Secondary School Students' Perceptions of Learning with Ict

This dissertation, "Secondary School Students' Perceptions of Learning With ICT" by Mei-wah, Josephine, Chau, 周美華, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract The study investigated secondary school students' perceptions of learning with ICT under the Five-Year Strategies of promoting information and communication technology in education which was launched in 1998 in Hong Kong. With considerable investment in the infrastructure and teacher training, it is hoped that information and communication technology can play a catalyst role in bringing about 'a paradigm shift - from a largely textbook-based teacher-centred approach to a more interactive and learner-centred approach' to prepare the students to meet the challenge of the information age. The study was carried in an aided secondary school on the Hong Kong Island in 2003, the last year of the Five-Year Strategy. Form five students were selected as the target group since their secondary school years coincide with the time frame of the Five-Year Strategy. Individual face-to-face in-depth interviews were carried out with fourteen students. The study focused on the research questions of identifying the benefits and changes brought about by learning with ICT, its constraints and pitfalls as well as inviting suggestions for the improvement of learning with ICT. The conceptual framework of the study is a combination of the work of Law (2000) and that of Lim (2002). It emphasizes the importance of the roles played by and the interaction conducted among the three components, namely ICT, teacher and students in the learning process as suggested by Law while realizing the importance of the broader context - the school, education and Society-at-large as illustrated by the 'Culture-as-Garden' Metaphor (Cole, 1995) adopted by Lim. The study investigated the perceptions of secondary school students' perceptions of learning with ICT while examining the underlying factors which may influence ICT in education in Hong Kong. As revealed in the study, the benefits brought about by ICT in learning include increased attention and motivation, better understanding of the contents with the graphical point-form PowerPoint presentation, maps, graphs and audio-visual movies, increased scope and depth of learning with the great resources on the Internet, enhanced collaboration and communication with the characteristics of the Internet as a multi-user network. The constraints and pitfalls of learning with ICT include the dominance of and hindrance brought about by PowerPoint as a 'didactic teaching tool' (Ruthstrom, 2001), hardware problems, lack of quality educational software as well as IT competency of teacher and students. There are few changes to pedagogy and the roles of teacher and students as perceived by the students. There are suggestions which related to pedagogy, hardware, software, network, communications between teacher and students as well as the culture of self-learning in the school. The findings have highlighted the importance of the roles played by and the interactions conducted among the three components i.e. ICT, teacher and students in the learning process. It is important for the teacher and students to take up the new roles in order to bring about drastic changes to the learning process. However, as revealed in the findings, not only the teachers but also the students are not well-prepared to take up their new roles. The education system has an important impact on the pedagogy of the teacher as well as the student's ways of learning as all are driven by the examination. It is sugg.