Aspiring to create a platform for inter-institutional collaborations among Asia’s top universities, we welcomed our e-learning partners from Asia’s top universities in the fourth annual Asian e-Table to exchange educational insights. This event is one of our major initiatives in realizing HKU’s 3+1 I’s vision – Internationalization, Innovation, Interdisciplinary and Impact.
This year, we are honoured to be joined by guests from the following Asian institutions:
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Kyoto University
National Taiwan University
National University of Singapore
Peking University
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The University of Hong Kong
University of Macau
Yonsei University
Professor Ian Holliday and Professor Ricky Kwok welcomed our e-learning partners from Asia’s top universities in the fourth annual Asian e-Table.
In the interactive discussion sessions, our guests shared pedagogical innovations, teaching practices as well as frontier e-learning tools used to enrich teaching and learning. Some of the topics discussed included:
Addressing the needs of students: Flipped classroom and e-learning’s role
Addressing emerging trends: MOOCs and campaigns
Addressing emerging lifestyle of learners: The role of e-learning apps, platforms, tools
Collaborations: Responsive Content Sharing
The Big Ideas of each institution
Exploring e-learning apps, platforms and tools together.
Addressing emerging trends: MOOCs and campaigns.
It was a great opportunity for educators to reflect on past experience, spark new ideas, conceive inter-institutional collaborations and plan for the future of Asia’s higher education.
Technology is spinning the world faster everyday in tandem with rising expectations for education quality. It is crucial for educators to keep pace with such evolutions in order to maximize the impact of our work. In his talk “Promoting and Enabling Technology-Enriched Learning: Challenges and Strategies” on May 30th, 2018, Professor Toru Iiyoshi shared his insights on harnessing technology to create a better future for education.
Harnessing technology to improve
Continuously improving education is the key to overcome lethargy. Quoting Professor Iiyoshi, “If we learn today as we learned yesterday, we rob ourselves of tomorrow.” With more advanced and user-friendly technology at our disposal, obtaining data to quantify and objectively reflect on our work has become easier. The use of learning analyticsto measure, examine and evaluate the effectiveness of teaching and learning can serve as important feedback mechanisms for teachers to review and improve their teaching. Also, institutions can make use of such information to design more effective curricula and manage resources more efficiently.
Educational tools, such as Mentimeter, Google Docs and Kahoot!, can also be employed to engage learners in class, such that they learn more actively and with greater effectiveness. Technology is the tool for educators to harness, enabling educators to create quality time in learners’ learning experience, improve the quality of teaching and learning, increase efficiency, and ultimately drive cultural changes. Higher education should become more timely, data-rich, personalized, expandable and extensive, and technological advancements are giving us the means to achieve it.
Open education – the door to sharing and collaboration
Thinking out of the box and attempting the unconventional is necessary in order to improve education beyond our current level. Professor Iiyoshi envisions Open Education to be the form of higher education by 2025 – instead of each tertiary institute being individually responsible for developing their own curricula, resources will be shared in creating courses, educational ideas will be proactively exchanged to facilitate collaboration, and even courses themselves will be shared. For example, by packing knowledge into short videos as online components, courses can become modular and stackable in form of micromasters and nanodegrees recognized by more universities, which when accumulated contribute to one’s academic credentials like virtual currencies.
Broadening the pool of knowledge and resources to create more knowledge at the global level is beneficial to all, as more resources allow higher ceilings. Furthermore, technology helps disseminate knowledge globally with current information and communications technology, and facilitates educators to share and build practical knowledge and know-hows of educational resource development.
Food for thought
Towards the end of the talk, Professor Iiyoshi outlines a few questions for further reflection:
How can Open Education play out in this rapidly changing higher education landscape?
What is a university? Is it defined by its physical space?
What are the roles of teachers and students in learning in traditional view? Have they changed?
How does technology impact the traditional view of “higher education = degrees”?
Dive deeper
Professor Iiyoshi had an interesting conversation with a computer equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) in his TED talk in 2015. In his talk, Professor Iiyoshi engaged in a discussion about lifelong learning with the said AI, demonstrating the capabilities of the AI, and inspiring us what possibilities can be achieved by utilizing artificial intelligence.
About this course
“If history is our guide, we can assume that the battle between the intellect and will of the human species and the extraordinary adaptability of microbes will be never-ending.” (1)
Despite all the remarkable technological breakthroughs that we have made over the past few decades, the threat from infectious diseases has significantly accelerated. In this course, we will learn why this is the case by looking at the fundamental scientific principles underlying epidemics and the public health actions behind their prevention and control in the 21st century.
This course covers the following four topics:
Origins of novel pathogens;
Analysis of the spread of infectious diseases;
Medical and public health countermeasures to prevent and control epidemics; and
Panel discussions involving leading public health experts with deep frontline experiences to share their views on risk communication, crisis management, ethics and public trust in the context of infectious disease control.
