Abstract:
As English is the major medium of instruction in Hong Kong tertiary education, this project links mobile technologies with subject learning through English and showcases the vitality and creativity of tertiary students of different levels (undergraduates, masters, doctorates) and from different disciplines (Science, Social Science, Education, Arts and Humanities, etc.) in mobile learning.
Following a thorough investigation, a mobile learning community will be established, consolidated, sustained in HKIEd and extended to other Hong Kong higher education institutions. The community members include students, academic/teaching staff, and experts inside and outside HKIEd who engage in active exchanges of the use of mobile technologies creatively and regularly. An extended and intensive study of the use of mobile technologies by students and academic staff will shed light on how mobile technologies can be integrated into existing technology use in higher education and enhance students’ subject learning through English.
This project intends to achieve the following objectives:
Identifying creative and effective use of mobile technologies in learning subject knowledge through English.
Investigating how such mobile learning helps to enhance students’ subject and English learning through guided self-reflection.
Helping students to conduct critical evaluations of their mobile learning and make strategic efforts to address weak areas in both their subject knowledge and their English
Building a community of mobile learning among tertiary students and academic/teaching staff and motivating them to use mobile technologies in learning and teaching EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) courses.
Discussing EMI and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) related issues and offering pedagogical suggestions on mobile learning/teaching of subject knowledge through English for both teachers and students.
Sustaining the community members’ interest in using mobile technologies in learning and teaching through regular sharing of members’ successful experience.
Code:
05074
Principal Project Supervisors:
Start Date:
01 Mar 2013
End Date:
30 Jun 2015
Status:
Completed
Result:
The CoP Project, Fostering a Mobile Learning Community, has brought HKIEd the potential to take the leading role in promoting mobile learning in Hong Kong and beyond. The project aims to promote the use of mobile technologies in teaching and learning and to bind together individuals or small groups to form a community of mobile learning with the emphasis on language learning. Teachers and students across different higher education institutions in Hong Kong and overseas countries have joined the Mobile Learning Community (MLC), amount to almost 260 members. In addition, a dedicated open website (http://corpus.ied.edu.hk/mlc) has been established by the MLC to disseminate mobile learning/teaching resources for not just members but a wider, global audience.
The MLC has made very positive impact on both teachers’ teaching and students’ learning. Numerous seminars and workshops have been held regularly, targeting teaching staff and students in order to continuously foster mobile learning across the community and equip our members with updated mobile learning information and innovative practices. Many teaching staff who attended the seminars and workshops learned new ways of teaching using mobile technologies. For example, teacher members have learned knowledge and skills on how to use different mobile learning management systems such as Edmodo, Schoology and Socrative. They implemented these newly learned mobile technologies in their teaching and reported very interesting findings in different occasions. Two MLC members won teaching awards as their excellence in using innovative technologies in teaching was well recognized by the Institute. As for students, they either benefited directly from attending the seminars and workshops and learned to use mobile technologies to assist their learning, or benefited indirectly as teaching staff who learned to use mobile technologies in their classes helped the students to learn more effectively. By visiting our MLC website, students have been provided with rich mobile learning resources; they have also developed their critical thinking ability by participating in various student-centred community activities such as writing App reviews and designing posters to showcase their personalised mobile learning stories. Students’ feedback that we have collected so far on mobile learning have been very positive, and we plan to carry out more surveys on students’ mobile learning experiences among our community members, who will be invited to self-evaluate and self-reflect on how effectively they use mobile technologies to engage in learning. A competition for students to win the ‘Student Mobile Learning Stories Award’ is currently being organized, which aims to publicize students’ successful mobile learning stories, and give full recognition to those who have engaged with mobile technologies in their learning highly successfully.
Through constant sharing and exchange of information/knowledge among colleagues and students from different faculties and departments, the community members and participants have learned how mobile technologies are employed in teaching and learning in different disciplines, e.g., English, Chinese, Mathematics, Linguistics, Computer Science, etc., which widens their scope and increases the synergy and dynamism among the community.
