Session 1, Activity 1----Personal Experience of Learning in Mainland & HK

In mainland China, the complicated educational conditions which include the huge population, the high ratio of students and teachers, the bad environment in some rural areas and mountain areas and the weak sense of using IT in pedagogy all will lead the narrow application of ITE. In some developed cities in China such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, the department of education really has the ability to invest high technology equipment in school and other educational area, however the most pending issue is how to cultivate the educators who can operate these technology well. When the traditional pedagogic methods are deeply rooted in our minds, how to break the routine and find an innovative way is a big chanllege to us. As I had my undergraduate courses in Zhejiang Province which is one of the most affluent place in China, it is not difficult for us to using computers during our school life, but we even did not have an common mailbox for classmates to share the learning resource via the internent,let alone the moodle system. PPT in teaching is not a tool aided for students studying more interestingly and activly but a means to beautify traditional teaching. In my opinion using PPT in mainland has more negetive effects than positive, due to the easy coping from the computer. Students may no longer take the notes and pay attention to what teachers talk about during the class.

Although I have just studied in HKU for only 1 months, I have experiened a totally different teaching methods here. Everyone no matter you are students, teachers or staffs here all have a portal. It is more like a school forum where you can get to know all school events, register or cancel the activites held by various associations and check your school sechdule. To be honest , it takes me a long time to form a habit of cheching my portal everyday. The notices from school are all sent to my portal, no oral remind,no paper remind which afford an effective but low-carbon system. The moodle system is another innovative attempt to me. All the learning resouces can be got from there, and students can post their feedback and discussion on this moodle as well. Teachers can monitor their students studying not only check their final outcome but can also realize their whole process from the "branch tree" which is a photograph shows the frequency of every participants.

I hope the system here can be a good exmple for department of education in mainland to take a lesson. IT in education is a long way for us to explore but I believe we will finally get the benifits from our trying over again.

Session 1, Activity 2----Self Profile from Nebula

Hi everyone!

Nice to see you in our group blog! I am Shen Ying, but you can call me Nebula for easy to remember. I just graduated from a university in mainland China, and have taken my postgraduate course ITE (Information Technology in Education ) here in HKU. Although my major before is economics, I am very intrested in education,and that is why I choose this program for my further study.

It is our group's feedback from learning the course MITE6024 (Teaching and Learning with IT). To adopt the development of education, it is necessary to use IT in our daily teaching and learning. I studied in mainland China for alomst 16yrs, the traditional teaching methods and pedagogy concept not only have restricted students' mind but also have ruined their creativity. The great population resulted in the high ratio of students and teachers also leads to a bad education environment.

As the current status I cited above, I am eager to learn something from this program, and look forward to find an innovative way for chinese students.

Session 1, Activity 1----A good example of how technology affordances support learning

Over the last decade, information and communication technologies (ICT) have enabled changes in the way people live, work, interact and acquire knowledge. New technologies, and especially social computing, provide new opportunities for education and training, as they enhance learning and teaching, and facilitate collaboration, innovation and creativity for individuals and organizations.

The benefits of deploying social computing and ICT for learning is obvious, I’d like to give an example of my real life. In past few years, the traditional way of education is always that the teachers are teaching knowledge in front of the classroom, while students are only listening or sometimes be required to answer a question in the class, and then they do homework after school independently without any deeply discussion with classmates, nor searching some relative information on the internet.

But nowadays, With the help of fast development of Information Communication Technology (ICT), “blended learning” is applied in modern education. It brought a great change to education as it combined both face-to-face learning and e-learning. It built up a new teaching and learning environment for teachers and students. Blended learning offers opportunities to express opinions in various ways, according to students' own preference. For instance, those who are active in class may speak much in discussion face to face while those who are shy may also have chances to express their attitudes online. Learning is not limited at the classroom and even school level. More importantly, all the discussion online is visible, the differences of contribution to the groups and the class will be made clear.

