This paper introduces a scalable virtual learning environment of the Chinese University of Hong Kong; an explicitly geographical, immersive, and sharable 3D learning space with comprehensive social elements. It is characterized by multi-user collaborative modeling, group learning approaches of geo-collaboration, social space-oriented hierarchical avatars, and knowledge exchanging and sharing based on virtual geographic experiments. Applications for the purpose of public education and virtual geographic experiment, and indicated future works prove the possibility to offer a greater opportunity to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, revitalize teaching patterns and learning contents, improve learners' cognitive abilities to solve problems, and enhance their understanding of scientific concepts and processes.
[Copyright of Taylor & Francis. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2010.535028]

Higher education has become a key strategy for the economic development of certain city-states that are positioning themselves as higher education hubs, recruiting both students and foreign providers. This article presents the findings of a research study that examined the online messages of foreign branch-campuses in education hubs (Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore). The project adapts and expands on Fairclough's notion of critical discourse analysis to include virtual discursive space in order to understand how foreign providers address context, and what values are central to their programming, as they construct their virtual presence in new locations. The findings identify that the dominant themes on institutional websites reflect key issues facing higher education, including quality, leadership, international connections and technological advancement. The paper concludes with a conceptual framework that assists institutions in moving beyond these themes to re-consider context in their overseas operations..
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2012.728373]

In order to pilot a shift towards greater use of collaborative learning in the university's higher education programs, the University of Hong Kong has invested in the development of a prototype technology-enhanced collaborative learning space. The space was created by retrofitting a vacant studio, turning it into an innovative classroom space in which collaborative learning is promoted and facilitated both through the provision of technology and by the physical layout of the room. The space has been used to pioneer collaborative learning both by holding professional development workshops for faculty in the room and also by helping academic staff to run experimental courses in the learning space. The opportunity to offer professional development and support for academic staff in this environment is particularly valuable as it ensures they do not simply deliver traditional didactic lectures in a space designed to promote interactive student learning and engagement. By using the space as a 'student' they are able to consider how they may use collaborative learning environments with their students. This article describes use of the room for professional development of academic staff and also provides two examples of the use and evaluation of the room by faculty who used the room to teach experimental classes in an undergraduate environmental studies course, and a graduate-level education course. In all instances it was found that the innovative classroom space stimulated new practices, both on the part of the teachers and students, and was key an an increased collaborative student-centred natures of all courses taught in the room.
[Copyright of Higher Education Research & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.777033]

This article reports on an exploratory qualitative investigation of an initiative to use an electronic teaching portfolio at a teacher education institution in Hong Kong. Using in-depth interviews, this initiative is examined from the perspective of preservice teachers themselves. Interviews sought to gain an understanding of how the construction of participants' identities as teachers was shaped by their engagement with an electronic teaching portfolio throughout an eight-week teaching practicum. The study highlights the identity struggles that participants confronted in using an e-portfolio to negotiate their own and others' professional identities within their teaching practicum placement schools. Implications for preservice teachers, teacher educators, and school authorities are discussed and suggestions for future research considered.
[Copyright of Technology, Pedagogy and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2012.720416]