Major Recommendations

5.1 Ensuring Baseline Technology Access in Schools

In order to ensure that the schools have the baseline technology access for the implementation of any ICT in education strategy on learning and teaching, it may not be sufficient to provide schools with guidelines on ICT infrastructure only; instead, the HKSAR Government should establish a minimum standard in terms of ICT access, including the minimum standard and configurations for hardware, software and network infrastructure which form the baseline expectations for the development of e-learning curriculum resources and online assessment. Furthermore, the HKSAR Government should establish a mechanism to ensure that schools will make sure that their ICT

infrastructure is not below the minimum standard.

In addition, it is important to note that there are guidelines for the employment of technical support staff but there is no enforcement mechanism to ensure to what extent such guidelines have been appropriately used by schools. It is suggested that the Government should establish a set of up-to-date benchmarks for testing the minimum expected knowledge and skills of school technicians.

5.2 Empowering Learners with IT

We recommend two major strategies to empower learners with IT. The first one is enhancing students’ IL proficiency by encouraging students to make intelligent use of ICT in the project-based learning process, particularly in projects that provide opportunities to engage students in using ICT to solve ill-structured and authentic problems. Relevant learning activities should be organized so as to help students to develop the higher-order information literacy skills. Secondly, it is proposed that a well-articulated IL framework should be established in each KLA. It is recommended that for each KLA, a clear IL framework depicting the levels of achievements expected for the different IL dimensions of each key stage is needed.

5.3 Empowering Teachers with IT

To deepen teachers’ understanding of IL, it is recommended firstly to develop pedagogical designs for implementing the IL framework in learning and teaching for different KLAs. This will help to ensure that teachers know how to incorporate the IL framework into their curriculum and assessment practices. Secondly, it is recommended that professional development opportunities should be provided to teachers on how to develop and use KLA-specific IL assessment tasks. The assessment tasks developed in this study can be used as exemplars in this regard. IL assessment tasks developed to provide broader curriculum coverage should be provided to teachers in the near future so that they can have an in-depth understanding and be able to facilitate and assess the development of IL in the subject areas they teach. Thirdly, it is also recommended that a renewed teachers’ professional development framework should be put in place and related professional training programmes should be developed for the implementation of the new teachers’ framework, so as to ensure that such implementation will be KLA-specific and inline with the students’ IL framework.

5.4 Enhancing School Leadership for the Knowledge Age

To enhance school leadership capacity to support efforts to develop students’ IL proficiency and the implementation of IL assessment in schools, it is recommended that leadership programmes should be provided to school heads to heighten their awareness of these issues. Furthermore, it is necessary to provide them with knowledge and skills to develop school-based IT strategic plans to enhance learning and teaching, and in particular, the generic and KLA-specific IL proficiency of students.

Besides, school heads should be provided with professional/leadership development opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of IL- and the KLA-specific nature aspects of IL competences. It is also recommended that school heads should appoint the person in charge of the overall curriculum development in school to coordinate different panels in the identification of the technical IL competences required to support the IL components in various subject curricula for each grade level, and to develop a coordinated approach to ensure that there will not be gaps or significant overlaps in the IL-related curriculum in the different subject areas within and across grade levels.

5.5 Enriching Digital Resources for Learning

It is recommended that key tools and resources for each KLA be identified and professional development opportunities be provided to introduce these to teachers in the relevant KLAs.

Strategies should also be in place to ensure that the aforementioned kinds of digital resources can be effectively identified and introduced to teachers in meaningful pedagogical contexts.

5.6 Improving IT Infrastructure and Pioneering Pedagogy using IT

To improve IT infrastructure and support innovative pedagogies using IT, it is suggested that mechanisms should be built to ensure continual update of the minimum standards for ICT infrastructure and basic benchmark for technical support expertise in schools and mechanisms be put in place to support innovative teachers to form cross-school communities of practices to pioneer new pedagogies and support these pioneering teachers to play mentoring roles in the dissemination of innovative practices.

5.7 Providing Continuous Research and Development

It is recommended that the EDB can further initiate and commission research and development projects in extending the current study to other KLAs and grade levels and to put in place measures to identify and disseminate pedagogical strategies that will effectively enhance students’

higher-level IL competences in different KLAs and also research on medium of instruction and development of students’ IL competences.

5.8 Promoting Community-wide Support and Community Building

To seek support from parents for IT in education implementation, it is recommended that education programmes for parents should be provided so as to help them gain a better understanding of IL and the impact of IT on students’ learning. Such programmes may be organized through parent-teacher associations, non-governmental organizations and the EDB.