EdTech Projects Recognised with Canadian Awards for Innovation and Creativity
The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) achieved a remarkable performance at the International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada (iCAN), held on 24 August 2019. EdUHK’s four EdTech innovations in language learning and assessment automation showcased in the competition won a total of six awards: one gold, three silver and two special awards.
Professor Lui Tai-lok, Vice President (Research and Development) of EdUHK, congratulated the winners, “The integration of technology into education opens up new possibilities for teaching and learning. It is very encouraging for our EdUHK colleagues’ work to be recognised internationally. We look forward to continuing to demonstrate how innovation can add new value and experience to education.”
The winning projects were as follows:
(1) Personalized Vocabulary Learning System Based on the Checklist of Technique Feature Analysis
Principal Investigators:
- Dr Zou Di, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language Education
- Dr Xie Haoran, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Information Technology
Awards: Gold Medal and Special Award – British Innovation Award
This system recommends personalised word-learning tasks based on the technique feature analysis scores of different tasks and user models. It provides personalised learning experiences based on learners’ needs, preferences and learning history. It provides fun, effective vocabulary learning, especially for self-access learners.
(2) GMoodle: Online Evidence-based Assessment System for Student Group Activities
Principal Investigator:
- Dr Winnie Lam Wai-man, Lecturer I, Department of Mathematics and Information Technology
Awards: Silver Medal and Special Award – Special Inventor Award
This system was developed to assess collaborative learning. The whole process of collaboration is recorded by the system to provide an objective measure and fair evaluation to reflect the actual contribution of each student in a group project.
(3) Chinese: Take a photo and Learn
Principal Investigator:
- Dr Tse Ka-ho, Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language Studies
Award: Silver Medal
Combining optical character recognition technology and our Chinese corpus, this mobile app allows users to look up a Chinese character by taking a photo of it and selecting it in the picture. This is especially useful for learners of Chinese as a secondary language.
(4) Literacy Play Kit for Supporting Young Children’s English Learning
Principal Investigators:
- Dr Susanna Yeung Siu-sze, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
- Dr Ng Mei-lee, Assistant Professor, Department of Early Childhood Education
Award: Silver Medal
This literacy play kit for English language learning is for parents’ use at home. The kit, composed of a play manual, learning materials and a web-based portal, enhances children’s motivation and their home literacy experience, and equips parents with play skills.