HKU hosted an edX training day for HKU MOOC teachers as well as members from other edX Asian partner institutions on November 15, 2013 at the Learning Commons of our Centennial Campus.
After a brief introduction to the training day by Johannes Heinlein, edX’s senior director of strategic partnerships, programme manager David Porter gave a presentation on the basic operation of a typical edX course, good MOOC teaching practices, and what enhancement work the edX team had been working on. Participants were also given useful advice on how to engage a global audience and author assessment tasks appropriate for massive enrollments.
To learn more about the course offerings of edX, please visit their website. For HKU members who would like to have further information on how to design, develop, and deliver a MOOC course, please get in touch with our e-learning Pedagogical Support Unit.
Message from Centre for Information Technology in Education within the Faculty of Education
CITE Seminar Series 2013/2014
Joint seminar of CITE and the Sciences of Learning Strategic Research Theme – The assessment and teaching of 21st century skills
Date: 10 December 2013 (Tuesday)
Time: 12:45 pm – 2:00 pm
Venue: Room 101, 1/F., Runme Shaw Building, The University of Hong Kong
Speaker: Professor Patrick Griffin , Director, Assessment Research Centre, University of Melbourne
About the Seminar
The Assessment & Teaching of 21st-Century Skills Project (ATC21S) began with the definition of the concepts of 21st-century skills. These were considered, analysed and organised within a knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and ethics (KSAVE; Binkley et al. 2010) framework. This paper explores the next phase of the project with regards to a combination of two of the key skills – collaborative problem solving. It outlines the research and development program that is expected to yield innovative, technology-based, interactive, complex group and individual analyses of performance within a collaborative problem solving context. The project is still a work in progress. The current phase of the project constitutes development of tasks that can be completed in classrooms. The tasks can be used to explore the thought processes and strategies that students use as an individual within a group to solve both well defined and poorly defined problems. We illustrate ways in which tasks can lend themselves to coding to yield information that is usable by teachers formatively to improve student performance.
In developed economies changing employment practices demand changes in how students are assessed and taught with a focus on 21st-century skills. Employment opportunities increasingly demand collaboration as well as problem-solving skills. This project works with a definition of collaborative problem including both cognitive and social perspectives to examine the process. It examines the circumstances under which collaborative problem solving might best take place, and outlines a structure through which the contributing processes can be monitored in an electronic environment.
About the Speakers
Patrick Griffin is a former faculty member of the School of Education at HKU. He currently holds the Chair of Education (Assessment) at the University of Melbourne and is Director of the Assessment Research Centre. He is the Associate Dean of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Professor Griffin was awarded the John Smythe medal for research in profiling literacy development. He is a project team leader for UNESCO in southern Africa, and was awarded, in 2005, a UNESCO Research Medal by the Assembly of Ministers of Education from Southern African nations. Professor Griffin is a World Bank consultant in Vietnam and China, leading national and international teams in studies of literacy and numeracy assessment. He developed a system of teacher assessment recently signed into law by the Vietnam Government and applied to more than 380,000 teachers. He has led the development of leadership frameworks for school principal and instructional development models for classroom teachers in Victoria. His work focuses on item response modelling applications in interpretive frameworks for criterion referenced assessment and its application of item response modelling to performance assessment. He is currently he executive director of the Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills Project and has co edited the volume published by Springer. Patrick Griffin, Barry McGaw and Esther Care (editors) (2011). Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. Springer.
The UGC has made available additional funding to support teaching and learning related initiatives in the 2012-15 triennium. The funding has been provided to support pedagogical change across Hong Kong. The EPSU has been working on collaborative proposals with Universities across Hong Kong. The EPSU has also taken the lead in a HKU led proposal to develop Small Private Online Courses (SPOCS). You can read more about SPOCS here. Proposals are due to be submitted to the UGC by the end of the year with results being known in the first quarter of 2014.
