Does the city you live in have “slum” areas? Have you ever thought about how they are built and how they meet the needs of the people who live there? In Week 3 of the Vernacular Architecture of Asia: Tradition, Modernity & Cultural Sustainability, we continue our examination of the urban environment by focusing on these “informal settlements”. Register for the course for free at http://tinyurl.com/architecturemooc and join learners from around the world on July 26, 2016. Find out more about it here!
Faculties are now invited to submit course proposals for the next phase of our experimentation with massive open online courses (MOOCs) that commences in 2017-18. It is anticipated that all Faculties will be participating in this call to explore how the University can capitalize on this new way of teaching and learning and stay relevant in a worldwide movement of setting new education standards.
Digital and virtual learning tools create new possibilities in internationalizing our learning environment. In a seminar on 20 Apr 2016, Professor Ricky Kwok was invited to share his ideas on how technology broadens the concept of internationalization.
What is internationalization?
Ricky began the conversation by brainstorming with participants some characteristics of “internationalization”:
The intention of internationalization is to create an environment where students must interact with people from different cultures. The intensity of interactions is a major area to consider when evaluating students’ international experience. The intensity of intercultural experience correlates to the willingness to interact with local people, such as using the local language and being involved in community projects.
Internationalization at Home
We can intensify the process of internationalization at HKU using technology. With digital and virtual learning tools, we can bridge the distance among learners and institutions. Digital learning has made it possible for us to connect learners worldwide through Massive Open Online Courses. For example, in HKU02.1x The Search for Vernacular Architecture of Asia, Part 1, students from all over the world were invited to analyze their local living environments using key concepts from the course. In HKU03x Humanity and Nature in Chinese Thought, a synchronous online debate on a global scale was organized.
Virtual learning also allows us to replicate our learning environment for overseas students to explore without needing to be here. Currently, we are planning to build a 3-D virtual tour of buildings on the HKU campus in collaboration with the Google Cultural Institute. If more tertiary institutions worldwide offer similar virtual tours, more students can “visit” universities overseas without travelling.
HKU is a focal point of multiple ethnicities and cultures. With technology, we can expand our web to reach international students in a more innovative way. What are your views on this? What digital and virtual tools would you like to try in enhancing internationalization? Share your ideas with us.
Can urban environments also be vernacular? In Week 2 of the Search for Vernacular Architecture of Asia, we will examine the broader and more complex issues in the urban built environment. Register for the course for free and join learners from around the world on July 26, 2016. Find out more about it here!
We begin the Search for Vernacular Architecture: Tradition, Modernity & Cultural Sustainability with a look at the rural vernacular. In the first pisode, we will focus on the different aspects of the rural vernacular environment in Asia, and the ways in which these environments communicate meaning. Register for the course for free at http://tinyurl.com/architecturemooc and join learners from around the world on July 26, 2016. Find out more about it here!
IPTBL is a pioneering effort in conducting interprofessional education (IPE) using team-based learning (TBL).
“In running this type of events, technology is tremendously important,” said Dr. Chan in the seminar.
We all need to learn to collaborate, and through collaboration, we learn more. With technology, it is now easier to create new collaborative grounds for students. Having a firm belief that “collaborative work will lead to better patient outcome,” Dr. Lap Ki Chan (Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine) initiated Interprofessional Team-Based Learning (IPTBL), a technology-facilitated project, with a team of pioneers, including Dr. Charlene C. Ho, School of Biomedical Sciences; Dr. Fraide A. Ganotice, Jr., Bau Institute of Medical and Health Sciences Education; Dr. Veronica Lam, School of Nursing; Dr. Ming Fai Law, Department of Social Work and Social Administration; and Dr. Gordon Wong, Department of Anaesthesiology. The team shared their experience in a seminar on 6 June 2016.
IPTBL – How does it work?
“The future is bright I think. TBL is the way to go in healthcare,” said Dr. Gordon Wong in the seminar.
