發展電子學習的快車道分享會 (Fast-Track on e-Learning Development) - 後記

在2013年5月23日，我們在保良局王賜豪(田心谷)小學的圖書館舉行了一個給小學校長的電子學習分享會，主題為《發展電子學習的快車道》(Fast-Track on e-Learning Development)。這是後記。

早前，我們協助香港潮商學校實行了一個為期三個月的iPad電子學習試驗項目(iPad e-Learning Pilot Project)。因為這項目的效果非常之好，於是，我們被要求去安排這次分享會，請學校的校長和老師分享他們成功的電子教學經驗給其他小學校長。



原本的指示... Google Pizza Time (Social Gathering for Principals) 
原本的指示是在Google的銅鑼灣Office或附近的Cafe辦一個Social Gathering，邀請一些未接觸過的學校的校長們參加。藉著潮商學校的校長來作個誘因，然後用Google的同事來推銷一下與我們一起合辦的「香港數碼學堂」(Hong Kong Digital Academy ) YouTube頻道，之後就讓校長們自己互相Social一下。也讓老闆可以認識多一些校長，老闆說我們也可以為下一學年的School Programme鋪路。據聞Google可以Sponsor我們租場地。

最後...
跟一些老師試水後，發現Social Time for Principal係無老師可以Sell到校長來參加。我們急變陣，改為辦一個電子學習分享會，邀請潮商學校的校長和老師分享他們在項目實施過程中獲得的經驗，再在最後加一個自由分享環節。原本老闆話Google可以Sponsor我們租場地，但向Google一問之下是沒有的，但Air Time照樣要...有點被騙的感覺。好彩有田心谷小學的楊校長和周Sir，除了提供場地外，在各方面也很幫忙。

分享會當日
經過多返努力，最後成功找到另外九間學校的校長和老師。連同潮商，共十間小學、二十三人參加，其中七間更是有校長級的參加者，成績算是不俗。

總裁 Erwin 的開場白相當有分量，但使我們一開始就嚴重overrun。看來我下次要向大老闆再強調他可作開場白的時間。

潮商學校詹校長很欣賞我們的工作，落足力度推薦我們給其他學校。

曾Sir也很努力分享我為他預備的PowerPoint Slides，但似乎他並沒有rehearsal，平時他還是口齒伶俐，但今天...他似乎為未來留了很多進步空間...

Ms Wong 和 Ms Lam 在分享會中，大膽地做了次Edmodo的Live Demo。當時我真的替他們擔心...其實，我最初期望他們show screen capture的圖，所以有點surprise。勇氣可嘉！

在小組自由分享時間，Erwin只是坐在一張桌子前和伍校長傾談，我後悔沒有中途把他拉去見其他的校長，令這大龍鳳失去了很多的意義。幸好，從觀察所得，各校長和老師都很開心愉快地分享，應該獲益良多，滿載而歸。

特別多謝我的好助手Nic，他和我一起又愉快地完成了一項又大又難的工作。

推展電子學習的必備元素 - 電子學習分享會 (Apr 2013)

保良局王賜豪(田心谷)小學於2013年4月20日舉行了一個「創新光纖網絡及無線網絡技術分享會」。 

作為「有機上網」的計劃經理，很高興能成為當日的演講嘉賓之一。我的分享題目為「推展電子學習的必備元素」，主要分享在推行電子學習計劃中，容易被忽略的必要元素。

同日的分享嘉賓有三仁光學的Dr. Chan，銳捷的William分享，P2MT 的Dr. Lam分享。

Donation-in-kind by German Swiss International School Hong Kong (Mar 2013)

德瑞國際學校(German Swiss International School Hong Kong)有一批舊的電子教學設備，包括電子白板、投影機、桌上電腦、筆記本電腦、顯示器、實物投影機等，可以捐贈給有需要的學校。

在2012年11月，我們便收該批設備。原來處理這批設備也花上好十個人天(Man-days)，因為要做數點，又要逐一測試是否能運作。最初，同事還打算要求款項去購置欠缺的週邊用品，如火牛，最後被我叫停。因為設備太舊，接收的學校可能很快就掉棄該設備，而且，如果配置不當而引起意外，我們便好心做壞事。

最後，經過多個月的努力，在2013年3月，我們終於把篩選過的設備捐贈予四間本地小學，包括樂善堂梁黃蕙芳紀念學校、路德會聖十架小學、聖公會基愛小學及聖安當小學。其他太舊的設備，我們只能送交明愛的電腦回收工場處理。

後記：當我去學校做訪談的時候，我發現有一些學校的設施真的非常舊，有如黃金電腦商場的回收鋪。真的很奇怪，為何在香港這教育資源豐富的地方，老師人工挺高的地方，我們的下一代仍要在學校的陳舊設施及設備中學習，真令人痛心。

Education Trends 2013

There are lots of authoritative persons and organizations talking about education trends and most will mention about e-Learning and e-Teaching. Here we focus on 10 trends on e-Learning and related pedagogy.

