This study investigates factors affecting university student-to-student interaction within online learning platforms. A new model was proposed based on the United Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The single-stage cluster-sampling method was employed, and 113 university students in Hong Kong were respondents. It was found that Information Quality, Social Influence, and Facilitating Conditions affect students’ intention to interact with each other. A quasi-full mediation model was established of the mechanism from Facilitating Conditions to students’ interaction behavior. The direct effect of Facilitating Conditions on students’ interaction and the effect of System Quality on the intention of student interaction were not significant. A fast network, computing facilities, and mobile-friendly software are possible candidates of the virtual environment conditions affecting the intention of student-interaction behavior within online learning platforms. Copyright © 2022 MDPI AG.

課本是教育系統中的重要環節，也是重要的教學內容、系統知識的組織、課程與教學間的連結。然而，香港對課本的探討仍然不足，課本的品質亦有待提升。本文嘗試評析教育局在香港課本編審機制中的作用。全文主要分為兩部分，首先會探討教育局在課本編審機制中的作用，然後提出加強教育局作用的建議。本文作者認為，教育局在課本編選機制中扮演非常重要的角色；然而，除維持現有角色外，教育局也應與其他相關的組織配合以及統籌與課本有關事宜，進行更多的課本研究，以及研究優化編審課本的機制。Textbooks, crucial in educational systems, consist of essential teaching materials and represent the organization of systematic knowledge and the bringing together of curriculum and teaching. Hong Kong, however, needs to carry out more research of textbook and to improve the quality of textbooks. This article discusses the roles of the Education Bureau in textbook editing and selection mechanism and suggests ways to enhance those roles. The authors confirm that the Education Bureau plays crucial roles in the textbook mechanism. We suggest, however, that in addition to its present roles, the Education Bureau should cooperate with other relevant organizations to coordinate textbook affairs, conduct more textbook research, and strive to improve the textbook mechanism. Copyright © 2010 國家教育研究院.

教科書是教育的重要環節，聯繫教學內容、系統知識、課程與教學、學習評估。香港教科書編審和選用的機制，雖然一直引發大量爭議，但探討其機制的文章不多。本文將評析教育局在教科書編審機制的特質。教育局在編審過程中，對特定項目加以控制，如編寫內容、編寫取向、價格因素等；然而，對部分項目則容許自由編寫，如附加內容、教學活動、撰寫篇幅等。出版商為爭取通過評審，獲得更大市場份額，需要滿足教育局的要求和學校教師的口味。在選用過程中，學校需要建立選用教科書的方法，經教師商議選用，但教育局未擬定教師選用準則的嚴格標準，教師選擇具有彈性。筆者認為，香港教科書編審和選用的機制中，教育局的取態經常徘徊於控制與自由之間。Textbook, linking teaching content, system knowledge, curriculum and teaching, and assessment for learning, is an important part of education. Although the mechanism for reviewing and selecting textbooks in Hong Kong has always caused a lot of controversy, there are not many articles inquiring into the mechanism. This article analyzes the features of the textbook review mechanism of the Education Bureau. During the review processes, the Education Bureau, on the one hand, controls specific issues such as contents, teaching approaches, and pricing matters. It, however, allows freedom in other issues such as supplementary contents, teaching activities, length of writings. Textbook publishers, aiming to gain greater market share, need to meet the requirements of the Education Bureau and the desires of school teachers. In the selection process, schools need to set the procedure of textbook selection and allow teachers to select textbook. The Education Bureau, however, has not issued rigid standards for the selection and allows flexibility for teachers’ choice. The author believes that the Education Bureau often hovers between control and freedom.in the textbook review and selection mechanism. Copyright © 2019 香港中文大學.

This paper reports and discusses the results of a study aimed at automatically categorising teacher feedback on student writing. A total of 3412 teachers’ written comments on 90 students’ draft essays were collected from an EFL course offered by a Hong Kong university during the first semester of 2016/17. The data were primarily used to design and implement an automated tool to classify teachers’ comments with respect to a taxonomy of their characteristics. The findings of this study show that the performance of the automated tool is comparable to that of human annotators, suggesting the feasibility of using the automatic approach to identify and analyse different types of teacher feedback. This study can contribute to future research into the investigation of the impact of teacher feedback on student writing in a big data world. Copyright © 2018 International Journal of Information and Education Technology. All rights reserved.

This paper discusses the findings of a research study investigating user acceptance of bring your own device (BYOD) practice to support teaching and learning in a Hong Kong university. Forty-four undergraduate students and two teachers participated in the study. To collect their ratings of agreement with respect to several BYOD-related issues, student participants were asked to complete pre- and post-user acceptance questionnaires at the beginning and at the end of a 13-week semester. Post-event focus group interview sessions were also organised to further elicit students’ and teachers’ views on the use of personally owned devices for learning. While most of the findings from this study support the use of BYOD in higher education, a number of concerns about its implementation are raised. Insights derived from this research will help inform pedagogies, research and practices in BYOD-mediated learning environments.
[Copyright © 2016 by the University of Georgia.]

Field experience at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) is viewed as a central aspect to our programmes. The proposed chapter will discuss a project that aimed to enhance student teachers' professional development in FE by adopting mobile technology and cloud services. Also, the use of digital forms of FE documents such as TP supervision forms, FE portfolios, and reflective journals enables student teachers and Institute supervisors to build their own e-portfolio for further sharing of their professional practices within and outside the Institute.
[Copyright © 2016, IGI Global.]

Smart classroom has some common features such as automatic sensing physical environment, flexible use of computing devices and physical settings, connected learning environment, and learning data tracking. These features can promote interaction among teachers, learning peers and resources entertaining needs of new generation learners. Interactions in smart classrooms have a higher level of complexity in comparison with traditional classrooms. In this study, an interaction observation tool in K-12 smart classroom was developed, based on the existing interaction tools and derived from the characteristics of smart classroom as discussed. The two major parts of the observation tool are interaction records in smart classroom and interaction support from the learning environment. The tool has been piloted in 14 selected primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shenzhen. The tool has been revised eight times after thirty times of in-class observation and ten times of video observation. The tool was evaluated in the dimensions of function, usability and data processing by 5 experts of educational technology, 10 K-12 teachers and 35 observers. The average mean scores of function, usability and data processing are 4.47, 3.98 and 3.94. The Kendall synergistic coefficient is W=0.471, Sig=-0.000, indicating that the tool was highly acceptable.
[Copyright © 2015 Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education.]

In Hong Kong, the new Senior Secondary curriculum was introduced at Secondary 4 level in September 2009. The curriculum documents emphasize that textbooks not only provide the core elements of learning in the subjects but should also be designed to develop students’ critical and creative thinking and other generic skills through the information and activities they provide. In addition, textbooks should provide a ‘one-stop shop’ of teaching materials so as to help teachers plan the scope and sequence of their lessons. As teachers still rely on textbooks as an important source of information to support their teaching, all textbooks for Senior Secondary Education have been rewritten for the new curriculum. In this paper, the author presents a case study which aimed to develop a framework for designing a new set of Senior Secondary Information and Communication Technology (ICT) textbooks for use by Hong Kong students. In the study, the author conducted a documentary analysis of textbooks pertaining to the previous version of the curriculum, and interviewed experienced teachers, both in order to examine the design strategies for the new textbooks. The paper also discusses how supplementary teaching materials can be used to support learning, teaching and assessment.
[Copyright © 2011 Common Ground, Yiu Chi Lai, All Rights Reserved.]