GradeMark Trial
The EPSU continues to trial GradeMark with teachers at HKU. GradeMark is an electronic marking system that is designed to reduce the amount of time that teachers have to spend marking. Initial feedback from teachers is positive and a formal evaluation will be carried out with both teachers and students. If you would like to know more about GradeMark, visit the EPSU YouTube Channel where you will find tutorials on using GradeMark. You can also get in touch with Iain Doherty – idoherty@hku.hk – for assistance.
Frontiers Conference
The Frontiers in Medical and Health Sciences Education Conference is an annual event of the Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine (IMHSE). This year’s Frontiers Conference is scheduled for December 6-7, 2013 (Friday and Saturday) at the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine. The conference title is “From Classroom to Clinic: Opportunities and Challenges in e-Learning”. Dr Iain Doherty will present at the conference on “The Gold Standard in e-learning Research”. The presentation will address the question of what e-learning Researchers should be aiming for with their research.
Panopto and Moodle Hands-on Training Courses
The ITS Panopto and Moodle hands-on training courses in December are now open for registration. Details can be found here.
The Examination period of the first semester is upon us and we are pleased to announce the extended opening hours of Chi Wah Learning Commons as shown below:
Period of extended opening: Saturday 30 November 2013 – Saturday 21 December 2013
Extended opening hours for first floor: 8am – 6am (next day) Monday to Sunday
Opening hours for second floor (no change): 8am – 8pm Monday to Friday
Please note that the opening hours for the second floor will not change
* The Learning Commons is only accessible via the spiral staircase at the main entrance on G/F after 8:00pm when it is open. For those who have difficulty in accessing the Learning Commons via the staircase, please contact the Facilities Management Office at 3917 7717 for assistance.
Message from Centre for Information Technology in Education within the Faculty of Education
Date: 2 December 2013 (Monday)
Time: 12:45 pm – 2:00 pm
Venue: Room 101, 1/F., Runme Shaw Building, The University of Hong Kong
Speakers: Dr. Sally Jo Cunningham, Department of Computer Science, The University of Waikato, New Zealand
About the Seminar
Surprisingly few naturalistic studies exist of how people select books and music ‘in the wild’–that is, in a physical library, bookstore, or music shop. This seminar reports on a series of observational studies of people interacting with large public collections of books and music, spanning 10 years. The insights gained into how people prefer to interact with the collections suggest directions for research and development in providing access to digital collections.
This seminar will be instructive for those who work with and/or are interested in digital collections, including researchers and students in the library and information, education, humanities, computer and communication technologies, as well as librarians in higher education and teacher-librarians in schools.
About the Speakers
Sally Jo Cunningham is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Waikato University (New Zealand). She is a founding member of the New Zealand Digital Libraries Research Group, who are the developers of the Greenstone software to support the development and management of digital document collections. Her research primarily focuses on digital library users and their information behaviour, over text, image, video, and music documents; she is particularly interested in how information behaviour changes as people move to digital documents, and in how we can support the ‘non-native’ behaviour seen with physical collections, in the digital library. Her work is primarily qualitative and ethnographic, though she does indulge in more technically oriented research projects on occasion. She is also an active researcher in the Computer-Human Interaction and Music Information Retrieval communities.
Message from Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education
You are cordially invited to attend the following seminar organized by the Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education (IMHSE): Staff and Professional Development Seminar on ” Eportfolios: Opportunities and challenges as program – level assessments”
Date: Thursday, November 28, 2013
Time: 1:00 – 2:00 pm (Sandwiched will be provided)
Venue: Mrs Chen Yang Foo Oi Telemedicine Centre, 2/F, William M.W. Mong Block, Faculty of Medicine Building
About the speakers
Dr Deneen, Christopher Charles
Research Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor (Honorary)
Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong
Dr Deneen is a research assistant professor with the Faculty of Education at The University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on relationships of assessment and curricula in higher and teacher education. He is especially interested in learner-oriented assessment, technology-enhanced assessment, and managing curriculum change.