10 TRENDs: Change in learning dynamics - Learning happens any where, any time, any interaction, and any direction 

1. Teacher-centric becomes student-centric (More focus on catering learner’s diversity)
2. Single measurement becomes multi-dimensional assessment (Holistic assessment)
3. Uni-directional (spoon-feeding) become bi-directional and multi-directional 
• Student learns from other students (SS) 
• Teacher learns from students (ST) ***
• Parent learns from students (SP) ***
4. Individual work becomes group collaboration (incl. cross-geographic)
5. Inside school (class) becomes outside school (class) and cross-school (local & global)
6. Learn during school time (using MMLC) becomes learn beyond school time (Using student’s own digital device)
7. Structured and formal lesson design becomes exploratory (Question-based) and social-enabled  (Game-based) 
8. Off-line (paper-based) becomes on-line (Internet/ Social media network)
9. Knowledge is king becomes creativity is king
10. Text-based becomes video-based

The presentation of this article is not very structured but aims at illustrating our point of view and serves as an input to teachers.

Reference

http://www.teach-nology.com/currenttrends/

http://edudemic.com/2012/11/global-education-trends/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/11/21/5-big-trends-for-education-in-2012-13/

http://www.policymic.com/articles/21832/top-5-education-trends-in-2013

http://www.buffalostate.edu/creativity/documents/trends.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Skills

DSS eCurriculum Tour (Mar 2013)

My team was super busy with our first consulting project on e-Learning enablement in an aided primary school in March 2013. We got 1-day short notice that we have to go to an open day organized by Hong Kong Direct Subsidy Scheme Schools Council. We were requested to setup a booth in the event, although students from such schools are usually not our target audience. 

It was a well organized event hosted in St. Paul's Convent School. The programme run-down showed that an impressive number of 77 workshops and open lessons were conducted by a large number of DSS schools, with the use of advanced computing devices, like iPad. 

There were 6 key-note speeches delivered by renowned speakers, including Stephanie Hamilton, Sr. Manager from Apple's World Wide Education Strategic Initiatives Group. The school hall (with capacity of 1000+ seats) was fully filled with teachers and principals. 

Stephanie talked about different forms of pedagogical impact brought by new devices like iPad and their revolution to the world.   

Without pre-registration of the open lessons, we just walked in some of them according to the school and subject of the lessons. The lessons were very astonishing. Students seem to be very motivated and self-directed. It was a mixed mode of tertiary education and traditional secondary education.  

Before the DSS eCurriculum event, I was unhappy due to the short notice as well as the tremendous workload before and after the event. After the event, I was happy that I did not miss such a great show. This event accelerated my growth in the e-Learning domain. 

Thanks Hong Kong DSS Schools Council for such a great tour.  

eLearning Consortium ELC Education 2.9 Conference (Feb 2013)

On 23rd February, 2013, eLearning Consortium (eLC) held “Education 2.9 Conference-Next Step in e-Learning Revolution” in Cyber Port. Eddie Ng Hak-kim GBS, JP, the Secretary for Education, was invited as guest for opening speech. Our WebOrganic CEO, Mr.Erwin Huang, delivered the welcome remarks. 

The event was divided into four sessions, including “School Infrastructure Readiness”, “Content and System Readiness”, “Student and Parent Readiness” and “Teacher Readiness”.

I was one of the speakers on that day. My sharing topic was “Bicycle and Tricycle of e-Learning”, which included the role of parents during implementation e-Learning programmes, as well as parental support offered by WebOrganic.

It was my first time to have over 100 audience. I got short notice for this event as well. This time I got 3 days notice (not that bad) but was super busy with my first consultancy project in WebOrganic. Luckily, I had Nic to test out the contents with me. It was important to keep things simple and insightful.

 The speech was regarded as "Make or Break" my career, since it will be delivered to 100+ people and my CEO as well. I did rehearsed for a few times in order to achieve a smooth presentation flow.

