Towards Automatic Question Generation from Chinese Text for Enhancement of Online Learning

by Andrew Kwok Fai Lui, Vanessa Sin Chun Ng, Yin Chun Fung and Wing Cheung Kam

This paper describes our research and development work on methods of automatic question generation that take a piece of text as an input and generate a set of questions as the output. Text reading is often required in many learning scenarios, and asking the learners relevant questions can encourage them to really study the text. In addition, question asking can breed curiosity and motivation. It can also prepare learners with desired focus when they read. The "Do You Know?" feature in Wikipedia is a prime example of such an invitation to study an article.

Automatic question generation is becoming a crucial component in emerging online learning delivery modes for its ability to generate large amount of questions with reduced or no human effort. It can potentially generate various question types such as factual or discussion questions, on different topics found in the text, and at different difficulty levels. A teacher can then choose and refine the questions for revision or assessment. In a fully automatic mode, automatic question generation can support the assessment questions needed in intelligent tutoring systems, adaptive testing, and even Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCS) platforms.

Little research effort on automatic question generation from Chinese text has been noted. Automatic question generation is itself a very challenging topic, and written Chinese further compounds the challenge with its language characteristics and fewer available natural language processing resources. Our work focuses on exploration of potential techniques for generating various types of questions. It began with the taxonomy of questions proposed by Nielsen et al. (2008), and attempted to discriminate the relevant technologies for each question type. It then focused on factual question generation based on adapting the over-generation approach proposed by Heilman & Smith (2010) to Chinese text. It examined the effectiveness of syntactic analysis, sentence simplification, question-stem movement, entity recognition and other techniques used for English text. Evaluation results suggest that good quality question generation from Chinese text would need to overcome complexity associated with long comma-separated composite sentences, obscured subjects, and inaccurate entity type recognition for correct question stem.

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Key Factors in Massive Open Online Course Development: A Hong Kong Case Study

by Yiu Kong Chan

This paper concerns recent developments and current trends of massive open online course (MOOC) in higher education in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the most advanced places in Asia in terms of internet penetration, technological infrastructure and openness in using new technology in education. MOOCs is one of major development in open educational resources (OER) which allow students access high quality online learning offered by world-class universities around the world. Several universities in Hong Kong provide MOOC through different platforms. The analysis undertaken focuses on the first phase of MOOC development and mobile learning at University of Hong Kong, School of Professional and Continuing Education (HKU SPACE), College of Business and Finance by using results of a survey conducted with full-time Hong Kong Chinese community college students. Interviews are held with students, teachers and administrators to examine their user experience in using this pilot MOOC and mobile learning. Participants were questioned how certain factors in using MOOC may have contributed to an enhancement of blend learning environment. Programme administrators are required to understand the nature of MOOC and mobile learning and the critical success factors in its development. Implications of the findings are discussed in relation to challenges in the development of MOOC and mobile learning in Hong Kong.

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Adoption of Open Educational Resources for Teaching and Learning: A Developmental Pathway

by Kam Cheong Li and Billy Tak-Ming Wong

The massive quantity of open educational resources (OER) available on the Web has brought significant implications to teaching and learning, in terms of allowing teachers and students to freely engage in the 5R activities (retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute). Yet, previous studies reveal various barriers for the adoption of OER in a curriculum and concerns about the usefulness of such practice.

 This paper reviews the characteristics of various attempts worldwide for adoption of OER, categorizes them into stages of development, and discusses the obstacles typically encountered in each stage. In a rudimentary stage, users only have very little (if not nil) awareness of the notion of OER and how it may be beneficial to teaching or learning. At the other end, teachers highly incorporate OER into curriculums, and students are actively involved in interacting with the resources, rather than passively being resource-recipients.

 This paper also reports the results of a pilot study examining the stages of development of Hong Kong tertiary students for OER. It shows that most students, despite their high technological readiness, are at an initial stage of development. They have been exposed only to a few popular types of OER, and are far from being ready to contribute to OER. Based on the students’ responses, possible factors are discussed and recommendations are suggested.

