FAQs

Images that blink and flash just for the sake of blinking and flashing are unnecessary and are tiring to one’s eyes. They will confuse students who might try to click on them, thinking they are linked to important messages. Use blinking and flashing images only occasionally when you really want to highlight very important features of your website, or you want to invite students to click on something they should not miss.

The problem is less serious nowadays because technology is increasingly a key part of life. To overcome the problem if it arises, you can put students in groups so that the more computer-literate can help those who feel less comfortable using the technology. Also, preparing a non-online option for doing the same task or exercise may be another alternative for students who really object to having anything to do with the computer. But then, they could be missing out on the computer literacy practice they need.

The experience of the eLearning Service team is that eLearning is helpful to teachers and students in Hong Kong. Many teachers who begin to use the technology continue using it in future semesters. There are, however, teachers who have found that the technology did not live up to their expectations and that it failed to achieve the intended objectives. This is why evaluation is important. It is important to consider how you will get information about whether your effort has been fruitful. This might be a short survey at the end of the course, a careful look at the website logs, or an examination of the assessment results to see how students learnt in your course.

Many teachers and students find that using the web actually helps the teaching and learning process to run smoothly. Web strategies that tend to give convenience to teachers and students include online notes and PowerPoints, complete course outlines, a collection of frequently asked questions for quick reference, announcements that replace multiple emails, and an assignment dropbox for collecting assignments safely and tidily.

Teachers may also want to use the web for learning enhancement by engaging students in more learning activities, and learning activities that are student-oriented. Popular eLearning strategies with an objective to promote learning outcomes include provision of extended reading materials (often with an applied focus), interactive quizzes, and online assignments with the possibilities of peer-discussion and peer-review.

This is a very difficult question to answer. As we know, students have very different learning styles. Web strategies that work well with one group of students may not work with another group. Also, it is common to find eLearning designs that are regarded highly in one class to be unsuccessful in another class, or even in another cohort of the same course.

In general, it is quite safe to state that nearly all students will use the simple features of the web. For example, most students appreciate accessing the web for downloading notes and readings. For the more demanding tasks that require students to interact with pre-written learning packages, or communicate with teachers or their peers online, learner styles will play a more significant role. Students who are more comfortable with the computer and are more open to active learning styles are usually more open to trying eLearning tasks.

It is therefore very important to continuously monitor the performance and perceptions of the class and to be prepared to assist the students who are hesitant with eLearning. You can then adjust your strategies if you find you have been too ambitious for the majority of your class.

The answer to all interesting educational questions is ‘it all depends’. A modest initiative that improves students’ access to course materials and enhances communication in the class is likely to be clearly appreciated by students. However, a sudden radical change in your course design might make students uncomfortable and even feel threatened, leading to a low course evaluation rating. Also, being too ambitious often leads to technical issues that have not been thought through sufficiently. Incremental changes are often best.

However, remember that, in the end, if the purpose behind using eLearning is to encourage students to become more independent learners, you will have to work hard because many of our Hong Kong students have been through a highly structured school system with a reliance on set model answers. For this reason (which is about educational matters and not technology), students may resist change. But they do come around and then course evaluation scores go up!

Let's be sensible here. Calculate the number of hours you expect students to spend on your course (in and out of class), and let that guide you. If your readings are in English, students may read more slowly than you think. A few key readings and, possibly, some optional ones are better than a huge list of URLs or set of PDFs. Also, it is important for students to learn how to search for and evaluate additional material themselves. A course assignment along these lines might be valuable.

There is no sure way to do this. If the resources:

1. are not too long;
2. preferably contain images (and/or sound and/or video);
3. are relevant to the course and the assessment;
4. provide examples of practical applications of the key concepts in the course; and
5. don’t take ages to download;

then students are more likely to access, study and learn from your chosen resources.

The legal position about putting media that has NOT been copyright-cleared on a website is an ambiguous area of law. The answer to the question is a definite ‘no’ on an open website, and probably ‘no’ on a password-protected site. Students can find and download material themselves for private study and research, but the same provision does not seem to apply to teachers when preparing instructional materials.

The short answer to this question is that you should:

1. ask for the consent of the owner of the materials for use of the materials on your website;
2. if you do not have such consent, do not directly put up, or ‘copy and paste’, the materials onto your website but rather type up the link that will lead your students to the materials in their original places; and
3. if you get the permission, you still indicate the sources using an acceptable referencing format. This will include indicating the URL if the reference was obtained from an online resource.