In addition to the original introductory sessions on epidemics, we revamped the course by adding:
new panel discussions with world-leading experts; and
supplementary modules on next generation informatics for combating epidemics.
You will learn:
the origins, spread and control of infectious disease epidemics;
the importance of effective communication about epidemics; and
key contemporary issues relating to epidemics from a global perspective.
Who is this class for
This is an introductory course suitable for all learners, with no prerequisite required.
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(1) Fauci AS, Touchette NA, Folkers GK. Emerging Infectious Diseases: a 10-Year Perspective from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Emerg Infect Dis 2005 Apr; 11(4):519-25.
TELI’s partners and friends gathered on June 8, 2018 to celebrate the grand opening of the Teaching Innovation Production Studio (TIPS) – a professional filming studio for all HKU teachers and students!
Being the first of its kind in HKU, TIPS is a high-quality environment for multimedia production such as filming or sound recording. In this studio, you will enjoy professional multimedia support and advisory services from TELI in creating your very own videos. Compared to TELI’s previous temporary filming studio, the TIPS has been equipped with new hardwares (such as ARRI lighting) and upgraded softwares.
A professional filming studio for all HKU teachers and students!
THANK YOU for celebrating the opening with us!
The entire studio is a large-scale reconfiguration of learning space under the Learning Environment Services (LES), located near the Chi Wah Learning Commons. The completion of this project would not be possible without the efforts and kind help from the President’s Office, LES, Estates Office, Common Core Office, Faculty of Social Sciences to name a few.
Caption: Professor Ian Holliday (Vice-President (Teaching & Learning)) and Professor Ricky Kwok, (Associate Vice-President (Teaching & Learning)) unveil the TIPS door plaque
There are two types of rooms in TIPS: 1. The Main Studio and 2. DIY workstations. TELI’s Multimedia team will offer support in setting up and filming.
Main Studio: Green Screen Filming with Professional Support from TELI
Various modes of filming and recording can be done in our full-fledged main studio, equipped with green screen wall, ARRI lights and professional acoustic treatment set-up which minimizes the noise level.
Our Main Studio
DIY Workstations – Your Very Own Creative Space DIY workstation for self-service digital media capturing
Two small but well-equipped rooms provide all you would need for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) filming. With the full range of self-service digital media capturing devices available, users can create online lectures, flipped classroom activities, blended learning materials and tutorial videos all by themselves. Using the Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), customized background can be previewed and inserted as a teacher films in front of a green screen wall.
The DIY workstations offer private workspaces where you can enjoy the fun of creating videos all by yourself.
Studio Tour
If you are eager to explore the facilities of TIPS, please contact enquiry@teli.hku.hk for arrangement of studio tours.
Have you ever questioned where in the world do we live, and what lies beyond the visible world? These have been intriguing questions for humans since 5000 years ago, for which our ancestors actively sought answers and went on expeditions into deep space, just to answer the existential question: where’s our place in the Universe?
On June 2, 2018, Professor Sun Kwok held a public lecture in the Hong Kong Space Museum’s Lecture Theatre, attracting a crowd of over a hundred. Students, professionals, families and astronomy enthusiasts flocked to listen to Professor Kwok speak about how man made sense of our surrounding environment, and the development of a scientific mind throughout this process.
Professor Kwok illustrated how our ancestors’ practical needs of planning for agriculture prompted them to closely observe the environment, turning their attention to the skies to examine how stars moved. From observations, humans began to imagine, hypothesize and correlate phenomena, eventually coming up with theories to explain how the celestial sky works. Slight discrepancies of actual observations with proposed theories sent them thinking further, resulting in more accurate explanations of the nature being born, and in the long course of history, the development of the scientific way of thinking and rational mind. Man deconstructed and constructed knowledge and built up a legacy of what we have today – a chest full of rich astronomical understanding to our disposal. Understanding how we have come this far is equally important as knowing what our current comprehension of the Universe is.
Towards the end of the lecture, Professor Kwok engaged in a lively exchange of questions and answers with the audience, where visitors raised curious questions about specific details of the talk. Furthermore, visitors had an enjoyable time trying out the Armillary sphere app, co-developed by HKU TELI and Professor Kwok. With the aid of animated instructional videos and the guidance of TELI’s staff, visitors learnt how to operate this digitized ancient instrument. The app is powerful enough to predict the Sun’s motion on any given altitude, and some visitors even tried to work out the sunrise and sunset times on their birthdays!
Many also took the opportunity to learn about the upcoming free MOOC course Our Place in the Universe, launching on June 12, 2018 on EdX. If you missed the public lecture, here is your chance to embark on a journey with us through the stars and into history!