Parallel Paper Session 2 – E-Learning Systems and Language Learning
Venue:                   E0313
Session Chair:   Wing LEUNG

An Adaptive Mobile Learning Application for Beginners to Learn Fundamental Japanese Language

by S. C. Ng, Andrew K. Lui and Y. K. Wong

It is difficult for beginners to learn Japanese by self-learning without any guidance from a teacher because learning Japanese not only involves reading suitable materials but also involves listening, speaking and writing. Most of the Hong Kong people may not have any basic knowledge of Japanese language, for example, Japanese alphabets, phonology or basic grammar, they don’t have any idea how to get start with and what should be learnt at the beginning. Most importantly, there is no teacher to direct the beginners what they should learn and give them feedbacks or comments for improvement during the self-learning process. This paper introduces an Android mobile application for the beginners to acquire fundamental knowledge of Japanese language so as to gain the self-learning proficiency in Japanese. This application mimics a real Japanese teacher that will deliver to his/her students in different aspects including learning techniques, marking exercises and learning tools.

In this mobile application, learning materials, auto-generated exercises, handwriting practice tool, voice recording and recognition tool will be provided for beginners to learn Japanese. Besides, this application proposes an adaptive learning system to users, which most of the current Japanese learning apps do not have. Adaptive learning aims to provide different exercises or learning approaches to learner based on the current performance of an individual learner. For example, the exercise performance of learners will be collected and analyzed by the application to spot out their weakness points so that suitable comments and supplementary exercises can be generated and provided to learners adaptively. The supplementary exercises which contain some auto-generated questions of a specific question type (in which the learner was weak at) will be generated by the system. It is to desire that the learners can improve their performance by drilling with more supplementary exercises.

Using this application, beginners can acquire Japanese language knowledge by studying the learning materials, practicing what they have learnt by doing exercises as well as training their handwriting and speaking by using the practicing tools. After using the application, learners are supposed to be able to read, write, listen and pronounce some basic Japanese as well as having the self-learning proficiency in Japanese.

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Testing an E-Learning System

by Yoshihiro Hirata and Yoko Hirata

Recently, interest in language education enhanced by online technology has increased in many countries throughout the world. E-Learning systems, incorporated with learning management systems, have been recognized as promising ways of providing students with effective and efficient learning environments. This development has greatly influenced Japanese educational settings and, as a result, various online and e-Learning systems have been introduced into language courses in many tertiary institutions. However, the challenge in the design of language lessons for Japanese students, who are lacking independent language learning and real-life communication experiences in the target language in and outside the classroom, is how to motivate and improve their engagement with their language study. One solution for this is to provide students with an online context where they can satisfy their desires to achieve assigned tasks and compete with each other.

This study utilized an e-Learning system which has widely been incorporated into Japanese secondary and tertiary institutions. Examined was how Japanese students, who are accustomed to the traditional teacher-directed, spoon-fed teaching approach, perceived the system. It also examined whether or not they considered it to be effective in encouraging their independent English study in the classroom. The system is designed to assist students in improving their English skills independently, by enabling them to select appropriate resources and to evaluate their own work anytime and anywhere.

In this presentation, students’ preliminary feedback on how they perceive this new system is outlined with the main focus being on how the design and implementation of different gamification techniques attract student interest. Also investigated is how different types of students, for example, those who may and may not be fond of playing computer games, react differently to this system.

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Evaluation of Online Resources by Students with Different Nationalities

by Yoko Hirata and Yoshihiro Hirata

With the development of web-based and blended learning approaches as effective methods in language education, the benefits of introducing online language data into the classroom have fully been discussed. Online language data including various types of corpora, such as the British National Corpus and the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, have originally been used by linguists for the purpose of analyzing structural rules of target words. In recent years, corpora have also been used in the classroom for students to learn language patterns and chunks of words, and to gain lexical and writing skills. This approach, called Data-Driven Learning (DDL), is effective in helping students pay close attention to particular words or expressions in rich authentic contexts. For students with limited, real-life experiences of the target language, the language resources used in DDL are particularly important. This is because these resources provide students with an opportunity to encounter a large amount of raw language in the rich, natural contexts. Although studies have indicated the efficacy of DDL, there appears to be no in depth research on how students with different educational backgrounds perceive DDL. There is still little research addressing how corpora can be used for different types of students to successfully deepen their knowledge of a language.

