With the increasing digitisation of classrooms, there is constant interest to adopt emergent technologies into teaching and learning. Virtual reality (VR) is one of the new technologies that piqued the interest of educators around the world with the promise to create new learning experiences. It is seen as a valuable tool to create immersive environments and provide a student-centered learning experience through interactions.

While the benefits of AR are apparent, widespread adoption of this technology remains a work in progress. There are many practical issues and concerns yet to be addressed, such as ease of use, scalability and comparative effectiveness. As such, steps taken by pioneers in adopting VR would be insightful for mindful educators.

In this webinar we have invited professional educators from different institutions to share their experience in using VR technology in their classes. In particular, our guest speakers will cover the following topics:

• Secondary students using VR for heritage discovery
• Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning with VR
• Leveraging VR creation in cultural heritage education

Speakers

Professor HO Tat Kei Alfred is a leading scholar in public administration, especially in the subfields of performance management and budgeting, e-government, and citizen engagement. He has actively pursued multi-disciplinary research and has extensive research partnerships in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. He also advocates the importance of engaged research and believes that public administration research should strive to inform practice and be socially relevant and impactful. Many of his publications are the results of academic-practitioner collaboration and community engagement, including collaboration with different local governments in the U.S. and China and with different national and international organizations, such as the China Development Research Foundation and the Asian Development Bank. Prior to returning to Hong Kong, where he was born and grew up, Professor Ho has taught at various academic institutions in the U.S.  Professor Ho is a committed teacher.  He has received teaching awards in all three academic institutions before joining the faculty of City University of Hong Kong.  In 2018, his contributions to student learning and his impacts on student development and local communities were recognized by the Leslie A. Whittington Excellence in Teaching Award by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), the international accreditation authority of public administration and public affairs programs based in the U.S.

Dr LAU Sin Nga Ann is a Principal Lecturer and Associate Director (Undergraduate Education) in the School of Biomedical Sciences, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Director of BSc in Biomedical Sciences Programme. Ann is experienced in curriculum development and interested in adopting innovative tools and techniques for teaching and learning. Her recent projects include the establishment of Digest VR platform for teaching gastrointestinal physiology, animated coursewares for health sciences topics, and collaborative projects with different communities at CUHK. Ann is currently the Assistant Dean (Education) of the Faculty of Medicine, and the Associate Director of the Centre for Bioethics. She is the recipient of the Faculty’s Education Award 2019, and the executive member of CUHK Teaching and Learning Community of Practice.

Dr. Xiao HU is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Hong Kong. Her research and teaching focuses are learning analytics, data science, technology-enhanced learning and digitization of cultural heritage. Dr. Hu’s work aims to improve people’s learning and well-being by leveraging digital technologies and various pedagogies including virtual reality (VR) and maker activities. She has been the principal investigator for projects funded by the Research Grant Council (RGC) as well as Teaching Development Grants sponsored by the University of Hong Kong. Her research has received multiple awards in international conferences and her teaching is recognized by a UGC team teaching award (2019). Dr. Hu is  the coordinating co-chair of Big Data in Education and Learning Analytics (BDELA) track in the IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT) (2021-2022). She has also been a board member of The International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR) (2011-2017) and The Society of International Chinese in Educational Technology (SICET) (2018 – 2021).

Acknowledgement

This webinar is supported by:

– UGC Special Grant for Strategic Development of Virtual Teaching and Learning – Inter-institutional Collaborative Activities Projects
– IEEE Region 10 Education Activities Committee
– IEEE Hong Kong Section Education Chapter