KEEP Seminar – Exchanges on Online Education Programs of Hong Kong

News writer : Doris Cheng

The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) and KEEP (Knowledge and Education Exchange Platform) team co-organized a seminar on 29 October, 2015 at the University's Tai Po Campus to share with each other their own practice of developing online education programs.

KEEP Project by Prof. Irwin King and KEEP team

The first session of the seminar saw an introduction to the KEEP platform and the KEEP applications. Professor Irwin King, the Principal Investigator of KEEP Project, briefed the participants on the major functions of the platform. For example, users can search for various educational resources from Hong Kong via KEEP's built-in search engine. In addition, teachers and educators are able to share e-learning courses with learners worldwide for free on KEEPCourse. Professor King’s introduction was followed by live demonstrations on each of the four components of KEEP – KEEPSearch, KEEPCourse, KEEPCatalog and KEEPoll.

MOOC on English You Didn’t Learn in School by Dr. Paul Stapleton

Dr. Paul Stapleton of EdUHK showcased his recent project of producing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), the theme of which is “English you didn’t learn in school”. This public lecture series features embedded quizzes that can be taken in the middle or the end of a video lesson. The results of the quizzes can be received by tutors with students’ names and emails. According to Dr. Stapleton, his team had faced and overcome a great deal of challenges during course creation in terms of facilities, quality, copyright and quizzes.

BOLT Project by Prof. Lim Cher Ping

Professor Lim Cher Ping of EdUHK is currently working on the Blended & Online Learning & Teaching (BOLT) project, an inter-institutional project funded by the UGC. The overall aim of this project is to provide a graduated professional development support experience across all participating institutions to facilitate the development of teachers’ skills in online and blended teaching. One of the current achievements of the project is that it has built a professional learning community of blended learning “ambassadors” in the Faculty of Education and Human Development (FEHD) of EdUHK. 

Professional Development MOOC on e-Pedagogy in Mathematics Learning and Teaching by Prof. Kong Siu Cheung

Prof. Kong Siu Cheung of EdUHK talked about an online course on e-Pedagogy in mathematics learning and teaching, the first MOOC of the Institute. Professor Kong said that this e-learning course aims to enhance teachers’ ability to conduct inquiry-based learning in mathematics education. With this mode of learning, students can acquire mathematics knowledge by exploring certain questions rather than simply memorising established facts.

Q&A Session

The audience showed their curiosity about KEEP at the end of the seminar, asking the speakers a couple of questions which are shown below:

Q: Does the KEEP platform allow teachers to control the time that students spend getting some achievements?

A: Yes, teachers are able to control the time. What teachers can do within KEEP Moodle is exactly the same as that within Moodle.

Q: Does the KEEP platform allow course tutors to provide learners with formal assessment and evaluation?

A: Yes, teachers can create assessment activities within KEEP Moodle.

Q: Are the courses on KEEP open for users’ self-learning, or guiding their learning?

A: It depends on the instructors. KEEP just provides infrastructure to help teachers accomplish whatever they want to do.