I lifted above is the good example of how technology affordances support learning. Thank you for reading

By Olivia

Session 1, Activity 2----Self introduction and my interests relevant to this module and program

Hello, everyone! My name is Zhan Jiawei, and you can also call my English name Olivia. I am 23 years old, born in Zhejiang province. I graduated from Zhejiang Gongshang University this summer and majored in management during my undergraduate. It is really a great honor to have this opportunity to be a HKU student, and to be a classmate and friend with you.

To be honest with you, I have little experience about IT or education in my past experience, but I believe information and technology plays very important role in our daily, as well as in education.This is my first time to learn and participate in a course like this. I think it is a good chance to experience e-learning by myself and that meant a lot to me. Not only for the discussion and readings which can deepen my understanding of the reality, the problem and the method of e-learning, but also let me think about these issues based on my specialist. I think I am sure that I have strong interest in adopting e-learning technology in my class. But how to use it efficiently when the subject is Chinese? E-learning or blended learning is the best way to teach Chinese? What will I do if there is no policy and funding support? That are the questions that I am thinking about and I want to solve in my future study.

By Olivia

Session 1, Activity 2----Self introduction and my interests relevant to this module and program

My name is WangMuye and my English name is Makino. I've just graduated from my college in Beijing mainland China. As my major was Japanese, I have little experience in such area as IT. But IT is always me in my daily life, I even can't imagine a day without computer and internet. At the beginning of new life in the HKU, I'm very expecting about the coming course. Besides I think the "teaching and learning with technology" is very important.

When it comes to learning with technology, I feel that online learning helps me to make connections between my learning, my daily life and my future professional goals. I feel that it can helps me to learn in a different, more inquiry-based, more collaborative and more critical way. I don't have any experience with technology learning but I did experience e-learning when I took a non-fiction writing course that was entirely online. I'm very interested in this module, this is because the technology can transform the way I am learning (more discussion, making more mental connections, reflecting more, using the internet more to connect with information and opinions in the wider world), and because it inform and shape my thoughts regarding my career plans.

Besides, when it comes to teaching with technology, Without any teaching experience, I think I would like to represent my understanding of technology teaching. I hope the teachers can provide more opportunities to encourage the students finish a collaborative work, with the help of technologies and multimedia.

These are something about me and my thoughts and any comment is welcomed, thank you!!!

By:Makino

Session 1, Activity 1----A successful use of technology

Although the use of technology in teaching and learning in mainland china is not as good as HongKong, but it still has some effective practices.

Take the multimedia classrooms for language learning as an example, students can be active in learning by using it. In the multimedia classrooms, every students get a computer which is already locked to use only one language learning application. This kind of application is set up on the level the student is. Students can look at the vocabulary, passages, videos through it. To strengthen their learning, they will be ask to do some relevant excises. Students can also record and repeat as they need to correct their pronunciation. This kind of classrooms allow students to learn whenever they want, no need to stay with teachers. In the other side, teachers can supervise the study of the students anywhere and anytime. What's more, it is easier for teachers to know the learning process of every students and make some individual suggestions or provide helps for those weak students. In this way, the learning level of the complete class will be improved. For the parents, they will not worried about no enough learning time for language learning. And the unfavorable teacher problem may be solved, since the teachers can know the students' learning problems easily. Except for the language learning itself, parents find it is also a good chance for students to explore the IT using and computer practicing.

The use of technology is very common in our daily life, but it is hard to use it successfully. And there are also some bad aspect when using it. If we can not avoid the bad effects, it will be a unsuccessful one.

By Rose

Session 1, Activity 1----The successful use of multimedia in class

I think the use of multimedia in today's class is a kind of using technology that enhances teaching and learning. As developing student understanding through aligning media to intended learning outcomes, it can effectively capture the learners' attention, especially the younger ones, acting as a springboard for deeper learning as it prompts the learner to think outside the box, beyond a traditional textbook. It makes learning fun for all. It also encourages learners' interaction and fosters collaborative learning among students. Some teachers said it make education change from a two dimensional spoonfeeding transmission to a three dimensional dynamic process. Some students reflected that when having English grammar class, the teachers used an interactive CD with visuals to help them see how one word has multiple grammatical usage depending on where it appears in a sentence. The students think the use of this medium excited the them and increased class participation as the teacher separate them into teams in the form of a competition. Some parents also said that their children learn much quicker in a relaxed fun setting and the grammar concepts sunk in better as they see the variation of how one word can be used in different ways.