After earning his doctorate from Columbia University’s Teachers College, Chris served as a university teacher and administrator in New York City. Inspired by the often-unanswered questions raised by his experiences as a teacher and administrator, Chris chose to develop research into higher and teacher education as a core element of his professional identity and practice. After working two years with the Hong Kong Institute of Education, he joined the HKU Faculty of Education in 2011. As principal investigator on a General Research Fund (GRF) grant, Chris is currently exploring digital portfolios as assessment in higher and teacher education.
Description
Eportfolios are a popular means of both promoting and evaluating student learning. They are widely recognized as enhancing self-regulation, promoting reflection, and determining achievement of professional outcomes. Eportfolios have significant potential for medical education programs as they may integrate assessment and learning innovations currently favored in medical education, such as problem-based learning scenarios and simulations.
There are, however challenges in implementing eportfolios as assessments. These challenges range from maintaining student engagement to establishing rater reliability. In this talk, Chris Deneen will address both the challenges and opportunities presented by using eportfolios. Drawing on his own research and the field of literature, Dr. Deneen will discuss key issues such as feasibility, implementation guidelines, and how existing assessments in courses, modules or blocks could be capitalized on to support program-level eportfolios.
ALL ARE WELCOME!
For inquiries, please contact us at imhse@hku.hk. To register, please visit
This month the EPSU is offering a workshop on Google Apps for Education (GAFE). GAFE provides students with a space where they can author work and collaborate with one another. GAFE also gives teachers a space to interact with their students. To find out more and to sign up for the workshop please visit http://epsu.cetl.hku.hk/6nov2013/. We are planning new workshops for this semester and would be happy to hear from you if you would like us to deliver a workshop within your Faculty. Contact Dr. Iain Doherty.
Massive Open Online Courses
Work continues on the development of three Massive Open Online Courses to be offered through the edX platform commencing Autumn 2014. The University will be hosting edX on Friday 15th November as edX provides training to staff from different institutions. EPSU staff will be attending the training and meeting with edX staff to discuss MOOC developments.
Moodle Enhancements
The e-learning Enhancement Task Force manages the process of making recommendations to ITS for Moodle enhancements. A report was submitted to ITS this month with recommendations to test eight new plugins including a plugin to take student attendance and a plugin to automatically notify students of important course information. If you have something that you want to see in Moodle contact Dr. Iain Doherty.
Facilitator: Mr Nicky Ng, Instructional Designer, CETL
Date: 6th November, 2013 (Wednesday)
Time: 12:45pm – 2:00pm
Venue: Room 321, Run Run Shaw Building
Google provides a variety of free online applications that could be useful in teaching and learning. The workshop is designed for colleagues who are interested in using Google Apps as a tool for their teaching, research or for general productivity. The workshop presentation will cover:
1) How to create a Google account and access Google Drive
2) Google Documents, Google Presentation and Google Spreadsheet
3) How to get other apps from Google Market Place
The presentation will be followed by “hands on” time with support from EPSU staff. You can use this time to explore any of the features demonstrated in the first part of the workshop.
It is recommended that participants bring a laptop with the Chrome browser installed. Participants also need to register for a Google account before attending the workshop.
This workshop builds on the previous EPSU Google Apps for Education seminar. This time, more detail on Google Apps will be provided and there is time to gain practical experience.
Message from Centre for Information Technology in Education within the Faculty of Education
Date: 24 October 2013 (Thursday)
Time: 3:30 pm – 4:45 pm
Venue: Room 101, 1/F., Runme Shaw Building, The University of Hong Kong
Speakers:
Prof Bridget Somekh, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Prof Nancy Law, Faculty of Education, HKU, Hong Kong
About the Seminar
Pilot projects or schemes have been commonly used as mechanisms for trying out new curricula or pedagogical approaches, including e-Learning. However, what is to be gained through a pilot is not always clear, nor what are the necessary design constituents for a productive pilot. Further, pilots are typically designed to run for a few years, and support is usually withdrawn when the planned changes are barely implemented. On the other hand, it takes years before the full impact of a pilot could be observed, beyond the scope of associated evaluation studies.
