INNOVATIONS
Hong Kong as an Outdoor Museum: EduVenture Supports Non-Chinese Speaking (NCS) Students in Learning Chinese Culture
Innovations & Impacts
Non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students in Hong Kong have long been facing tough challenges in learning Chinese language and assimilating into mainstream society due to their lack of understanding of the Chinese culture in Hong Kong. Culture learning is often perceived as a boring experience with heavy reliance on plain textbooks and a teacher-centred approach, which will easily drive away student interest in learning history and culture. With innovative technologies, how can we help NCS students to have an authentic taste of Hong Kong’s history and culture in a more interactive and self-directed way?
Launched by Professor Morris Siu-yung JONG and his team from the Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies of CUHK, EduVenture® is a GPS-supported mobile learning system to enrich students’ outdoor learning experience by providing interactive inquiry-based tasks to scaffold them in a complex authentic learning environment. EduVenture® VR (Virtual Reality) was then developed in 2016 to offer a user-friendly web-based composer for teachers to produce VR and AR (Augmented Reality)-based immersive field trips. To date, more than 250 primary, secondary and special schools are using this system. With EduVenture®, NCS students will step into an outdoor museum to taste the cultural sensation of the city by walking along the pre-designed outdoor learning trails where different exploratory stops are pre-marked for inquiry learning, from collecting primary historical evidence, analysing data to developing evaluative judgements.
EduVenture® has transformed the traditional teaching practice in humanities education. Not only will NCS students gain more insights into the city’s past, but they will also be given more opportunities to practice using Chinese language through engaging in interactive, inquiry-based outdoor learning. This helps enhance their motivation and interest in learning Chinese culture, thus fostering their integration into the local community. Moreover, EduVenture® is an effective solution to teachers’ common challenges in conducting field trips. The system provides game-like learning experience that can transfer knowledge to students more effectively and interactively during field trips. All schools in Hong Kong will be able to access the culture learning resources tailor-made for NCS students.
From Research to Market
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RESEARCH
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SOCIAL IMPACT & PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT
Professor JONG’s research interests include learning sciences, gamification, educational VR, context-aware mobile learning, as well as teacher facilitation in technology-enhanced learning environments.
With the support of the Knowledge Transfer Project Fund (KPF), Professor JONG and his team has launched the project “Hong Kong as an Outdoor Museum: EduVenture supports Non-Chinese Speaking Students in Learning Chinese Culture.” The project implementation is divided into two stages. In the preparation stage, school-based workshops is held to train teachers to design interactive outdoor teaching resources with EduVenture®. In the practice stage, students try out the EduVenture® culture learning trails in different historical sites of Hong Kong. Upon completion of the project, the culture learning resources is shared via EduVenture® with all schools. The programme has served over 250 non-Chinese speaking students, 50 teachers and 1,200 education practitioners.