This study examined how Japanese and Canadian university students perceived the efficacy of online corpora in DDL tasks. The aim of the tasks was for them to learn the recurrent lexical patterns of the words they had been studying. It examined the relationships between their perceptions of DDL and their educational backgrounds. The results provide important implications regarding how various factors such as students’ prior knowledge and experiences affect their perceptions of language learning.

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Will Animation Facilitate Effective Learning of English Speaking Skills?

by Madeleine Tsoi, Reggie Kwan, Kat Leung and David Chu

The recent proliferation of technology and its increasing application to classroom teaching has dramatically transformed our teaching and learning environment. This paper examines the effectiveness of using animation to teach English, especially speaking and conversational skills. A study was conducted whereby foundation diploma students in a higher education institute in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) were exposed to animated English dialogues featuring different everyday topics. They were then asked to engage in role-play activities and to fill out feedback questionnaires as to the effectiveness of such form of learning. Findings of the study indicate the effectiveness of using animation and multimedia resources to stimulate learning and progression in post-secondary students. The core idea within such a perspective is learning must take place in an authentic or near-authentic environment as in the case of contextual dialogues, and that learning facilitates interaction. The sole purpose of learning, in this case, is to interact with fellow learners and interact in the role one “metamorphoses” into. It is hoped that learners will eventually be able to apply these skills to real-life interaction at different levels, and with people from all walks of life.

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Parallel Paper Session 3 – Mobile Learning
Venue: E0311
Session Chair: Steven NG

Investigating Acceptance Toward Mobile Learning in Higher Education Students

by Kenneth Wong, Fu Lee Wang, Steven Ng and Reggie Kwan

Mobile learning or M-learning brings a new aspect of learning environment. Due to the large amount of available applications in mobile devices, students use their mobile devices for many purposes including entertainment, sharing, communication, video recording, photo shooting and learning. The acceptance toward mobile learning has naturally become a major interest for educators. In this paper, we will present preliminary findings from a small scale study exploring the students’ experiences on using mobile devices versus desktop computers, as well as perceptions towards mobile learning. The data are obtained from quantitative survey. The preliminary findings indicate that students will use mobile devices rather than desktops to access the Internet. Students are willing to use mobile devices to conduct learning activities.

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Using Tablet-assisted Think-aloud Protocol to Examine the Composition Marking Behavior of Chinese Writing teachers

by Daisy Chow, Roger Lee, Kat Leung and K.K. Ying

There has been a growing concern in writing research on composition rating over the past three decades. However, these previous researches are inadequate in a number of aspects. First of all, most of them focused narrowly on the quality of the written comments by the markers merely as raters and neglected the general marking process of the markers as writing teachers. For those exceptional cases that employed the method of think-aloud protocol analysis (TAPA) in exploring the composition marking process as a whole, they were confined to the study on L1/L2 English language education and not much has been done specifically on L1 Chinese language education. Finally, none of the previous researches employing TAPA were conducted with a computer marking platform. To address the aforementioned research gaps, the present study attempts to explore the nature of the composition marking process of Chinese writing teachers with the method of TAPA conducted in a computer-based assessment environment. To be precise, the present study aims at answering the following questions:
1. What kinds of problems and difficulties are generally encountered by teachers in marking Chinese compositions?
2. What kinds of method do they employ to deal with the problems?

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Challenges and Opportunities in Technical Development of Mobile Learning

by Kin Yan Tyrone Chan, Wing Kai Chris Wong, Cheung Kin Patrick Hung and Yuet Ching Jeanne Lam

Mobile development has changed our lives dramatically and mobile devices have become very important tools globally. For developing mobile technology in education, developers faced many challenges in considering the mobile development approach, courseware format conversion and course model redevelopment. Although there are many challenges in mobile development, the opportunities are also found out. Goggle glass, leap motion and location-based learning were identified as opportunities in near future. This paper attempts to record the technical issues identified during our mobile development process and share our experiences in handling these challenges. This paper also discusses the opportunities for technical developers as a reference in planning the development of mobile learning in future.

