A Network to Support Educational Changes

Abstract

In 1998, there was a major shift in the medium of instruction in Hong Kong secondary schools from English to Chinese. This change had many educational advantages. However, its implementation was not without problem. For example, the general public will probably label those schools using Chinese (CMI schools) as inferior to those using English (EMI schools). More seriously, most of the teachers, with their own learning experience only in English, may not be able to use Chinese as a language for teaching their subject-specific knowledge. This paper reports the work of a computer network, specifically established to support the educational change and discusses the strategies on providing effective support to educational changes through computer networking. The most important contribution of the network lies in the knowledge creation and the growth of the CMI school community as a whole, collecting, uplifting and disseminating high quality pedagogical knowledge within the community. Close collaboration with the front-line teachers at schools has also been highly valued, hoping to tackle down-to-earth problems of the teachers.