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STAFF
DEVELOPMENT 2018 - 2019 |
| The mission
of our staff development is to enhance the professional competence
of our staff and to provide a variety of programmes to support
them to become proactive and life-long learners. |
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PDS Seminar 8: Students’ Sharing of Project Learning & A General Review of VR Application in Teaching and Learning |
PDS Seminar 8 was held on Wednesday, 15 May 2019 from 1:50 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. at SWCS Chan Pak Sha School. Thirteen participants took part in the seminar, including two teachers from Ho Yu College and Primary School, seven from SWCS Chan Pak Sha School, one from St. Stephen’s Girls College, one representative from EDB and two from our school.
Mr. K.H.Man, the History teacher of SWCS Chan Pak Sha School, led students to present their individual cross-curricular projects using Google Virtual Creator with VR 360 photos to introduce a tourist spot in Hong Kong. In the process, teachers were glad to see that students were able to apply the technology with interest and initiatives in the selection of data and set the focus of interests. They provided guidelines on the VR image and questions for the other students while they were viewing. Apart from manipulation of gadget skills, students were able to plan, organize with structure and integrate cross-subject materials from LS, History, Geography, Hospitality and Tourism.
In the post-lesson sharing session, teachers gave suggestions on how to further engage the other viewers including provision of rubrics for students’ peer interactive assessment, and some programmes like Ted talks before the whole school. Some teacher suggested that flipped classroom techniques could be employed. Teachers were enthusiastic in comparing the effects of e-learning and its role in human learning. They found that VR had stimulated students’ self-learning and opened up many future possibilities for both teachers and students in the new age of e-learning. Teachers were highly motivated for change brought by the new technology and they wanted to spend more time in creating their ‘self-developed teaching resources’. They were more than willing to obtain feedback from other subject teachers and students. They also looked forward to students who could create their own learning materials. The scope of teaching and learning had been enlarged and a true interactive classroom would be expected to come into being.
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PDS Seminar 7: Teaching Students How to Use Google Virtual Creator for Project Learning |
PDS Seminar 7 was held on Monday, 8 April 2019 from 3:10 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. at SWCS Chan Pak Sha School. Sixteen participants took part in the seminar, including one teacher from Ho Yu College and Primary School, eleven from SWCS Chan Pak Sha School, three from St. Stephen’s Girls College and one from our school.
Mr. W.H.Hui, the LS teacher of SWCS Chan Pak Sha School, demonstrated a lesson to Form Three students on how to use Google Virtual Creator for a cross-curricular project integrating the subject of History, Hospitality & Tourism as well as LS. Each student had to apply the Google Virtual Creator to make a VR with 360 photos to describe three places they chose. The assignment would be expected to be handed in early May for presentation. The lesson was systematically conducted and students were able to grasp the application of technology.
In the post-lesson sharing session, Dr. W.Y. Tsui, the Principal of PS2 asked the teachers about the progress of VR application in each school. That was followed by an introduction of the school’s initiatives to promote VR and how they had made it a popular tool for students in all aspects of study. Dr. Tsui explained his rationale behind his determination to equip students with VR technology. By various VR means they hoped to achieve 4 levels of learning: firstly to appreciate, secondly to enjoy, thirdly to learn and finally to self discover. He looked forward to more exchange with PDS schools in the future. Subsequently, participants were led to visit the VR facilities in the school: the multi-media screens with projectors, the HTC Vive, the CAVE, and the proposed LED huge screen in the school hall. Dr. Tsui shared his vision on the application of these technologies in their school and his ways to attain resource support from outside. He emphasized that we, as educators, should keep abreast in using new technologies for teaching and learning if we wanted to maintain good communication with our students.
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PDS Seminar 6: Classroom Observation of VR Application in Teaching Geography |
PDS Seminar 6 was held on 18 March 2019 (Monday) from 11:25 a.m. to 12:55 p.m. at QESOSA Tong Kwok Wah Secondary School. Nine participants took part in the seminar, including two teachers from Ho Yu College and Primary School, two from SWCS Chan Pak Sha School, three from QESOSA Tong Kwok Wah Secondary School, one representative from EDB and one from our school.
Ms. Akki Wong, the Geography Panel of QESOSA Tong Kwok Wah Secondary School, demonstrated a Geography lesson in VR application while teaching the topic about the farming problem to Form One students. In this lesson, Ms. Wong asked students to use the VR apps: Google Expeditions “RSPCA Assured Chicken Farms” for a VR field visit at a chicken farm. Students were divided into five groups of four members. Two iPads and one mobile phone with VR viewer were given to each group. One member in each group would act as a ‘guider’, leading other students to view and explore the designated points in the VR photos with briefings from the apps. In the process, students were excited by the novelty of the immersive experience inside a chicken farm, the place where they had never had a chance to access. With interactive teaching, they were stimulated to give answers in response to the teacher’s questions in the worksheet. They learned to deduce from the evidence of observation of the VR photos. Students’ response was vigorous and immediate and the lesson was smoothly conducted. With limited time, two aspects of the topics under the theme, namely activity space and environment enrichment were explored.
