seminar
Open the PDF Goldmine: emerging research development in IT in education in the Faculty of Education
This year, as a pre-AGM (Annual General Meeting) event, CITE has invited three Post-Doctoral Fellows from the Division of Information and Technology Studies (Tamara Savelyeva, Lai Ming and Jae Park) to share their current explorations and the research agendas they are building. Whether you are a research student contemplating life after PhD or a veteran researcher looking for young talents and fresh ideas, this seminar is a rare opportunity not to be missed.
The life of a Post-Doctoral Fellow is said to be neither always bright nor totally gloomy, and it is not clear that all PDFs are acrobats. What is clear is that each one of the three PDFs has a distinct life narrative and research interests covering several important areas of inquiry in education. Each one of the three PDFs will make a 20-minute presentation about their backgrounds, research and possible contributions to projects of CITE members. You are cordially invited to open the lives and works of our PDFs --- and You may discover a life-changing goldmine for yourself!
 
<p>Dr. Tamara Savelyeva joined the I&TS division in August 2010 after receiving her training in educational modeling and sustainability at Virginia Tech University. Her current research focuses on the development of an ecological model of educational change. Under the mentorship of Nancy Law, she explores plausible models of sustainable, technology-enhanced educational innovation. She has authored several articles on the subject of sustainability, and has coordinated multiple research and educational projects prior to her tenure at HKU.</p>
<p>Dr. Ming Lai joined the I&TS division in February 2010. His major research interests are computer-supported collaborative learning and mechanisms for sustained knowledge building. In this presentation, he will talk about his latest findings on the relationship between questioning and the quality of discussion in students’ online discussion. Based on different conceptualizations of learning (as acquisition, as participation, and as knowledge creation), different units of analysis (individual, group, and thread) are employed to address this relationship, and the patterns found are quite different.</p>
<p>Dr. Jae Park feels ’under-exploited’ by CITE colleagues and will be happy to collaborate with them in any way. His main research interests are sociological and philosophical issues related to technology in education. Following M. Heidegger, Jae sees technology as a way of ’enframing reality’ or experiencing, namely phenomenology. He is currently involved in the project ’Digital Divide in education’ (PPR; PI Allan Yuen) with an overarching focus on Asian/Confucian Learners. His study on education research methodology in Confucian Heritage Cultures will be published in Comparative Education Journal in August 2011.</p>