Archive Consultation Papers and Consultancy Reports Information Technology for Learning in a New Era Five-Year Strategy 1998/99 to 2002/03

Chapter 5 Curriculum and Resource Support Curriculum 5.1Many respondents commented that the use of IT in teaching and learning must be accompanied by a corresponding change in the school curriculum. Some have even contended that IT education should not begin before the whole curriculum is overhauled. Whilst we entirely agree that our school curriculum should keep abreast of the needs of the information age, we should take a pragmatic approach to make incremental improvements wherever possible in the meantime, while a comprehensive review of the curriculum is undertaken. 5.2We have received conflicting views on our target to have 25% of the school curriculum taught with the support of IT. This target has been drawn up taking account of the nature of our school curriculum, experience of other countries, readiness of our teachers and resources implications. We consider this to be an achievable target because our focus is on how the delivery of the existing curriculum can be improved with the assistance of IT. Translated into practical terms, one example could be that approximately two classes per day are conducted either in the multi-media room or in the classroom using an interactive and non textbook-based approach and with some support of IT facilities. Teaching and learning activities such as e-mail communications, doing/marking homework through IT, web-based self-learning could also be counted towards the 25% target. Schools will be given maximum flexibility in deciding how to achieve this target. Some schools in Hong Kong have already reached the 25% target, and we are optimistic that more schools will be able to do so within the next few years. We are conscious that the levels of schools' readiness vary immensely and will therefore monitor closely the progress of schools and do our best to assist those which lag behind. 5.3To achieve the 25% target and to bring about necessary changes to the curriculum, we will proceed by two stages: Stage 1: Enhancing the level of awareness and use of IT in the existing curriculum CDC and ED will: review the existing curricula with a view to suggesting common teaching and learning strategies using IT, and those specific for individual curricula. In this regard, the subject committees of CDC have come up with action plans and we will ask CDC to set a progressive timetable to achieve the 25% target. We expect the incorporation of IT elements to liven up some syllabuses, rather than to make them heavier for students and teachers, in other words, restructuring rather than mere addition; identify IT resources (e.g. relevant web-sites or courseware) that can serve the general purpose and specific elements of teaching and learning in subjects, cross-curricular areas and integrated studies; encourage school-based efforts to adapt IT to different learning areas, subjects, interests and abilities of students, and parent expectations; encourage schools to use IT to make internal assessment which is less labour intensive; and conduct research on the impact of IT on student learning from the experience of the more pioneering schools to facilitate informed decisions regarding the curriculum. Stage 2: Full integration of IT in the new curriculum In 1999, CDC will conduct a comprehensive review of the school curriculum to cater for new developments. This will include an in-depth study on IT in curriculum. IT will become a core competency for students, and paradigm changes arising from the use of IT as mentioned in para. 1.2 will be comprehensively integrated into the new school curriculum. In addition, we also expect the review to come up with recommendations to reduce the dominance of written examinations in student assessment. 5.4Whilst the existing computer subjects will be easily outdated by the growth in technology, we propose that future technology-related subjects should adopt a more open approach to its curriculum format so that updated elements could be accommodated readily without a major revision. In the meantime, we will seek to incorporate IT in the new technical curriculum being developed for prevocational and secondary technical schools. 5.5With the changes in the curriculum, there may need to be corresponding changes to the way in which assessment is conducted. CDC will need to work closely with the Hong Kong Examinations Authority (HKEA) in this respect. HKEA has in fact commissioned a consultancy to examine what impact the increased use of IT in the curriculum will have on public examinations. We envisage that with the use of IT, it will be possible for students to engage in more collaborative research and project-based assignments which develop their creative, inquisitive and interpersonal faculties. The same consultancy commissioned by HKEA is considering how school-based assessment, which will include project work by students, can form part of the public examination score, and how elements in the curriculum which are not easily tested in a pen-and-paper examination, but which are accentuated by more use of IT, can be tested by means of school-based assessment. 5.6ED will encourage and assist teachers to develop innovative school-based IT curriculum catering for the specific needs of their students. It will also promote more frequent application of IT during classroom and extra-curricular activities through seminars, workshops, school visits and inspections etc. Apart from disseminating best practices emerged from the IT Pilot Scheme in 10 primary and 10 secondary schools to all other schools, ED will encourage inter-school collaboration for those less IT-ready primary schools to draw from the experiences of the more IT-ready secondary schools. In the context of encouraging more school-based management, we will also allow schools more flexibility in delivering and interpreting the school curriculum. Resource support 5.7A common view expressed by respondents is that there is not enough teaching and learning software in the market. We are committed to doing our best to foster the development of more and better software and other support materials. Close collaboration among Government, the tertiary sector, schools and software developers is essential. Identification and promotion 5.8ITERC will source and promote appropriate software to support teaching and learning in various subjects. It will liaise with overseas software publishers or educational bodies to identify educational software appropriate for local schools. It will also seek to negotiate with educational software publishers worldwide to offer their products, adapted for the local curriculum, at concessionary rates to our teachers and students. 5.9Schools and teachers need guidance and advice when selecting software. In this regard, we are happy to note that QEF has given funding for a project entitled 'Q Mark Software for Quality Education' which aims to help teachers select appropriate and quality software. ITERC will also establish an education software preview library for access by teachers, which will facilitate the choice of software titles. We believe these efforts will not only help teachers but will be conducive to the emergence of more quality software. Production 5.10We believe that with more schools becoming willing to embrace IT and with the announcement of the 25% target (para. 5.2), the software industry will see an emerging market demand for quality educational software. We understand that many software developers and publishers are already making plans to produce educational software, but they need more information and clear guidelines on the school curriculum and the needs of teachers and students. ITERC and the Curriculum Development Institute will provide such information and advice. Software publishers should also interact more closely with the tertiary institutions and schools to leverage on their expertise in producing education software. 5.11It will not be cost-effective or appropriate for ED to engage in directly producing teaching software, but it may consider commissioning the development of software for certain subject areas where necessary. A number of CD-ROMs on various subjects, such as languages, mathematics and general studies in the primary curriculum and science and humanities in the secondary curriculum are being developed and will be distributed to schools in the 1998/99 school year. 5.12Education Television (ETV) is one of the popular resources used by teachers especially for the primary school curriculum. New ETV programmes are being digitised and stored as VCDs and CD-ROMs as a first step. Selected ETV video segments will be put on web-site to facilitate teaching and learning. 5.13ITERC stands ready to offer advice to schools on producing their own teaching software or materials. It will also help source the appropriate software tools to facilitate production of tailor-made teaching resources by teachers. We are glad to note that a number of tertiary institutions and schools have obtained funding from QEF to produce subject-specific courseware or software. We intend to promote the better of such software to other schools, and will encourage further sharing of IT-based teaching materials among schools and teachers.