Various evaluation mechanisms have been systematically employed to evaluate the effectiveness and achievement of the community. The built-in-tracking system of our MLC website shows that it has been visited by audiences from Asia, Europe, North America and Africa; it has attracted more than 5,500 visitors since its opening in August 2014. In addition, an open, online survey hosted on our website shows that the website has been considered very useful, inspiring and easy to follow. One reviewer commented on our website this way: “Some of the apps or websites recommended are new to me and I am eager to try some practices on them. Some of them are useful for my self-learning and some of them may be able to apply in my teaching at school.” We also conducted evaluation of most of our community activities (e.g., workshops/seminars/sharings). The statistics show that these activities have been welcomed and positively received by both teacher and student participants; the mean of the overall satisfaction of all activities is 3.44 out of 4 and 93% of the participants either strongly agreed or agreed that our activities were worth attending.
Through various efforts made by our project team and the community members, the mobile learning community has been well established in our Institute; however, we are fully aware that we need to make sustained efforts to consolidate our community, maintain its vitality and prosperity, and, in particular, to reach a wider community by attracting more teachers, students, practitioners from other local institutions or overseas countries.
Deliverables:
Books / Book Chapters / Journal Articles / Conference Papers
Ma, Q., & Wang, L. (2015, March). Animating Classroom Teaching with Mobile Technologies. Paper presented at the “Learning and Teaching @HKIEd Festival 2015” Conference, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Ma, Q., Wang, L., Stamper, S. Burston, J. (2014, May). The Future of Language Learning and Teacher Education with MALL. Paper presented at the CALICO Conference 2014, May 6-10, Athens, USA.
Ma.Q. (2014). How do University L2 Learners Make Use of E-dictionaries/Apps in Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL)?
Paper presented at the CALICO Conference 2014, May 6-10, Athens, USA.
Ma, Q., Wang, L. (2014). Establishing a Mobile Learning Community: Challenges and Solutions. Paper presented at the 2014 HERDSA
Conference, July 7-10, Hong Kong.
Ma, Q. (2014). A multi-case study of Hong Kong university students’ mobile language learning experience. Paper presented at the 2014 International Symposium on CALL, November 7-8, Beijing, China.
Yang, R., Ma, Q. A., Wang, L., & Chuk, J. (2015, March). Using Mobile Devices in EFL/ESL Classrooms, Animating Classroom Teaching with Mobile Technologies, and Using Video Assessment as an Alternative to Traditional In-class Presentations.Paper presented at the “Learning and Teaching @HKIEd Festival 2015” Conference, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Wang, L. (2015, June). Building a mobile learning community to promote mobile learning in higher education institutions. Paper presented at LATALL Conference, June 23–24, Taipei, Taiwan.
Seminars/Presentations/Sharing Sessions
Ma, Q., & Wang, L. (2013, October). Building a Mobile Learning Community: Using Mobile Technologies to Facilitate the Learning and Teaching of EMI Courses at HKIEd. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Lim, C. P. & Wong, K. W. G. (2013, November). Workshop on Community of Practice (CoP): Building a Mobile Learning Community. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Stamper, S. E. (2013, December). Using Mobile Technologies to Facilitate Learning and Teaching in EMI Courses: Roundtable Sharing Session. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Ma, Q., & Wang, L. (2014, February). Building a Mobile Learning Community: the Use of Mobile Technologies in Studying Subject Knowledge through English. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
(2014, January). The 1st Mini Conference on Mobile Seamless Language Learning. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Ma, Q. (2014, August). Mobile Learning Community and BYOD Reflective Engagement Community: Introduction to Mobile Learning Community.The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Wang, L. (2014, August). Mobile Learning Community and BYOD Reflective Engagement Community: Tools for Integrating Mobile Technologies into Teaching and Learning. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Ma, Q., & Wang, L. (2014, October). The HKIEd Mobile Learning Community: Achievement, Challenges, Solutions, and On-going Activities. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Song, Y. & Li, P. (2014, October). Workshop on Communities of Practice (CoPs): Fostering a Mobile Learning Community. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Wong, K. W., Tse, K. H. & Yang, C. C. (2014, November). Sharing on Community of Practice (CoP): Fostering a Mobile Learning Community. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
(2015, January). The 2nd Mini Conference on Mobile Seamless Language Learning. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Wang, L. (2015, October). Key Factors in Establishing an Effective Mobile Learning Community. The Hong Kong Institute of Education, China.
Financial Year:
2012-13
Type:
CoP