December, 202019 A BLEND OF SIX TECHNOLOGIES TO ENHANCE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESSES AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HUI, CIO, THE EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG1. In your opinion, how has the Education Tech landscape evolved over the years? How has technological evolution proved to be beneficial for Education Tech today?Instead of starting with technology, I would like to start with the trend of education, which is pedagogy centric instead of technology driven. Over the last five years, three key trends in higher education have accelerated the adoption of education technology for teaching and learning:1) Blended learning is a favored course delivery model defined by the proportions of face-to-face versus online coursework. Higher education values more and more on soft skills whereas traditional pedagogy focuses on hard skills. Soft skills such as interpersonal skills, emotional balance, and communication skills are quite personal. Media-rich learning platforms, personalized or adaptive courseware, and web conferencing tools capable of connecting students for synchronous distance activities are becoming common solutions for blended-learning designs. This was achieved mainly with basic ICT infrastructure, computing power, wireless connections, mobile/wearable devices, and of course the trend of cloud software, including, but not limited to, the SaaS Learning Management System (LMS). The advancement of ICT infrastructure not only facilitated the blended learning environment but also reduced latency so that real-time course in multiple locations can be achieved. For example, remote surgery, musical collaboration at different geographic locations, and many more are made possible.2) Redesigning learning spaces for active learning refers to the transition to active learning classrooms and spaces. Designing and evaluating spaces that facilitate active learning and collaboration require investments and strategic planning. It involves renovating classrooms, libraries, and common spaces where efforts focus on wireless bandwidth, display screens, flexible furniture, varied writing surfaces, and abundant power to facilitate team-based learning and synchronous meeting spaces, and emerging learning spaces programmed in extended reality (XR). XR could create more engaging and personal experiences for learners than any current developments in online course design. Technology-enhanced spaces include instructional labs, collaborative spaces, active learning classrooms, team-based classes, among others. On top of the basic ICT infrastructure, these spaces are possible because of the extended reality and modern AV systems in classroom (example, Throwable mic, interactive multi-touch panel, robots and programming software being used in STEM education). 3) Focus on measuring learning (data-centered approach) is the capturing and measuring of academic readiness, learning progress, effectiveness of technologies, and other indicators of student success that have matured as courseware products and platforms, and are widely used. For example, some institutions make use of wearable devices to measure real-time health conditions of students so as to tailor the personalized learning pace of students in PE courses. Others make use of visual analytics to measure student engagement in class or make use of activity data in LMS to conduct early prediction on students' final results, so assistance can be given to student in need at an earlier stage. These are possible because of various types of analytics technologies such as text mining, visual analytics, pattern analytics, and various machine learning algorithms.The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) is a publicly funded institution dedicated to the advancement of teaching and learning, through a diverse offering of undergraduate, postgraduate and professional development programs in teacher education, social sciences and humanities. To improve the quality of education, the university utilizes several new-age technologies including an LMS system, which can be used to upload and share materials, hold online discussions, arrange quizzes and surveys, employ peer-assessment and self-assessment, gather and review assignments and record grades.While interacting with APAC CIO Outlook, John Hui, CIO of the Education University of Hong Kong, shares his insights on how educational technologies are transforming the modern education system. CIO NSIGHTS
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