Overview

Technology is changing the way education is being delivered and educators across the world are faced with a number of challenges. Whilst many educational institutions move into the technology-rich arena, educators have found it difficult to follow and use such environments to their advantage. Technology-rich learning environments offer the potential to take teaching and learning beyond the four walls of the classroom where learning can be based on real-world problems and learners become active participants in constructing their own learning. This chapter looks at methods used with Hong Kong educators to develop e-learning projects that use interactive computer-based learning resources; linked with networked communities of peers and experts; and online collaborations in and beyond the classroom while accessing online information that goes beyond the textbook. It was found that once the process of learning was understood from its many perspectives, and the critical selection of strategies to ensure learning takes place, teachers could reflect on their own pedagogical practice in creating, maintaining and working in such technology-rich learning environments.

1. Introduction

Despite the introduction of technology to most learning environments there has been little change in the process of teaching and learning. Recently published findings of studies in the UK regarding teachers use of technology in their teaching, reveal that little has changed in classrooms over the last fifteen years (ImpaCT2, 2002). Similar results were reported in a large-scale survey of more than 4,000 teachers in the USA on how...