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A Case Study on the Students' Attitude and Acceptance of Mobile Learning

by Simon K.S. Cheung

Transcending the time and geographical constraints of traditional learning, mobile learning allows students to study anywhere and at any time. Learning is facilitated, and students welcome this flexible mode of learning. According to a study recently conducted by the Open University of Hong Kong, mobile learning is effective for enhancing language proficiency. This paper reports the results of this study. In brief, it is found that students generally show a positive attitude towards mobile learning and its effectiveness in language learning. There is a significant acceptance among students towards mobile learning, especially on the usefulness, efficiency, interactivity and convenience. The results further affirm that mobile learning can be an effective means to delivering language proficiency courses, not only for its accessibility from virtually anywhere and allowing the students to learn at any time but also for enriching learning experience and arousing learning interests by making good use of multimedia components and features.

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Parallel Paper Session 4 – Blended Learning and Social Media
Venue: E0313
Session Chair: Jeanne LAM

Applying “First Principles” of Instruction in a Blended Learning a Course

by Wing Sum Cheung and Khe Foon Hew

Blended learning approach has been widely used in schools and universities. Many courses and programs are using the blended learning approach. In this paper, we share our experience of using “First Principles” of instruction (Merrill, 2003) to design a blended learning course: (a) Learning is promoted when learner are engaged in solving real-world problems, (b) Learning is promoted when existing knowledge is activated as a foundation for new knowledge, (c) Learning is promoted when new knowledge is demonstrated to the learner, (d) Learning is promoted when new knowledge is applied by learner, and (e) Learning is promoted when new knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world. We describe the five “First Principles” of instruction by Merrill and identify the specific instructional activities that support each principle in either the face-to-face mode or e-learning mode. We conducted a survey study to gather students’ perspectives of the organization of the blended course as well as the ability of the blended learning course to engage student learning. Eighteen students were involved in the study. The results showed that the blended learning course was well organized to provide meaningful activities, and that the blended course provided a positive engaging learning environment for the students.

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A Thematic Analysis of the Blended Learning Experiences of Undergraduate Students in Hong Kong

by Jeanne Lam

The development of blended learning in Hong Kong has been shifted to using pedagogical driven approach and the adoption of learning theories in blended learning course development became significant. In the past years, HKU SPACE adopted cognitive alignment in outcome-based learning theory for designing and developing blended learning course to the students. This research aims at understanding learning experiences of undergraduate students in blended learning. In this study, qualitative approach was adopted for obtaining in-depth understanding of learning experiences of the students in the blended learning environment. Focus group interviews for students were conducted in an accounting course. The interviews were analyzed by thematic analysis while thematic maps were used for coding and themes identification. The themes in learn via learning activities, learn via collaboration, learn for good assessment result, learning activities helps study and enjoyed most, perceived advantages of online learning, need more learning support, need mobile learning, preference in integrated and non-integrated blended learning, and difficulties in blended learning were identified. With the themes identified, issues on learning engagement, importance of aligning assessment with learning activity, online collaboration and enhancing blended learning experiences were discussed. Finally, pedagogy designs to enhance students learning were recommended. The study contributes to fill the research gap in understanding blended learning experiences of undergraduate students in Hong Kong.

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Social Media Education: Barriers and Critical Issues

by Melani Au, Jeanne Lam and Radar Chan

As one of the highest smartphone penetration regions in the globe, Hong Kong has more than 12 million mobile users are capable to access mobile data services. People spend time on their mobile devices for information, entertainment as well as communication. With the advancement of information, communication and technology (ICT) especially in mobile technology, various online social media tools, e.g. Facebook, WhatsApp, rapidly developed in the past decade. The use of these tools is so overwhelming which transformed people’s way of communication. Discussions on using social media in education are getting keen. However, regardless of the popularity of social media in Hong Kong, the effectiveness of using existing social media tools to facilitate teaching and learning is not noticeable. This paper illustrates the barriers behind this phenomenon in Hong Kong. Factors from technological perspective, institutional perspective and users’ perspective are critically discussed. It is believed that with optimal monitoring, motivation and planning, social media can be beneficial to both institutions, teachers and students in the long run.

