level, the major reasons for which were “lack of practical training”, “students’ lack of learning motivation/interest”, and “limited interpersonal interactions”. Second, most teachers encountered difficulties in online teaching, with major difficulties comprising “limited interpersonal interactions’ and “difficult to retain students’ learning motivation/interest”. Third, most teachers felt that online teaching was stressful due to the increased workload in preparation and safety concerns of the home-exercise programme. Fourth, many teachers suggested that schools or governments should provide online teaching kits, such as suggested online lesson plans or home activity recommendations, for their reference. Conclusions: In summary, the effectiveness of online teaching in PE during COVID-19 school closures was generally perceived to be low and difficult by the frontline PE teachers. Schools and governments should provide sufficient support, such as online teaching kits and concrete teaching guidelines, for PE teachers to develop creative and interactive online lessons, which will in turn benefit students in motor skill acquisition and physical activity level. Copyright © 2021 JPES.