Some of you might come early for the class tonight. While we waiting for everyone to join us, I would like you to look at this document from the Education Bureau, Hong Kong:
Consultation Document on the Third Strategy on Information Technology in Education - Right Technology at the Right Time for the Right Task
Provide some comment about your feelings in relation to this strategy, is it effective, what are its key strengths and would you like to see anything else to be included?
Here are slides for the session 2:
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My first impression:
ReplyDelete1. is it another tech hype?
My last company was an e commerce co in supply chain management. I remembered vividly the late 90’s IT bubbles where smart people from consultancy firms like McKinsey, PWC & research institutes are churning reports on global connectivity, seamless integration, improve productivity & efficiency etc etc the investment being attracted and market frenzy ……the projection overblown; the promises not delivered and the rest are now history.
I read this article ‘The use of technology for second language learning & teaching. A Retrospective.” (Salaberry, Modern Language Journal, 85, pp.39-56). The author reviewed the various articles published in MLJ since 1916 on the use of technologies in SLA (second language acquisition).
e.g.
The audio ear with radio, telephone & phonograph;
The visual era with TV, films & video
The audio-lingual era with language laboratories
The computer era with CAI – drills & practice stage; CALL, computer mediated communication & Teleconferencing, web 2.0 etc etc
People at each era also demonstrated immense excitement, hope, imaginations & suggestions as to what tech can help in learning & teaching. Yet research results on pedagogical value & effectiveness of each phase are mixed & unclear.
On this EMB paper, I have a feeling of ‘déjà vu’ and think that I am reading another McKinsey reports on how mighty tech is & this time it is in education.
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2. I’d like to see more on assessment criteria. How do we assess whether the investment and/or or how it is spent in edu IT (e.g. the HK$7,150 mio) is worthwhile? The reports listed out quantitative parameters mostly on hardware e.g. computer penetration rate, # projectors….. any qualitative assessment indicator?
3. Unlike Singapore where there is only 1 govt curriculum, from my limited experiences working with teachers, making their own curriculum is one of the biggest headaches. I see one practical value from the plan is the govt is going to design & develop online curriculum for the teachers and demonstrate what she preaches.
The other day Gopinathan of NIE from the Singapore also mentioned the govt had invested huge in the past 10 years, still IT use by teachers are still not impressive. As he repeated many times, money is not the issue; they can buy the best IT gadgets. The question still is what is.
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ReplyDeleteFrom reading this document I think the HK government is on the right track. They acknowledge that learning has changed and that "embracing IT in education will involve changes in mindset and practices in the learning environment"(p.2). While it is difficult to know what learning environments and practices work best when IT in education is new to everyone, there is an understanding that 'mindsets and practices' need to change. The govt needs to start somewhere and keep reviewing their implementation.
ReplyDeleteThe action plan to enhance IT integration in education has a valid progression of steps; as Hilda says there is an emphasis on equipment buying, training, and support for teachers. It is great to see the investment in teachers because the reality, I feel, is that teachers are the ones struggling with IT integration. Time plays a huge role. Having to change your lessons involves more work for teachers and the reality for schools and teachers is that the work load is already heavy, so it's easier to teach in a way you already know. We all know change involves extra work andbeing out of your comfort zone. For people to be encouraged to change they have to see an improvement in learning and as Hilda says there is not enough emphasis on assessment to ensure that IT integration is effective to improving student learning.
We want children to become life long learners and IT certainly enhances this vision by providing "learning anywhere, anytime" (p.2); however, there need to an emphasis on assessment to demonstrate that IT is indeed enhancing learning. The great thing about IT integration is that it uses assessment for learning and provides students with ways to support each others learning.
There are many challenges in education now but this also results in an exciting time to be in education. Space design, administrative funding, curriculum design and the list goes on, are all areasthat the HK govt is acknowledging need to develop so it will be interesting to watch the HK govt implementation progress.