Collaborative learning is nothing new in education. But what makes IPTBL special is that it is a pioneering effort to promote interprofessional education (IPE) across healthcare disciplines using team-based learning (TBL) and ed-tech. Students from multidisciplinary silos teamed up to tackle clinical cases, debate on questions and appeal to facilitators regarding the answers. So far, the project has successfully broken down the silos of 7 different programmes and engaged 600 students from HKU and PolyU.
The use of ed-tech
It would be impossible to engage such a large number of learners simultaneously without the help of technology. To enable effective class management, an e-platform called the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) was utilized. It allowed teachers to track the progress of all students through the different stages of TBL.
Technology makes collaboration easier in the classroom. Contact us if you want to create new collaborative opportunities for your students.
More photos of the seminar can be found on our Facebook and Twitter.
Further reading:
Larry Michaelson, L. (2009). The Essential Elements of Team-Based Learning. Adapted from Chapter 1 of Michaelsen, L., Sweet, M. & Parmalee, D. (2009). Team-Based Learning: Small Group Learning’s Next Big Step. New Directions in Teaching and Learning, 7-27. Download here
Course starts TODAY!
Join us and think along with Classical Chinese masters as they explore and debate how and where we can find ethical guidance in nature.
Philosophy can be a daunting subject to teach, as it often involves the explanation of complex and abstract ideas, and encouraging students to think creatively and independently. The challenge becomes more pronounced in the context of online teaching, where students learn remotely and independently in front of their own computers. How do you engage the students and maintain their attention span, while doing justice to the intellectual depth of the subject? Such was the challenge we faced.
Course Instructor Professor Chad Hansen is a brilliant philosophy teacher. His lectures are always intellectually challenging and interesting at the same time. So how did we turn his course into a MOOC?
It has been a long development process with lots of trial and error.
At first, the production had a humble beginning. We just tried to film Professor Hansen without much preparation work to see how it would go. Chad is such a good speaker that he could speak on any topic effortlessly without a need of script and prompter. However, the result was not good. The clips filmed were too long and were difficult to be sliced into chunks to put into the edx platform. We realized that a very careful planning of table of content and flow is extremely important before you could even start. Our instructional designers then worked with Chad to divide his course material into many 6-10 minute long knowledge unit. Many researches showed that the optimal length of online educational video is 6 minute or shorter if you want to keep student engagement.
Then we tried to film again strictly according to the defined knowledge units – clip by clip. We asked Chad to speak directly into the camera, as if addressing the viewers himself. The result was not bad, but that could not capture the dynamic and engaging character that his lectures are well known for – something was clearly missing.
Finally the production team tried a new and risky method – we put Professor Hansen in a small classroom setting and surrounded him with real students and three cameras. We shot it like a mini-concert in order to capture his signature performance naturally. The result was great and dynamic. One learner said in the discussion forum: “I envision this as an idealized college scene – a professor and a small group of students sitting in the green lawn discussing great thoughts concerning humanity”. This was exactly what we were trying to capture.
After capturing all footages, we tried to work backward to make storyboards. Instructional designers digested the clips and designed what highlighted text to be put on the screen. Our multimedia designers worked with Chad and his teaching assistants to create interesting and relevant visuals animations to present those abstract philosophy concepts. The goal was to create a right mix of intimacy and authority.
Also we understand students lose easily in a sea of video clips with subject matter they are not familiar with. We did a few things to give a sense of structure throughout the course.
Each week has an introduction clip and an conclusion clip.
Each clip has an opening with the title of the knowledge unit.
Each clip has a clear ending. The same piece of music chimes in when Chad is going to conclude the clip.
We kept typography and graphic style strictly consistent. Each style got its structural meaning.
Besides the visual part, we believe the audio part is equally important. The audio level should be consistent with relatively free of noise and little ambience. The audio quality should not be muddy or overbright. The room we used to film was not good in terms of acoustic properties. It was huge with big ambience. There was also a lot of noise from air conditioners. We used special audio software to process every word in each video clip. We removed the noise, reduced the ambience and made EQ ( Equalization ) adjustment to make sure Chad’s speech sounds clearly in mediums that most learners will watch on – laptops with small speakers, mobile phones and headphones.
