Communication & Technology in the Past, Present and Future of Europe

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Message from Law & Technology Centre

Dr Žiga Turk
Professor in Construction Informatics, University of Ljubljana

Date: April 30, 2014 (Wednesday)
Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm
Venue: A8.25, Cheng Yu Tung Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Abstract
Elements of society, individuals, families, businesses, states and other organizations are held together by communication. Throughout history, communication technology was a factor in the rise and fall of the empires. The success of the European civilization in the previous centuries can be attributed, in part, to the continent’s openness to innovation in communication technology. Currently the whole world is witnessing a revolution in this technology. Lessons can be learned from the past and from analyzing the present. This is being done on one hand in policy strategy projects that put the ICT developments into a broader context of global trends. On the other, a scientific base is being created by a new interdisciplinary science called Internet Science. Some results of both kinds of projects taking place in Europe will be discussed.

About the Speaker
Žiga Turk is a Professor in Construction Informatics at the University of Ljubljana. Born in 1962, he holds a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering, M.Sc. in Computer Science and Ph.D. in technical sciences. He wrote over 100 scientific papers in this field and has been editor or editorial board member of several international journals. In addition to his academic career, he was twice a minister in the Government of Slovenia and Secretary General of the Felipe Gonzalez’s Reflection Group on the Future of Europe.

Besides technology, his recent research activities include the trends and scenarios of future global developments, particularly the role of information technology and innovation in those trends. He also studies the broader societal impacts of information technology and is active in the topic of “internet science”. He took part or was coordinating several European framework projects. He is also an internationally recognized public speaker, columnist and visiting professor on these subjects.

In 2007 and 2008 dr. Turk was a Minister for growth in the government of Slovenia, national coordinator for the Lisbon Strategy and chief negotiator for the Slovenia’s accession to the OECD. From 2008-2010 he served as Secretary General of the Reflection Group on the Future of Europe. In 2009 and 2010 he chaired a High Level Group to recommend the future evolution of European academic networking (GEANT). From February 2012 until March 2013 he was Minister for Education, Science, Culture and Sports in the Government of Slovenia.

ALL ARE WELCOME
For registration: www.law.hku.hk (Seminars & Conferences)
For Inquiries: Miss Zita Kwok (email: zitakwok@hku.hk)

Lost in Translation: Cross-Cultural Narratives in Mental Health by Dr Harry Wu

Message from Medical Ethics and Humanities Unit

Lost in Translation:
Cross-Cultural Narratives in Mental Health

speaker
Seminar given by

Dr. Harry Wu

Assistant Professor of Medical Humanities,
Nanyang Technological University

Abstract:

For the past two decades, ‘illness narratives’ has become a fashionable field of enquiry in medical education. While it is widely recognised that subjective illness narratives of health, illness and disability, begin to centre the source of knowledge useful for diagnosis, treatment and care in Anglo-American contexts, they encounter various challenges elsewhere. In this talk, I am going to discuss some possible technical and ethical predicaments of illness narratives by looking at mental health in Chinese contexts. In doing so, I hope to broaden the horizon concerning students’ cross-cultural learning and practice, which has been proved inevitable in today’s globalised medical cosmology.

About the speaker:

Harry Yi-Jui Wu received his DPhil in History from the University of Oxford in 2012. He is assistant professor in medical humanities at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Prior to his career as a historian, he studied medicine in Taiwan with further training experiences in psychiatry and psychoanalytic studies. Before coming to Singapore, he was Clifford Norton Student in the history of science at The Queen’s College, Oxford, doctoral fellow at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and postdoctoral fellow in humanitarian studies at the Centre for the Humanities and Medicine, The University of Hong Kong.

Seminar Details:

Date:
April 16, 2014 (Wednesday)
Time:
4:00PM – 5:00PM
Venue:
Telemedicine Centre (MTC), 2/F William MW Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road, Pokfulam

Light refreshment will be provided.
No registration is required.

For any enquiry, please contact Mr Abel Lau at medhum@hku.hk

Seminar: Cultural Content Knowledge (CCK) and its impact on Teaching

Message from Faculty of Education (Research Office)

Cultural Content Knowledge (CCK) and its impact on Teaching

Professor Igal Galili
The Amos de-Shalit Science Teaching Center
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

16 April 2014 (Wednesday)
12:45 – 14:00
Room 401-402, Meng Wah Complex, HKU

Abstract:
Physics knowledge, as a subject matter of a regular curriculum, is often presented as an amalgam of topics backing in various physics theories (classical mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, relativity, quantum mechanics) without recognizing this fact and the different and often mutually contradicting conceptual basis of knowledge elements. Physics knowledge emerges, thus, all inclusive, as if a homogeneous framework, despite the inherent incoherence. Moreover, physics curriculum often ignores any but unique account for a particular concept. I will argue that this content does not adequately represent physics knowledge, is often ineffective and suggest an alternative organization – a cultural one. The latter might be presented as a family of somewhat similar fundamental theories. Each theory may be organized in a triadic structure: nucleus (basic principles), body (elements derived from the nucleus), and periphery (elements contradicting the nucleus) (Tseitlin & Galili, 2005). I will exemplify implications of this organization to physics curriculum, representation of conceptual change taking place in individual learner, as well as in scientific community, and to the new taxonomy of cognitive preferences of physics learners.

About the speaker:
Igal Galili is a professor of science education at the Amos de-Shalit Science Teaching Center in the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. His Ph.D. is in theoretical physics from Racah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University. His research interests include the structure of students’ knowledge of physics (expressed in terms of scheme-facets structure), as well as the structure and nature of physics knowledge where he uses the framework of discipline-culture. He argues for representation of physics knowledge to the learners as organized in a few fundamental theories establishing a conceptual discourse. When the subject matter knowledge includes conceptual discourse it becomes cultural. Cultural content knowledge (CCK) makes explicit the essential role of the history and philosophy of science in providing a necessary foundation for meaningful learning and understanding of physics. Among his products are introductory course of optics using CCK approach, Fundamentals of Physics and Modern Physics for school students in Israel. Several historical excurses to the conceptual history of physical concepts were produced in the course of European project HIPST and published in the collection The Pleasure of Understanding.

~ The seminar will be delivered in non-specialist languages for all general audiences. All are welcome ~

For enquiry, please contact the Office of Research at 28578254.