排除障碍　 迈向21世纪教学应用

The writer referred to a forum letter (Revolution in learning approaches, Wang Zhe, 15/9), which was written in response to his first letter (Social media as education tools, 5/9). In response to Wang’s assertions that local teachers were already using social media as supplementary teaching tools, Wong explained that many of them were using tools such as Padlet, Nearpod and Wiki, but did not know that these were considered as social media, hence his earlier statement that many teachers had displayed resistance to utilising social media for teaching. He elaborated that while social media was currently used as a supplementary teaching tool, the “social” aspect of the platforms had not been capitalised on. He suggested that social media could deepen learning by encouraging exchange of ideas, reflection and internalisation. Wong then mentioned an NIE study named “Local Evidence Synthesis on ICT in Education”, which he co-authored two years ago. The study addressed the challenges teachers might face in implementing the use of educational technology, including how students needed more time to communicate in open, student-centred teaching activities; whether teachers could let go of the ‘control’ pedagogy and ‘empower’ students to think and collaborate openly; and whether teachers could have the confidence to embrace technology, given that they constantly faced new challenges in classroom and student management, as well as technical problems. Regardless, Wong believed that there was a lot more that the local education community could do to implement teaching technology such as social media.

Source: Lianhe Zaobao © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction