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What and how much can children learn without subject teachers? In an attempt to find a limit to self organized learning, we explored the capacity of 10–14 year old Tamil-speaking children in a remote Indian village to learn basic molecular biology, initially on their own with a Hole-in-the-Wall public computer facility, and later with the help of a mediator without knowledge of this subject. We then compared these learning outcomes with those of similarly-aged children at a nearby average-below average performing state government school who were not fluent in English but were taught this subject and another group of children at a high-performing private school in New Delhi who were fluent in English and had been taught this subject by qualified teachers.We found that the village children who only had access to computers and Internet-based resources in the Hole-in-the-Wall learning stations achieved test scores comparable with those at the local state school and, with the support of the mediator, equal to their peers in the privileged private urban school. Further experiments were conducted with unsupervised groups of 8–12 year-olds in several English schools using the Internet to study for GCSE questions they normally would be examined on at the age of 16.We conclude that, in spite of some limitations, there are opportunities for self-organised and mediated learning by children in settings where they would otherwise be denied opportunities for good, or indeed any, schooling.We also show that this approach can be enhanced by the use of local or online mediators.
Active learning requires students to engage in meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing (Bonwell & Eison, 1991). However, creating suitable learning situations that motivate and engage students in active learning is a challenge. China’s National Undergraduate Electronic Design Contest (NUEDC) is a biannual competition that has been running since 1994. During the past 15 years, it has become one of the most successful and influential undergraduate subject contests in China. In 2009, 26 298 students from 938 universities nationwide entered the competition. The contest requires each three-person team to complete the whole electronic design process, from the conception of the solution, to choosing the electronic components, building the handmade circuit and finally writing the implementation report. The task must be completed over a 4-day period. The studentsmust demonstrate their electronic product in a test venue, measure certain parameters and answer expert’s question. Thus, we argue that the NUEDC creates an ideal situation for students to engage in conceiving, designing, creating, operating, exploring, analysing, communicating, reflecting and team working, all of which make up an excellent hands-on active learning scenario. In this short paper, we attempt to investigate NUEDC as a vehicle for enhancing active learning. We also present some observations from the contest that point towards how we can move from traditional teaching to active learning.
In China, after many years, the current status and challenges of e-learning development in higher education have been gradually understood. The educational technology centre (ECT) serves as the key unit to promote e-learning initiatives, but the performance of some centres still trails their foreign counterparts. Under such conditions, the project ‘Construction Model of the ETC in Chinese Universities and Colleges’ was conducted. An investigation of the e-learning performance of 70 ETCs was provided and the main problems were identified through quantitative analysis. Then, with the guidance of international standards, the ‘functional-level’ model coupled with some common strategies for its application was created as an innovative blueprint to help the ETCs towards excellence.
This paper reports a series of experiments with text-to-speech (TTS) voices. These experiments have been conducted to develop audio materials for listening comprehension as an alternative technology to traditionally used audio equipment like the compact cassette. The new generation of TTS voices based on unit selection synthesis provides impressive naturalness and intelligibility. In the experiments, TTS-generated audio files have been put to use in the classroom procedure and listening tests. So far, these endeavours have yielded positive results. The paper also evaluates the synthesised speech involved in the experiments and discusses problems that arise in the application.
In recent years, a number of models concerning question-answering (QA) systems have been put forward. But many of them stress technology and neglect the research of QA itself. In this paper, we analyse the essence of QA and discuss the relationship between technology and QA. On that basis, we propose that when designing web-based QA systems, more attention should be paid to the learning mechanism involved in the QA process than to technology. Some new ideas on the design of QA systems are also put forward in order to promote the rapid development of web-based QA systems.
Objectives:To combine the theoretical structures in modern education concepts with the constructivism of LOGO (as advocated by Papert, 1980) and the traditional educational ideas of mathematics in China focused on ‘double-base’ teaching, using the existing computer equipment inwestern schools, so as to stimulate students’ interest in learning and cultivating their spirit of innovation and abilities of application of mathematics to solve practical problems.
With the increase of the demand in studying Chinese across the whole world, the traditional Chinese teaching model has been overshadowed by digital Chinese teaching resources which, amalgamated with multimedia network technology are attracting much more attention. The traditional Chinese teaching model is now changing. However, because of a shortage of large scale digital resources, many models for teaching Chinese as a foreign language based onmultimedia resources are difficult to transfer or even disseminate._1075
According to statistics from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (MOEC), the number of freshmen enrolling in universities and colleges more than trebled between 1998 and 2002, and in 2003 reached 3.8 million. This resulted in an enrolment rate of 17%, and a total enrolment of 19 million students. Although thiswas a great achievement for the Chinese higher education system, the lack of adequate funding led to a lag in the development of infrastructure, and the development and hiring of new teachers. In this situation of unprecedented expansion of the higher education system, serious questionswere asked concerning the quality of teaching that students would receive (Tang, 2004)._1074 614..617 As one measure to address this issue of quality, the MOEC in 2003 initiated the National Quality Course plan. The National Quality Courses were defined as courses characterised by the ‘five first-rate’: the first-rate teacher teams, learning contents, instructional methods, teaching materials and teaching management (Ministry of Education of P.R. China, 2003).
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