For more detailed discussion on copyright matters in Hong Kong, visit: http://www.ipd.gov.hk/

It is important to link to pages that are on the top levels of a website in order to pay respect to the organization or person who own the materials. If you lead your students directly to a particular resource that lies deep in the structure of the website, the students will not notice immediately where the materials are hosted, and who the persons or organizations are who deserve credit for the work.

You can come to our eLS@CU service to discuss your ideas about why you are going online and what the role of eLearning is. Our working team can share their experiences of eLearning with you in terms of course design from both pedagogical and technical points of view. Also, our service will provide hands-on support to teachers in adopting specific eLearning functions. In addition, you can come to our seminars/ showcases. Please feel free to contact the eLearning Service [link to email] about your ideas and needs.

Developing basic online learning materials is no longer an add-on feature or necessarily expensive for your course; these materials are quite common in schools and universities. Nowadays, students expect teachers/ professors to upload course outlines, post announcements or provide extra learning materials online.

Putting materials online for students is not time-consuming as long as you have adequate technical support, your IT skills are not very low, and you are clear about how students will be expected to use the online materials. You should not be too ambitious; remember effective materials might be quite static with perhaps good visual content. More interactive materials and simulations usually take longer to prepare. If you are uncertain about how to express your ideas to programmers or graphic artists, our working team can work with you and your technical staff to develop a plan for your online learning materials.

You need to set priorities and not to be too ambitious. But computer technology is much more user-friendly these days and you might be pleasantly surprised by what you can achieve with modest efforts.

To optimize the benefits for the time you can allocate to developing eLearning resources, you can attend workshops/ seminars offered by the ITSC and/or CLEAR in order to enhance your IT or pedagogical knowledge. In turn, you can invite your supporting staff (Teaching Assistant/ Graduate Assistant/ Tutor) to attend such courses to reinforce their capability in developing resources for eLearning.

Of course information will need to be updated in this fast changing world. However, your materials can be designed so that the framework or structure is reusable. In addition, the time needed to update information decreases once you get familiar with search engines and the internet. Another benefit is that it is an excellent strategy to assign students to find and evaluate material to update various topics in your course.

The actual amount of time depends on teachers’ commitment and devotion. Nevertheless, the time involved need not be long. The main role of the teacher in online forum is being a moderator. Students normally do well on their own in online forums. Teachers may only need to pay visit to the forum occasionally and give brief feedback when necessary. But be sure to be there when help is needed.

One way to ensure that the forum runs well is to organize students on a roster to summarize key ideas and questions on a weekly basis. Teachers can then pay especial attention to these ‘summary’ messages.

Past experience has shown that online forums can make many activities possible. There are various documented cases of online forum use, such as ice-breaking, exchange of ideas, collaboration on course projects, online tutorial discussion, peer critique, and even debate. Online forums can facilitate activities at various stages of a course.

The answer is a definite ‘yes’. This is especially true for Hong Kong students. Hong Kong students are often quiet in the classroom. Nonetheless, they are eager to express themselves online. You might have had the experience of some ‘quiet’ students asking insightful questions after class or by email, and also giving brilliant answers in exams. It can be difficult to find out whether Hong Kong students are actively thinking about a topic in face-to-face situation. For this reason online forums can serve as an ideal platform for students to express their opinions in their own time and style.

There are various ways to motivate students. For example, teachers can build a simple, user-friendly forum so that it is easy for students to enter and quickly understand the environment. Teachers can also build a structured forum in which the teacher provides a clear structure to the task and suggests topics for students to consider. It is important for the teachers to actively participate in the forum [though not dominate it], so that students perceive that they can get useful replies to their questions. Most importantly, there must be active encouragement of the whole class, so that students perceive the forum as being of real value for their learning.

 Online Group Work

No, students normally will not complain. Rather, students nowadays perceive online activities as common in university courses. There are indeed more and more courses which allocate a small part of the assessment grade to online activities. Actually, the general comment we received from students is that they like online activities being associated with the assessment methods in their courses.

Some teachers expect that once they have designed the online tasks and posted them online, they would become carefree. But things are never that ideal. Just like traditional teaching, we should not expect things to run smoothly. Teaching and learning is an interactive process. Teachers must involve themselves into the online group work, and give feedback to students when necessary. This does not mean reading and responding to every posting; this is for too intrusive and dominating. Rather, considered comments at time when they are most needed is a much better strategy.

Another common trap is related to the technical aspects of transforming the assignments into an online learning component. Some teachers hope to design fascinating materials which are technically difficult to build. Teachers should be realistic in the developmental phase of creating online work

ITSC and CLEAR provide consultation services to teachers on the design and implementation of online materials. Teachers are welcome to come and have discussions with us.

 Assessment