Originally my speech was in the morning when even more audience was there. However, due to overrun by previous speakers, mine became the first after lunch. Good and bad... Good was that I got more time to rehearse; Bad was that I forgot a lot of my scripts in the morning (maybe because I was quite attentive to process what I heard from other speakers).

Overall speaking, this was a great experience for my career. Hope in one day, I will deliver a speech in front of a million people.

The seminar speakers are listed below:

• Mr. Charles Mok , Legislative Councilor – (IT);
• Ms. Winnie Wong, Head of Marketing, HK Cyberport Management Company Limited;
• Ms. Leona Wong, Executive Director, HK Wireless Technology Industry Association (WTIA); Mr. She Mang, Chief Curriculum Development Officer, IT in Education;
• Mr. Victor Cheng, Executive Director, Hong Kong Education City;
• Mr. Ip Kin Yuen Legislative Councilor – (Education Constituency);
• Dr. Allen Wong, SVP, Product Development and Management, Consumer Group, HKT Education Limited;
• Mr. Li Chi Shing (IT Panel); Po Leung Kuk, Chee Jing Yin Primary School, (won in 2012 Chief Executive's Award for Excellence in Education (information Technology in Education); Ms. Becky Lo, Education Lead, Public Sector Group, Microsoft Hong Kong Limited;
• Ms. Deon Man, Baptist Lui Ming Choi (Shatin Wai) Primary School; Cheung Kwok Che, Legislative Councilor (Social Welfare);
• Mr. Jeff Ng, Programme Manager, WebOrganic;
• Mr. Ha Chi Hung, IT Panel, True Light Middle School of HK, the Hong Kong Institute of Education;
• Dr. Kong Siu Cheung, Head of Department of Mathematics and Information Technology, Hong Kong Institute of Education the Hong Kong Institute of Education Jockey Club;
• Mr. Chu Tsz Wing, The HKIEd Jockey Club Primary School;
• Mr. Jimmy Lam, Head of Information Technology Department;
• Mr. Andy Li, IT Panel, Salesian School;
• Mr. Wong Kin Wai, Albert, Chairman of Association of IT Leaders in Education (AiTLE)

For more information, please visit ELC's website: http://elearning.org.hk/

Open e-Learning Lesson at The Lok Sin Tong Leung Wong Wai Fong Memorial School 樂善堂梁黃蕙芳紀念學校 (Feb 2013)

On 5th Feb 2013, I attended an open lesson at The Lok Sin Tong Leung Wong Wai Fong Memorial School (樂善堂梁黃蕙芳紀念學校). This was co-organized by the school and e-Class which was an education solution vendor. 

For evey open lesson, it is like a show. Usually teachers will select more mature students from P.4 or above. But for this lesson, Mr. Tang, the demonstrator, was so confident and chose a P.2 class for demonstration purpose. The lesson was on Math and the topic was about multiplication.

Lesson was quite smooth. Mr. Tang used the digital whiteboard a lot. Whenever Mr. Tang asked a question, students raised their hands quickly to show that they knew the answer.

The lesson was conducted for more than 30 minutes and , finally, iPad got into the demonstration in a T&L activity. A paid apps, Math Runner, was used for game-based learning. Two students used one iPad and played the game in "1 vs 1" battle mode. The iPad was also used for consolidation. A PowerLesson quiz was setup to test the students' understanding of the topic. Feedback of the lesson was collected through the PowerLesson platform. Interactive statistical report was immediately generated and Mr. Tang was able to drill down to individual response.

Indeed this was a good demo on how to integrate a Learning Management System (LMS), digital whiteboard, iPad, traditional printed textbook, and learning analytics in a lesson. I observed that e-Class devoted a lot of resources to support this school. In this event, there were over 10 staff from e-Class to support it. 

After the event, I met Mr. Wong, the IT Panel of this school. He was a really helpful and humble person. The relationship between WebOrganic and Mr. Wong was quite strong and there were quite a lot of interactions since our school programme launched in 2011.

I also met some co-workers from e-Class. I found that John Chan, a senior manager from e-Class, was a brother in Christ from my church. Our sons played together in the same room at church. 

Apart from e-Class, there are many LMS solutions in the market, like i-Class from a group of HKU students, Edmodo from Silicon Valley with 15 million users, etc. This event accelerated my understanding of the local market landscape for LMS. 

To conclude, the e-Class PowerLesson solution was quite user-friendly and mature. The open lesson demonstrated not only the LMS but also how it integrated into every day lesson. It was a good show!!!