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Moving towards a Heutagogical Learning Environment

by Kin Chew Lim

Technology-based education can be said to comprise content, technology and pedagogy. Content, especially in some domain areas, can get obsolete quickly. Technology is just a tool, an enabler or an enhancer. Technology changes so fast that it is hard to keep up with the latest. Nonetheless, technology is the easiest part to implement in any technology-based learning. However, the pedagogy part is usually the hardest part to handle.

The School of Science and Technology (SST) of the SIM University in Singapore conducts courses for working adults. As such, the andragogy theory is more applicable to our teaching and learning approaches. However, andragogy is teacher-centered although it allows students to participate in the decision making related to their learning. Heutagogy, or self-determined learning, provides a learning approach that is relevant to technology-based learning.

This paper reviews the actions SST has taken in order to move towards a heutagogically based model. These actions cover seven areas: student role, teacher role, content, curriculum characteristics, social characteristics, role for technology, and assessment. For example, we introduced pre-class quizzes for some courses. Our students are then expected to first read the e-learning materials or e-textbook before answering the quiz questions for the chapter. This helps to make our students more proactive. Another activity is using virtual classes for many courses. Students learn how to participate in the learning activities virtually without having to rush to a physical location punctually. We have also introduced ePub-based interactive study guide materials which are delivered to smartphones. Students can then learn the chapter summaries on their smartphones whenever they are free even for a short while. These actions are helping the SST to transform our education from a purely didactic one to a heutagogical learning environment

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Parallel Paper Session 5 - Pedagogy
Venue: E0311
Session Chair: Kenneth WONG

Student Engagement in the Use of Instant Messaging Communication in Flexible Education

by Francis Yue

It is widely accepted that flexible education needs to be student-centered and that appropriate guidance and support need to be provided to the students for better outcome. Some recent research has been conducted to study the views of students on the use of instant messaging (IM) in the flexible teaching and learning context. The use of instant messaging communication can facilitate the provision of timely feedback to the students. This paper aims to study the timeliness issue regarding the responsiveness of students to the use of IM in teaching and learning. The extent of student engagement is measured in terms of students’ response time in responding to instant messages sent from their teacher concerned. A quantitative statistical data analysis is used to characterize the student response time based on various aspects. The possible relationship of such student engagement and the final assessment result achieved by the group of students is also investigated. The study is based on a set of questionnaire data collected in a previous study undertaken to investigate the use of instant messaging during the dissertation supervision of the above-mentioned group of final-year undergraduate students. The supervision of dissertations is usually done on a one-to-one basis and the use of instant messaging communication seems useful.

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Reflective Practice with Digital Portfolio for Teacher Maturation and Readiness of Prospective Teacher within the TPACK Framework

by Hin Leung Chui, Ho Kong Christopher Au Yeung and Gary Cheng

This study explores the influence of digital portfolio on the reflective practice of prospective teachers (PTs) in the light of the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework (TPACK). A total of 48 PTs studying in a teacher education course (one-year full-time) at a tertiary education institute in Hong Kong took part in the study. Blended learning approach was adopted with ten topics hosted on Moodle in order to facilitate the completion of digital portfolio with various applications of Web services as a pedagogical tool. At the end of the course the PTs were asked to complete a questionnaire and participated in focus group interviews. Results showed that engaging PTs in digital portfolio integrated with different levels of Web services can increase their degree of maturation and readiness in different dimensions under the TPACK framework. The findings shed light on teacher development in terms of technical, pedagogical and content knowledge individually and holistically. These will further cultivate a higher degree of sustainability in reflective practice for the prospective teachers.

