Empower Early Childhood Educator’s Multimodal Learning Experience – Learning and Teaching Initiatives funded by the UGC

Abstract:

Information Communication Technology (ICT) has become an essential part of the learning environment in pre-school settings. Examples of new technologies and media used by young children have already providing multimodal learning experience for young children’s learning in the technological world (Yelland, 2011). In order to prepare the current pre-service and in-service early childhood teachers to support young learners in the digital age, this project aims to 1) develop an interactive e-platform to demonstrate, share and redesign teachers’ innovative ICT-related pedagogical practices in local pre-school settings, 2) update course contents and learning resources to promote learners to adopt variety of technologies in the classroom practice and their teaching.
In this project, ICT will go beyond the desktop computer and also include different new digital technologies to offer multimodal learning experience, which may combine the written, visual, gestural, aural, linguistic and the tactile. Be aim at learner’s feedback in the previous years, the use of mobile technologies and digital toys will innovatively update the pedagogical content, and create ICT-related pedagogical strategies.
This project will facilitate early childhood teachers to share exemplars of pedagogical design and the experience of ICT innovation in the pre-school settings. It is expected that outcomes of this project will include an interactive e-platform, which will create and share multiple ICT-related practice experience for local practitioners. In addition, the e-platform will take active role to improve learner’s ICT skills and knowledge, and share multiple media resources.
Reference: Yelland, N. (2011). Reconceptualising play and learning in the lives of young children. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 36(2), 4-12

Code:

T0124

Principal Project Supervisors:

Keywords provided by authors:

Subjects:

Start Date:

01 Aug 2013

End Date:

31 Jul 2014

Status:

Completed

Result:

This project aimed to empower Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers' multimodal learning experience. This project successfully involved face-to-face course, hands-on activities and blended learning approaches to engage students to understand how ICT can be improve young children's playful learning through multimodal text including visual, gestural, written, aural, linguistic, and tactile.
Three major results are:

Promoting the innovative curriculum design
Applying new ICT-related pedagogical strategies
Creating a rich and collaborative learning environment

Impact:

This TDG project involved fix courses from cohort 2013-2014, including
1. Three courses in the first semester: "Information Communication Technology in ECE curriculum" Higher Diploma in Early Childhood Education (Two-year Full-time)
2. Two courses in the second semester: "The Young Child in a Technological World" Bachelor of Education (Honours)(Early Childhoond Education) (Four-year Full-time)
3. One course in the first semester: "Leadership in ECE settings" Bachelor of Education (Honours)(Early Childhood Education) (Three-year Part-time)
Students' feedbacks were collected using online semi-structured questionnaire through Moodle. Feedback from all three classes indicated that the resources from this project prepared them to adopt ICT in the teaching and learning activities. There were 91 respondents. In the following analysis,

98% of student agreed that they learnt how ICT can affect young children's learning.
All students agreed that the course help them to use different type of ICT in ECE curriculum.
94% of students agreed that this course improve their ICT competence.
98% of students agreed that this course support them to integrating ICT in classroom practice.

Deliverables:

Books / Book Chapters / Journal Articles / Conference Papers

胡韾允、鄭婉玲（2016）：評述科技與互動媒體對幼兒課程的立場報告，輯於劉慧中、戴燕儀編，《幼兒教育面面觀：研究與實務結集本(七) 》，（頁52-64），香港，香港教育學院。

Seminars/Presentations/Sharing Sessions

Hu, X. Y. (2014, February). Prepare pre-service teachers in the new learning environment: challenges and trends. Paper presented at the Learning and Teaching @HKIEd 2014 Mini Conference, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong. https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/68565938-f368-406d-8bef-c2e2...
Hu, X. Y. (2014, November). Using interactive media to promote younger children’s learning. Paper presented at the APERA-HKERA International Conference, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong.https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/5e466775-4dce-487f-b2d4-400c...

Online Resources and Materials

A website for ECE educators on use of ICT in the preschool settings https://repository.eduhk.hk/en/publications/77087e51-b8bf-42ab-9963-cb75...

Financial Year:

2012-13

Type:

TDG