Section 7: Policy & role of ecology in sustaining innovation

CN012 is a co-educational secondary school in the New Territories of Hong Kong. This practice was first implemented in 2000.

There are 27 classes with a total of 996 students and 54 teachers in this school. Most of the students come from lower middle class families in the neighboring public housing. Two physics teachers, one laboratory technician and 35 Secondary 6 students were involved in this innovation. This practice was mainly implemented in Physics lessons. It addresses the importance of engaging students in designing some experiments that verify a mathematical model in scientific phenomena which is related to the curriculum content,

In this case, “Teachers told students that the five-year policy ‘Information Technology for Learning in a New Era Five Year Strategy’ boosted the implementation of IT in school and the use of IT in teaching and learning in this school. It was mentioned by the IT team that an additional teacher was granted to the school under the ICT scheme of the Quality Education Fund. This teacher took up part of the responsibility for managing the school network system and teaching teachers how to use some of the software. Furthermore, teachers also told students that the equipment for this project was also granted by the Quality Education fund.”

From the case, we can find during the last 10 years, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have provided a wealth of new technological opportunities, with the rapid deployment of the Internet. An ideal ICT policy should be sustainable at a national as well as at a school level. It should be cost-effective, cater to school goals, improve student achievement, enhance teacher quality and enable users to adapt to change.

While the government plays the most important role in the formulation of ICT policy, it decides how countries are able to take advantage of the technical opportunities available to them and exploit them for good. And investment is constrained to be the important factor to influence the development of ICT in education. Besides the investment, public concern also is another important factor.

1. how to combine the ICT resources and teaching methods

2. how to develop digital learning standards.

3. how related staff to support the work.

Moreover, it is also very important to balance the point between the demands of improving practice over time and pressing public concerns such as accountability and equity, between the cycle of change in technology and the cycle of change in schools, between the skills of tomorrow and the skills of today.

The picture below shows the ICT framework.

From the picture, we can clearly see that the education practice base on three basic resources, the software such as a management system, the hardware like labs with a lot of computers or multimedia equipment, and the last is the human resource, for example the teacher who had be trained or an experienced the principal. This is the inside circle which called execution circle, these three points are the basic force to promote the education practice improvement.

And outside circle I called it powerful circle, this means the three points have the strong power or ability to influence education practice improvement.

Investment is constrained to be the important factor to influence the development of ICT in education. There are three key themes which are used as rationales for investment in educational technology.

1. Technology as a tool for addressing challenges in teaching and learning. Teacher of nowadays teacher, technology provides a new approach to solve the teaching problem that makes the students more effective in study. And spend less money than usual.

2. Technology as a change agent. Regardless of what is going on today, a change agent has a vision of what could or should be and uses that as the governing sense of action. IT makes the future be a much better vision, without technology the change agent can lose their way.

3. Technology as a central force in economic competitiveness. With the new IT developing, new innovation will be bring out, like ipad, iphone, that will change all the worlds' economic, at the same time, IT in education also will be influenced. New competitiveness will be rounded by IT. IT will take the position of traditional equipment, to be the new, powerful competitiveness

All in all, an ideal ICT policy should balance improving teaching practice with pressing public concerns, in that way, the circle above will have a complete framework system. And with the all important factor, the education practice will reach to a new level.

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session 6--School context and innovation

This session is about School context and innovation and can be divided into several parts: School background,School strategies,Principal leadership,School ICT infrastructure and Government and community support.

We group first analyzed the example from the SITES-ME. We forcused on the ES001: Cooperrative Project Using Telecommunication Tools to Study the Climate and Weather. Four schools participated in this innovative co-operative project. Every weekday, pupils from different schools had to share introduce meteorological data in the Internet to them with the partner schools. Then they finally carried out comparative research projects on weather variables. This project had various objectives, from conceptual learning, mastery of use of different measurement tools, handling and making sense of data to facilitation of cooperative learning with virtual cooperative groups. Teachers provided suggestions and guidance for students learning, whereas students working in groups made the final decisions of what they wanted to learn and how they were going to do. The school background of this case is a strong educational vision and experience in Innovation and ICT use. This is also a case with strategies in establishing new teams for implementation, with visionary leader, with mobile computing capability and student access beyond class contact and general government policy support appeared to be relatively emergent in terms of teachers' and students' roles.

Besides, we have done some reach about the School context and innovation of mainland China and found that most school backgrounds of the schools in mainland China are council schools and alignment with government education policy. The schools forcus more on exam scores than ICT or innovation and have a traditional pedagogical practices. Though some of the principals agree with the innovation in education, they pay more attention to that if the students can pass the Matriculation Exam. This schools do have the ICT infrastructure but the use of ICT in education is just a face job and teachers care more about publishing papers rather than using ICT in teaching. Also, the government has the policy to support the innovation in school. However, as the college entrance examination system in mainland is not change, principals and teachers still prefer the traditional pedagogy.

