EdTech Innovations Win Awards at Silicon Valley International Invention Festival
The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) gained international recognition once again for its educational technology innovations. In the Silicon Valley International Invention Festival (SVIIF), held from 24 to 26 June 2019 in California, USA, three exhibited educational technologies won a total of four awards: one gold, two silver and one special award. The three innovations, which cover Chinese teaching and learning, student revision tracking, and training gamification, demonstrate how technologies can be used to add new value and experiences to education. It is the first time for university in Hong Kong to take part in this international event and receive recognition.
Professor Lui Tai-lok, Vice President (Research and Development) of EdUHK, congratulated the winners: “Gaining such admiration in the global centre of innovation and technology is great encouragement for our EdUHK colleagues. We look forward to the University’s continued contribution to fusing technology and education to push the advancement of teaching and learning.”
The winning projects were as follows:
(1) Data-driven Chinese Language Learning and Teaching with a Cantonese Corpus
Principal Investigator:
Dr Andy Chin Chi-on, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies
Awards: Gold Medal and Special Award
The computerised Cantonese corpus contains around 800,000 character tokens of speech data taken from 60 Hong Kong movies. The corpus systematises extensive data and video segments to offer a new perspective for Cantonese teaching and learning, research, and Digital Humanities.
(2) An Automated System for Tracking Student Responses to Teacher Feedback
Principal Investigator:
Dr Gary Cheng Kwok-shing, