e-Learning

e-Learning extends learning time and allows more flexible learning.

Characteristics of e-Learning

• e-Learning connects learners with information worldwide.

• e-Learning is collaborative. It helps students learn collaboratively within and beyond classroom.

• e-Learning is interactive. With multimedia, abstract concepts can be explicitly illustrated.

• e-Learning is extendable. It enables students to learn beyond classroom according to their ability, progress and interest.

Making Good Use of the Advantages of e-Learning

1. The school intranet, provision of wireless network and mobile devices provide a good learning environment. Hence, the GS team can closely collaborate with the IT team to enhance the curriculum design with information technology.

Example 1 Greenland within the School Premises

2. Information technology extends the learning experience and caters for learner diversity. It helps visualise abstract concepts and lets students extend their learning according to their interests and strengths. Thus, their confidence and capabilities in learning can be enhanced.

Example 2 Using Electronic Learning Tools in Outdoor Learning

Theme: My Community KS1

The school has fully utilised the school premises to build a “Greenland”.

To facilitate students’ self-learning, all plants in the school campus are labelled with QR codes which are linked to relevant resources on the Internet. The “Greenland” serves as a platform for cross-curricular activities (e.g. GS, computer lessons, Moral and Civic Education, Religious Education) and makes learning more interesting.

Learning

Objectives 1. To familiarise students with the community facilities.

2. To use e-learning tools in collaborative learning.

3. To cultivate the attitude of caring for the community, by suggesting the setting up or removal of community facilities to improve the quality of life for the elderly.

Learning

Activities Learning mode: Collaborative Learning

Task: Design a route for the elderly to do exercise

• Collecting information: Introduce the community of the neighbourhood of their school with texts and photos.

Curriculum Planning, Management and Leadership

3. IT tools process data quickly. Hence, students can spend more time on interactive learning and higher-order thinking processes, such as analysis, integration of knowledge and skills, evaluation as well as viewing an issue from multi-perspectives.

4. GS teachers can make reference to ‘CAP’ modules to organise appropriate learning activities that involve IT skills, so as to enhance the learning and teaching effectiveness.

• Field visits: Use mobile devices to take photos and record.

• Use of IT: With the aid of apps, students locate the facilities on the map and insert the photos. While designing the route for the elderly, students can clearly indicate the locations where new facilities should be installed or the worn-out facilities should be removed.

• Use of language: With the aid of sound-recording apps, students can attach audio scripts onto the map to introduce existing facilities. Also, they can explain their suggestions for the new facilities.

• Application of mathematical concepts: Students can apply the concept of location and direction.

Learning

Effectiveness • Through relating authentic context and virtual reality, students’ interest in learning can be enhanced.

• The level of difficulty should be commensurate with the abilities of students. Technology helps students understand abstract concepts (e.g. location, direction and distance).

Example 3 Data Processing and the Application at the School-based Weather Station

Theme: Seasonal Changes KS2

5. Teachers and students share knowledge and learn collaboratively within and beyond classroom via web-based platforms (e.g. online forums) and e-learning tools (e.g. apps),

• Schools promote on-line news reading schemes in order to develop students’ self-learning habit and raise their social awareness. There are weekly broadcasts of news and commentaries by students on the campus TV so that students can share their viewpoints with peers.

• Schools train students to become GS ambassadors to help their peers prepare for GS inter-class quizzes with web resources. This helps cultivate students’ interest and confidence in learning, and develop their capabilities of self-learning and civic responsibility.

• Schools use intranets to deliver and collect pre-lesson tasks, promote after-class reflection and provide extended learning tasks. This enables more interactive and flexible learning.

Students of upper primary collected daily weather information including temperature, relative humidity, rainfall and wind speed at the school-based weather station. Electronic spreadsheets were used to record, organise and analyse the data collected, for instance, to calculate the average monthly temperature and total monthly rainfall.

Students presented the data with suitable graphs, such as bar charts and line charts. As a result, they could observe the trends and variations.

With the skills learnt in Computer lessons, students analysed the data, discussed the trends observed from the data and drew conclusions.

Thus, students understood the characteristics and changes of climate of the four seasons.

(Extracted from CAP , Module 6: Calculation and Charting with Spreadsheets)

Curriculum Planning, Management and Leadership Example 4 Understanding Chinese History and Culture from

Foothold in Hong Kong KS1 & KS2

e- Learning within and beyond classrooms

1. Pre-lesson Examples:

• Students watch animation clips of related themes (e.g. Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb, Sung Wong Toi) via e-platform to have an overview of the historical background. They jot down key points or answer questions about those videos. Teachers assess students’

learning progress with the data collected by the e-learning platform.

• To promote Language across the Curriculum, students read information texts on the intranet (e.g. the story of paper-making by Cai Lun’ ( 蔡倫 ), maritime trade in the Song dynasty)

• When enquiring into the topic ‘The Ancient Tombs’, students collect information on famous tombs in different parts of the world and know more about cultural heritage.

Cross-subject collaboration

• Teacher-librarian sources relevant books.

• Language teachers provide reading materials and enhance students’ language abilities.

• GS teachers collect and adapt learning materials to foster interactive classroom learning and self-directed learning.

IT facilities of the school

• School sets up the e-learning platform (e-bookshelf and interactive electronic platform) with reading materials and video clips for pre-lesson tasks.

• IT coordinator develops a school-based learning platform for uploading assignments or discussion.

2. Classroom Learning:

Examples:

• When enquiring the topic, ‘Did the emperors of the Song dynasty stay in Hong Kong?’, students can discuss on the credibility of the information with reference to the electronic resources (e.g.

pictures of Sung Wong Toi and video clips).

• By searching for pictures of Han Tombs, students can compare Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb with the other Han Tombs, so as to predict if the Lei Cheng Uk Ham Tomb was built in the Han dynasty.

3. Extended Learning Activities Examples:

• Students engage in field studies with the aid of IT and a map of Hong Kong or street view of Kowloon City. Augmented reality can help students compare the ancient scenes with the scenes nowadays.

• Students can visit historic sites or heritage trails with the aids of learning apps so as to make the learning in authentic contexts more interactive and interesting.

• Students visit websites related to ‘Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival’ (《 清 明 上 河 圖 》). By observing the economic activities and figures, students learn about the prosperity of the Song dynasty. Students can also express their thoughts by descriptive or narrative writing.

• To promote Reading across the Curriculum, students could be encouraged to read stories about the ancient Chinese (e.g. Stories about moral integrity, being loyal to one’s country and scientists on e-platforms.

Schools should encourage students to evaluate the information with critical thinking and promote the use of IT in a safe, legal, and ethical manner, and thus enhance their information literacy, such as respecting for the intellectual property right and specifying the sources of information.

Curriculum Planning, Management and Leadership 3.4.3 Reading across the Curriculum

With the rapid development of IT and social media, students have to acquire the skills of inferring from and producing multimedia texts (e.g. text, images, animations and sounds). The GS curriculum, with daily-life related topics, provides a meaningful learning context for promoting Reading across the Curriculum (RaC), so that students can further explore subject knowledge and apply the reading skills and strategies learnt in language classrooms.

With diversified learning experiences, such as project learning and scientific investigation, students communicate with others, convey their ideas and exhibit creativity with IT skills and literacy skills.

There should be close collaborations between GS teachers, language teachers, teacher-librarian and IT teachers in providing opportunities for constructing knowledge and expressing ideas through the integration and application of knowledge and skills learnt in language classrooms.

Example: Integrative Thematic Learning KS1

GS lays the knowledge foundation while RaC provides enrichment for students to engage in-depth reflection after reading which enhances their critical thinking skills.