In the post-lesson sharing session, teachers agreed that the lesson and the worksheet were well planned. The goal of evidence-based learning had been achieved. In preparation for the lesson, Ms. Wong used one morning session. She considered it acceptable for colleagues in terms of cost-effectiveness. The concern for the worth of using VR in classroom teaching in comparison with using video was again brought up for discussion. Mr. Chan, the Geography Panel of another PS affirmed that VR could encourage self-discovery and the immersive experience could give a ‘real’ feeling in the environment. However, one of its shortcomings was the feeling of dizziness which created tiredness of the eyes, so viewing could not be too long. The greatest hindrance as a teaching tool for teachers was its limited number of relevant VR resources in Chinese language. In order to expand the scope and readiness of the VR resource, Mr. Chan suggested that teachers could use a VR converter app to change existing local 2D videos to 3D VR videos. In this way, it was hoped that teachers would spend less time in searching for the appropriate VR teaching resource for the topics of their subjects. In this seminar, the practical value of outreach to the inaccessible via VR was evidenced by bringing field trips alive to the classroom setting. The problem created by the limited number of VR resource suitable for our curriculum could gradually be overcome with more 2D videos converted easily into VR videos.
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PDS Seminar 5: Classroom Observation of VR Application in Teaching Chinese Language Creative Writing |
PDS Seminar 5 was held on 20 and 21 February from 9:40 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. at Ho Yu College & Primary School. Thirty participants took part in the two-day event, including twenty-six teachers from Ho Yu College and Primary School, two from SWCS Chan Pak Sha School, one representative from EDB and one from our school.
Mr. Kwong Man Shek, the NCS Coordinator of Ho Yu College, demonstrated his lesson in VR application on Chinese Language Creative Writing for Form One students. Last year, he used VR to brief students before they took a field trip to Western District and found VR a good tool for enhancing students’ skills in creative writing. In this lesson, Mr. Kwong used VR to help students explore the ‘inaccessible places’ through immersive experience. He showed the class a sample of previous student writing of the Western District and stated clearly the essentials of descriptive writing which included description along the way, focused description, angles and distance of observation, as well as integrated description via senses of hearing, smelling, touching and tasting. 16 students in pairs were given mobile telephones and VR viewers with worksheets to explore places they had never visited before. The groups had to describe what they had observed from VR and ask the class to guess the name of the place. In the process, students not only enjoyed the interactive game, but also had a chance to speak up and describe in front of the class. Teachers were mostly impressed by their response. Towards the last part of the lesson, Mr. Kwong showed two pieces of writing for comparison: the previous student writing and another by a famous writer. He asked students to give feedback and rounded up by showing how they could improve their writing by referring to the structure and content of the writing. After the lesson, students had to practise writing as an assignment.
In the post-lesson sharing session, teachers were amazed that the lesson was well planned with effective learning and teaching. Mr. Kwong revealed that he wanted to test if the power of VR in ‘exploring the inaccessible’ could bring about students’ transfer of learning in enhancing their imagination while improving their skills in hearing, speaking, reading and writing. Mr. Cheung, the Physics Panel who helped prepare the VR equipment and selected the VR videos shared his experience of using the free off-line platform provided by EduVenture of CUHK for editing VR videos. Teachers of various subjects participated in the discussion and many of them were planning to start VR application in teaching their own subjects. Ho Yu College had successfully built a cross-subject learning community as they exchanged ideas and helped each other in making innovative attempts. They also attempted integrative approach across subjects at the same time. Being stimulated by the two PDS classroom observations, Mr. Tang, the History Panel planned to teach a topic in History this year with VR application by integrating factors in history, geography and economics. Teachers from SWCS Chan Pak Sha School were assured of the profound effects of VR in teaching and they definitely would integrate VR into their classroom teaching. Subsequently, all agreed that immersive experience as a new mode of learning was not just powerful in bringing about all-dimensional virtual exposure and feelings, but it could nurture the interests and joy of learning in students, which would certainly lead to unlimited possibilities in self-learning. The outreach to the inaccessible via VR had a practical value as it may somehow replace field observations in some cases and offer convenience to many.
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Edexcel Academic Conference, 11-12 October 2018 |
Our teachers, Mrs. A. Fong, Mrs. M. Iu and Mr. T.K. Yam were invited to this two-day conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This is the first Pearson Edexcel annual conference for international school leaders and heads of curriculum who want to develop their schools and equip students with an education demanded by universities and employers today. The two-day event, titled Growing Global Education - Now! included discussion about:
• What education systems worldwide need to do to prepare today’s learners for tomorrow’s world;
• How education needs to be a dynamic experience and how policy-makers, senior school leaders, teachers, students and entrepreneurs can overcome obstacles to this;
• Parent and student engagement;
• How to build firm foundations for progression and how schools can equip students with more than just a qualification.
The guest speakers, Mr. Charles Leadbeater, author of the ‘Problem Solvers’ and a leading authority on innovation and creativity, Ms. Karine George, an award winning educationalist and former head-teacher in a large UK junior school, and Professor Ganakumaran Subramaniam, Head of School and Professor at the School of Education, University of Nottingham (Malaysia Campus), all encouraged the audience to explore the challenges in education from a new perspective.
The networking dinner also provided ample opportunities for delegates and Pearson Edexcel administration teams to engage in quality conversation.
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