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Wearable Technology in Education: from Handheld to Hands-free Learning

by Daniyar Sapargaliyev

The use of wearable computers in education can significantly help teachers and students in the near future. Last years we can observe the appearance of new types of wearable devices such as bracelets, clothing, watches, and glasses. One of the most popular wearable computers is Google Glass. In our work we will try to analyse a number of quantitative and qualitative researches on the use of wearable devices in teaching and learning. We found that Google Glass successfully using in pharmacology and healthcare. The Google Glass allows the teacher to demonstrate the practical skills (such as a doctor performs surgery) for the students in real time from any places. In spite of the fact that Google Glass has some technological limitations any learners needs only a short adaptation period for comfortable usage. Google Glass helps to create seamless interaction between educators and learners.

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PMS – A Simulation Game for Interactive Learning of Software Project Management

by Richard Lui, Hareton Leung, Vincent Ng and Philip Lee

Successful management of software projects requires both theoretical project management knowledge as well as practical reality-like management experiences. Simulation Based Training provides a hands-on approach to explore the complexity of managing projects through rapid and inexpensive experimentation. Most of the existing project simulation game focuses only on the management of time, scope, cost, and human resource. There are relatively fewer products which focus on project stakeholder management, communication management and quality management.

In this paper, a project management simulation game, PMS, is introduced to support the interactive learning of software project management. The game design, implementation and how it may support the learning of software project management concepts in different knowledge areas are discussed.

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If You Comes* to Guangzhou: Pedagogical Implications of Typical Errors Committed by Students with Mainland Chinese Background as Revealed on an e-Writing Platform

by S C Kwan, Dorothy Chow and Sharon Wong

This article examines and discusses a number of language errors found among a batch of freshmen studying in a self-financing higher education institute in Hong Kong which offers both degree and sub-degree programmes. The participants share in commonality a Mainland Chinese background and as such were required to be enrolled in a non-credit bearing semester course in written English in which they received lectures and practiced writing on a great variety of topics on an electronic platform. Meta-linguistic analysis of the errors compiled indicates that the students have both inter-language and intra-language errors, i.e. having difficulties in shaking off the interference from L1 as well as being unable to acquire a number of grammatical rules pertaining to forming syntactically legitimate sentences in L2. Similar studies have been conducted on ESL students in Hong Kong but few have been done on students having a Mainland Chinese background. Given the dramatic increase of students with such background over the last few years within the tertiary realm, and that the number is expected to grow, this article may help shed light on trouble-shooting the typical errors and illuminate future pedagogical preparations for more effective teaching. This article concludes that in order to achieve this, any electronic writing platform that is being employed or to be employed for such purposes should better be equipped with the capability to issue automatic responses for students to engage themselves in self-studying.

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A Mobile Application for Preparing the Driving Tests in Hong Kong

by S. C. Ng, Andrew K. Lui and S. W. Ng

In Hong Kong, all drivers have to pass a driving test to obtain a full driving license. It is difficult for people who are going to take driving tests in Hong Kong to revise the driving skill and theories before the actual driving tests. Most of the driving schools do not provide notes or teaching materials for the driving skills. This paper presents an educational mobile application in Android platform called “HK driving tests All-In-One” to help young private automatic car learners to prepare for driving tests in Hong Kong. Car learners who are going to take the driving tests may do revision at anytime and anywhere provided that they have an Android device on hand.

The mobile application mainly focuses on the two main examinations for obtaining driving license: Written theory test and Road driving test. For the written theory test, it includes the theory handbook, multiple choice questions sorted by topics and the mock theory test. The materials are all based on the Road Users' Code by Transport Department, Government of HKSAR and the format of the mock test is similar to the real written test. For the Road driving test, it provides a driving guidebook about the driving technique, animations and virtual driving test games which help users to memorize the driving skills as users have to follow the steps to drive and there will be warnings or comments if there is any mistake and it will show a result after the user finished driving a section of road where its format will be similar to the real driving test.

The application platform is Android OS which will be written in Java language with Eclipse and those animations and games are written in JavaScript and C++ language with a game engine called Unity. This application will give car learners and pre-learners some basic concepts of driving so that they can practice and revise the main points at anytime and anywhere with a mobile device. Users can learn in an interesting way and understand the techniques more easily with the animations and games for road driving test and it will also help in reducing dangerous driving with road safety theory handbook and promoting proper driving skills.

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