The balance between education and entertainment is a hard one to strike. And we hope that we are able to make the learning experience as informative, enlightening, and enjoyable as possible.
Deepen your appreciation of the values and meanings of vernacular architecture in your local environments
Establish your personal perspectives on the more complex issues in vernacular architecture, such as self-conscious or un-self-conscious way of building, informal settlements, and cultural sustainability
Help you to generate your own ideas of how to protect and conserve your local vernacular built environment
On May 12-13, 2016, representatives from nine institutions gathered at the second Asian e-Table to explore collaboration opportunities and challenges in developing online learning in Asia.
Participants included:
Dr. Huang Hoon CHNG, Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education), National University of Singapore
Professor Toru IIYOSHI, Deputy Vice President for Education, Kyoto University
Professor Joon HEO, Director of Open & Smart Education Center, Yonsei University
Ms. Helie KIM, Yonsei University
Professor Xiaoming LI, Assistant President, Peking University
Professor Benson Yeh Ping-Cheng, Director of MOOC Program at National Taiwan University
Professor Chetwyn CHAN, Associate Vice-President (Learning and Teaching), PolyU
Professor Roger CHENG, Associate Provost for Teaching and Learning, HKUST
Professor Nick Noakes, Director of Center for Enhanced Learning and Teaching, HKUST
Professor T.C. PONG, Senior Advisor to Executive Vice-President and Provost, HKUST
Professor Isabella POON, Pro-Vice-Chancellor / Vice-President, CUHK
Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President & Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching & Learning)
At the event, we also skyped in Anant Agarwal, the CEO of edX, during our roundtable discussions.
This year we welcomed a new member from Yonsei University, Professor Joon HEO, Director of Open & Smart Education Center.
Together, participants discussed the possibilities and issues in:
developing an Asian consortium with gatherings of colleagues at different working levels;
developing a central repository for content sharing, including full courses, micro-modules, and pedagogical showcases;
enhancing professional development and teacher training;
launching a regional (E-)Teaching Excellence Award so as to encourage teaching staff to invest more efforts in e-learning and establish a common standard of teaching;
co-creating MOOCs (possible topics include computational thinking and MOOC production);
and
creating better E-portfolios.
The HKU team also had the pleasure to share our recent experience in developing an online course from a grassroot level in the BOLT project.
Looking forward
Asian e-Table is an annual conference on e-learning initiated by HKU in 2015. We endeavour to gather experts in the region “to build a platform, a foundation, to something that can be sustainable and vibrant in the years ahead,” as pointed out by Professor Ian Holliday. The ultimate goal is to facilitate knowledge exchange and build a community of practice. Click here for a more detailed report on the event.
Technology has no borders, so is education. Contact us if you are interested in developing online education in Asia with us.
We kicked off the event by playing two videos that showcase not only our productions but also the behind-the-scenes of our daily work. With a good laugh, we started our intellectual exchange session with discussions to identify the key obstacles faced by the two e-learning teams. As e-learning materials makers, we often work with teachers who are exceptional in teaching a class but not as comfortable talking to a camera. It was agreed that creating a similar setting to classroom and providing adequate training and rehearsals are effective ways to ease up the tension. The KEEP team also shared with us the equipment and facilities they use for e-learning production and their home-grown systems such as uReply and VeriGuide.
The discussion continued over a delightful lunch, which was followed by a visit to our “arsenal” where all our productions are crafted. The KEEP team was amazed by our lively offices and the close bonding of the team, which echo with Professor Ricky Kwok’s quotation of Mencius: 天時不如地利 地利不如人和 (Time isn’t as important as the terrain, but the terrain isn’t as important as unity with the people).
The KEEP team parted with the promise of a BBQ event in CUHK in the near future. So, to be continued……
Afternote: KEEP is an initiative developed by CUHK in collaboration with all UGC-funded institutions in Hong Kong. It provides a single gateway to online learning content around the globe. Learn more here: https://keep.edu.hk/
