Educational Leadership for ICT-based Curriculum Innovation

Abstract

Education, as central to the knowledge society of the 21st century, must produce people who are able to create and gain advantages from the new knowledge. However, the question is what kind of schooling would be best to prepare students for life in the knowledge society. To address the demand of knowledge challenges, policies on information and communication technology (ICT) in education have been produced in many countries, in which educational innovations using ICT have been increasingly embedded within a broader framework of educational change. Curriculum innovation has been regarded as an essential strategy for educational reform throughout the era of educational change, and practices of ICT-based curriculum innovation have been advocated in recent years. This paper reports six primary schools in Hong Kong participated in a curriculum innovation endeavored to promote and engage students in knowledge building through online learning communities. Essential contextual factors associated with the curriculum innovation were emerged from the analysis of data collected from principals, teachers, and students. This paper also discusses educational leadership issues in connection to the curriculum innovation.