Here is a web side about characteristics of the Higher Education in Mainland China: http://international.vlex.com/vid/characteristics-education-mainland-taiwan-228050335

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session 5--Curriculum Innovative Practices

Here is a website about the innovative curriculum in primary school. It contains lots of innovative practices in education. Hope it can help. In this case, the ICT act an important role in curriculum innovation.

http://www.lancsngfl.ac.uk/projects/gp_award/index.php?category_id=27

Project Summary：

For several years the school had put ICT at the forefront of its development plans. Funds had been used to purchase a wide range of hardware including one computer to every 3 children and interactive whiteboards and digital projectors.

However, even though ICT was being used effectively by teaching and support staff to enhance lessons, it was felt that its use could be developed further. Following a review of the curriculum it was decided to focus on the use of ICT to extend and develop creativity across the curriculum. ICT became central to the programmes of study as opposed to an addition.

As a consequence the children became more involved and excited about the possibilities of new technology to develop their studies. They now regularly produce Powerpoint presentations and have established Asmall Radio which broadcasts to the whole school. But perhaps, most exciting of all, they were able to monitor the bluetits as they nested in the nest box fitted with the digital camera.

The staff and pupils of the school were thrilled to receive the best practice award as an acknowledgement of their achievements.

The impact of the project in pupil's learning:

• The use of ICT has a tremendous impact on pupil learning. Children enjoy using all forms of ICT, it provides motivation and supports independent working.
• ICT has allowed a greater degree of creativity and given pupils more freedom to develop their interests within given topics.
• ICT supports the curriculum and is used to enhance and extend learning.
• More pupils use the website and internet for homework.
• E-assessment is used to rigorously track progress and identify areas for development.

Session 5--Case from M2 (CN010)

Background：

This case describes a series of lessons that aimed at helping a class of P.6 students to learn about punctuation marks in Chinese Language. In this practice, the teachers made use of self-developed software and a series of software developed by The University of Hong Kong to help students to learn Chinese punctuation. While the students played the role of active learners in the learning process, the ICT acted as tools for demonstration, drill and practice.

Goals：

1.Help students to understand the usage of punctuation at the sentence level.
2.Help students to understand the usage of punctuation to increase the cohesion of the passage.
3.Help students to apply their understanding of punctuation into their spoken Chinese.
4.Help students to understand the notion that with the use of ICT, they can undergo self-learning and make good uses of resources.

Curriculum：

The innovation involved about 4 lessons; the following were the activity flow of these less

Lesson	The teaching activity	Use of ICT
1.	l  Pretest l  Teacher presented information about Chinese punctuation with the self-developed PowerPoint presentation.	Teacher’s Presentation Tool
2	l  Teacher presented information about Chinese punctuation with the self-developed PowerPoint presentation	Teacher’s Presentation Tool
3	l  Teacher presented information about Chinese punctuation with the self-developed PowerPoint	Teacher’s Presentation Tool
4	l  Students work with the software developed by the University of Hong Kong on their own l  Post-test	Student’s Drill and Practice Tool

Other Innovation in Curriculum：

1.School-based Curriculum:
The school started to develop its school-based curriculum in 1985-86. The first subject which had its school-based curriculum was Computer, with its first developed teaching package “How to apply geometry”.

2.Project-based Learning:
Project-based Learning has been conducted in CN010 before the implementation of ICT education in Hong Kong (1997). However, with the implementation of ICT, the nature of the project work in CN010 has changed. The students are now working on some more ill-structured, open-ended and cross curricular questions. They make use of ICT tool in searching information and compiling of their reports.

3.On-line Discussion Forum:
In the on-line discussion forum, the teachers would put some newspaper articles on the intranet of the school and invite students to comment on it. The students can either put their reflections online or e-mail them to their teachers.
Issues：
This practice can transfer to another school in two sense. Firstly, the other schools can adopt the ways of ICT being used in the practice: teachers’ presentation tool and students’ drill and practice tool. The kind of transfer can be easily done in Hong Kong, as most of the schools has its computer laboratory. Besides, there is a “Hong Kong Education City” website offered by the Hong Kong government, in which the teachers can download and share their ICT teaching materials here. However, if the other school would like to fully adopt the innovation, that is, they would like to develop their own teaching materials. Apart from the time and effort they have to pay, they should at least possess what teacher A mentioned: (1)teachers who were capable in using ICT, (2)teachers who were competent in pedagogy & (3)enough ICT resources in schools.
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The Change of Students' Role

http://muse.tau.ac.il/publications/84.pdf

The paper analyse the data collected in ten schools in Israel which have ICT in unique ways and have succeeded in devising innovative classroom pedagogies and changes in teachers and students role and out comes. Table 1 presents a summary of the innovation domains and levels in the innovation analysis schema.