This seminar explores the question of how the benefits of e-Learning pilot projects can be maximized by examining an on-going e-Learning Pilot Scheme in Hong Kong funded by the HKSAR Education Bureau (2011-2014) and the UK ICT Test Bed project (2002-2006) funded by the UK Government. Prof Nancy Law will provide an overview of the HK e-Learning Pilot Scheme and the key findings arising from the 2nd Year Evaluation Report, leading to some important questions for consideration regarding the anticipated sustainability and impact of the e-Learning pilot at this juncture.
Prof Bridget Somekh will (a) present an overview of the UK ICT Test Bed Project, (b) examine the mechanisms for managing change built into the project’s design and the predicted and unexpected aspects of the project’s development over the four years; (c) highlight the key findings that make interesting comparisons with the HK e-Learning Pilot Scheme; and (d) make suggestions about what can be learnt about sustainability and scalability of the ICT Test Bed project.
About the Speakers
Dr Bridget Somekh is Professor of Educational Research (Emeritus) in the Education and Social Research Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her research interest is the process of innovation and the management of change, in particular changes in teaching and learning practices and the impact of ICT on users and their organizations. Between 2000 and 2007, she directed a number of national evaluations studies, including the ImpaCT2 (DfES), ICT Test Beds (DfES) and Primary Schools Interactive Whiteboards (SWEEP) evaluations of the impact of the UK government’s investment in ICT for schools. Bridget is internationally known for her work in both ICT in Education and action research to support the management of change. She is currently external consultant for the Research Study on the Pilot Scheme on e-Learning in Schools at HKU.
Professor Nancy Law is currently Deputy Director of the Centre for Information Technology in Education (CITE) in the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong, after serving as its Founding Director for 15 years from 1998. She serves/has served on a number of policy advisory boards/working groups related to ICT in education for the University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong government and other community groups. Nancy is internationally known for her work on international comparative studies of pedagogical innovations and information technology and models of ICT integration in schools and change leadership. She has co-led the international SITES 2006 study and served on the Board of Directors of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. She is currently an Executive Editor of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning and is frequently sought after to provide expert input/consultancy to the European Commission, UNESCO and OECD on various aspects of technology-enhanced learning.
Message from Comparative Education Research Centre
Michael A Peters & Tina Besley
(Chair: Liz Jackson)
The MOOCs revolution promises to open up school level and higher education by providing accessible, flexible, affordable courses, using a range of platforms. Fast-track completion of university courses for free or low cost has the potential to change course delivery, quality assurance and accreditation, credentialing, tuition fee structures and academic labour. Educational institutions need to learn from these initiatives’ new business, financial and revenue models to meet the needs of learners in an open marketplace. Open education brings opportunities for innovation and exploration of new learning models and practices. We need to understand the threats of the monopolization of knowledge and privatization of higher education together with the prospects and promise of forms of openness (open source, open access, open education, open science, open management) that promote creative labour and the democratization of knowledge. Policy makers need to embrace openness and make education affordable and accessible and also profitable for institutions in an open higher education ecosystem.
Date/Time: 22/10/2013 12:45-14:00
Venue: Room 206 Runme Shaw Building, Main campus
Language: English
Michael A. Peters, Professor of Education at the University of Waikato and Emeritus Professor at the University of Illinois is the executive editor of Educational Philosophy and Theory and editor of two international journals, Policy Futures in Education and E-Learning and Digital Media. His interests are in education, philosophy and social policy, and he has written over 60 books.
Tina Besley, Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Global Studies in Education, University of Waikato, recently returned to New Zealand after 11 years in UK & US universities. She has published widely in philosophy of education, educational policy, subjectivity, youth studies, interculturalism, and the global knowledge economy.
