Worldmaker is an iconic modelling tool that supports the construction of models from objects and events. This user-friendly environment enables even young children to create their own simulations, to express their own representations of their world and to explore other people's ideas. Teachers can use it to create and adapt simulations of scientific phenomena to make the learning of abstract concepts accessible and explorable for a wide range of topics found in the school curriculum.

The content and delivery of the prescribed curriculum for primary, secondary and tertiary levels of schooling are operated in its own teaching and learning mode of practice at each level. Such independence and difference in curricular design and learning culture among the three levels has resulted in a lack of relevancy and coherence of learning outcomes between each interface as the students move from one stage to another. In an effort to enhance the secondary-tertiary interface, the University Grant Committee (UGC) has funded 20 million dollars to tertiary institutions for conducting projects that aim at strengthening the collaborative forces among primary, secondary and tertiary sectors.

On top of the above goal, there has been increasing concern about the changing role of teachers over the past decades. In the past, teacher education and training focus on teacher's role in knowledge transmission and emphasize on content delivery and explanation. Nevertheless, with the changing demand in the information age, teachers' role has elevated to a higher and wider scope of teaching-learning facilitation role in which students are given a higher autonomy to map out their own learning objectives, outcomes and approaches. In face of such tremendous change in demand, teachers and educators are struggling with their new roles in empowering their students to master skills that would enable them to cope with new challenges at progressing stages in their education.

To examine how well Sixth Form students were prepared for tertiary education, the UGC commissioned the POSTE study in 1995. The study addressed that the influence of public examination and existing classroom culture have been major forces that shaped the over-emphasis on memorization and rote-learning and hindered the development of critical thinking and understanding in the classrooms. It is worrying to find that students were 'not ready' to attempt a more self-learning mode which would contribute to then necessary knowledge, attitudes and skills relevant to tertiary education and their everyday concerns in the information age.

To alleviate such gap between the attained learning outcome and the demanding skills in the information age, the Centre for Information Technology in School and Teacher Education (CITE) at the University of Hong Kong has launched a "Self-directed Learning with Information Technology Scheme" (SLITS or S-Project). The project aims at fostering the development of self-directed learning and information skills in secondary school students through the collaborative efforts of secondary and tertiary teachers. Due to time limitation and restriction within the existing school curriculum, the S-project was launched as a supplement to the school syllabus and took place outside the school framework to maximize flexibility and creativity in organizing preparatory activities and group work.