By:Makino

Session 1, Activity 2----Individual Introduction

Hi, everybody. My name is WEN Yuan, and I am glad to study with all of you. You can also call me Rose. My master course is ITE, Information Technology in Education. I majored in law during my undergraduate course which was taken in Guangzhou. Information technology is commonly used in all the fields nowadays. The reason why I chose education field is that I would like to use it to teach others. Since I have already learned in mainland china for eighteen years, I feel boring and be worried about the current education conditions in mainland china. I am here to looking some different way for teaching. The information technology is developing quickly, and entering into the education field. But actually for most of the teachers, it is a different challenge. The apply of IT in education is not simply to change teaching form, but also change the pedagogy concept. I think that is the main reason why the teachers in mainland china can not apply IT well in education. I hope I can find some practical ways to teach by using information technology. Teaching and learning is becoming boring by using traditional teaching approaches, IT may stimulate them into a new level. I think this course will help me to understand it and give me inspirations.

By Rose

RISAL Account

Name	RISAL Account
Andy Quan	Andy
Rose Wen	roseyuan
Olivia Zhan	Olivia
Makino Wang	Makino
Nebula Shen	nebulashen

Session 1, Activity 2----Individual introduction and something about this moodle

By Andy, QUAN Xuhui
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Hello, everyone, my name is Quan Xuhui and you can call me Andy.
I am a mainland student from Zhejiang. My undergraduate major is information management and information system. Before I went to HKU I had worked in the bank of communication for a short time as a fulltime staff. Why I quit office is that I find further study can provide me more development space in future. Apart from study, I also like do some sports game, especially tennis.

Teaching and learning with IT is a tendency in education development. Traditional teaching methods is based on the teacher, the transmission of knowledge mainly by teachers to educate students, as a student, the teaching process from begin to end always in a passive state, their initiative and enthusiasm is difficult to develop, and weaken the divergent thinking , critical thinking and creative thinking of the student. But using IT in T&L can make the student to be the center of the course. Teacher seems like a guide that who give some recommendations when students face with the problem.

In this module and program, I want to learn:
1. How IT can use in daily study, and teacher how to use the advanced technology;
2. How to design the computer and multimedia teaching and learning environment according to the teaching objectives;
3. How to display teaching content in a multimedia way;
4. How to remember the teaching content, because forget is the top problem of learning;
5. In which way let the student to think dependently and have they own idea.

Overall, the new teaching model (T&L in IT) is different from the traditional teaching model, characterized by: teacher changes his role from imparting knowledge to organize activities of learning; student changes from passive recipients of knowledge into active exploration discoverer; I think this is the purpose of the ITE.

Session 1, Activity 1----“Easy Class” a good example of using ITE

By Andy, QUAN Xuhui
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Since the Facebook become famous, Social-networking website is developing in an incredible speed. Some educators recommended establishing a social-networking website using web 2.0, in that way teachers, students and other educators can work, study and communication in a same platform. And the idea came true in 2010 in Shanghai.

The website is named "Easy CLASS" (E inter-class URL: http://www.21campus.cn/). The main users of the virtual community are university teachers and students, that means the website primarily for college students. And the purpose of "Easy CLASS" is to promote the communication between students and students, students and teachers. Easy class integrated the BBS, SNS, blog, weibo and mobile phone applications and other new Internet application. Including news, address, campus applications, blog, weibo, photo album, interactive community, BBS, E-mail, disc, pocket easily class. For example, if a student has a problem about math, he can find the way to solve it. Traditionally, the student should go to teacher’s room and ask the teacher how to do it. But now, he can use “Easy Class”, just typing the problem on the teacher’s home page or post to the BBS, a reply will be received in a short time.

Through this website, college tutors, teachers and students can be online interactive exchange, exchanging all kinds of information and resources, upload photos, write blogs. In that way traditionally learning can be replaced, and an effective learning and communication environment have been set up.

Above is a good example of successful technology using in education and learning.