As we can see, most of the innovative practices cause a significant change in student role, who became Website constructors, teachers' assistants in ICT-related matters, or ICT projects managers. The students worked in teams to solve real problems and to accomplish projects.

Powerful new capabilities of computers make it possible to access, represent, process, and communicate information in new ways (Kozma, 1991, 1994). These capabilities make it possible to search and organize information, analyze data, represent ideas, simulate complex systems, and communicate with others in ways that were not practical or even possible previously. They also enable new ways of teaching and learning—new activities, new products, and new types of learning (Kozma & Schank, 1998).

Self- learner, team member, and knowledge manager are the three new roles for students and were often associated with project-based or inquiry learning. Students are capable to use the resources and on-line learning to learn by themselves without the teachers. They can learn whenever and wherever. It make the study to be active and initiative. With the help of ICT, students are divided into several groups ti communicate both in the classroom and after classes. Students just have to work collaboratively to move the work forward.The members have also to be active to finish the group work. The action they did just interact each others in the group. What's more, with the help of ICT, students are exposed to the knowledge by the global internet. They no longer waiting for the teachers to teach them the knowledge in class time, but manage and pick up the one they need whenever they want by reading reports, research studies, newspapers, or multimedia presentations that solve a real world problem, address a scientific question, or express personal feelings.

All in all, students are changed into a more active and initiative role comparing to the traditional education. They are possible to get access to the knowledge in various approaches and manage it under their own willings. Learning is now becoming a innovative work that full of creativities and no more a simple accpetence of knowledge.

References:

Kozma, R. (1991). Learning with media. Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 179-212.

Kozma, R., & Schank, P. (1998). Connecting with the twenty- first century: Technology in support of educational reform. In C. Dede (Ed.), Technology and learning. Washington, DC: American Society for Curriculum Development.
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Session 2 Activity----How Can Success In Innovation

Educational Innovation is to achieve certain goals of education and innovation in the field of education activities. Educational innovation contains the education system, educational structures, educational concepts, educational methods, educational tools, curriculum materials and educational time and space, involving almost all aspects of the field of education. With the development of human society, education has continuously engaged in innovation activities, such as the establishing of schools, textbooks appear, multi-media use, they are all part of the successful educational innovation. For several reasons, the education innovation often will meet some problems

Our discussion is around the problems based on the article which raised by Joyce Wycoff—“The Big Ten Innovation Killers and How to Keep Your Innovation System Alive and Well”. Though the article we summarize the several ways to address the problem about pedagogical practice.

1. What is culture, culture is a driving force to any organization. Without culture an organization just likes a sailing without direction, neither as education innovation. When an education institution does not know which culture it has, Innovation will never be happened in such education institutions. They will develop slow, even stop. Only if the culture will be established with clear direction.
2. Equipment is also a big factor about successful innovation, good innovation without hardware support is just useless. So the government and the leader of the school should put more money on the basic equipment, that with these equipment, innovation class can be come true.
3. Company should have a good Innovative leader, so as education organization. If the principle makes an innovation strategy, that the pedagogical innovation will be boost. If the principle is conservative, so he is the Stumbling block of innovation.
4. Teacher is the soul of the education, if the teacher does not know how to innovation, his class seems so boring that no students will like it. To address this situation the teacher should be trained with innovation course, such as ITE.
5. To have an idea management system that students and teacher can communication online or make course more simple. For example, once teacher want to have a task out of the classroom, he can use the management system to give suggests and guide the students to finish the task.

Overall, there also many other measures to make the innovation successful, but the important thing is the new innovation is whether suitable for the current education.
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Session 1 Activity----ICT-Innovation Example

Since the computer is invented, the Information and Communication Technology is then quickly emerged in a global level. Such kind of technology was first used in military. But now it has already been integrated into our daily lives. We make phone calls, search on the internet, meet each others via online videos,send message and so on. The world would be quite different without it.

In traditional, we only communicate with those people who are around us and get the information mainly from our teachers. The information we can get is so limited and may be out of the world tendency. When ICT is applied into education, it not only changes the way teacher teach, but also change the way students learn.Both teachers and students can get the newest information at any time in any places . Teachers' teaching methods are becoming various and interesting. Students can search what they curious about and get it immediately. ICT makes the learning more active. Take my experience on online learning as an example. I used to interested in watching videos online about open classes in other universities. This kind of technology various the way I learn. My learning resource is no longer limited in textbook or what the teachers know, but extended to other countries and other famous teachers that I can not meet. Even though sometimes we missed classing time by accident, we can still review it by videos or just watch it again and again. There is no more geographic or any time limits. It is a kind of innovation when compared to those traditional ways.

ICT not only innovate the technology, but also innovate our lives. So much examples can be found in our life. I believe that the ICT will develop to a great perspective just like we had never thought about its current situation in old days.

By Rose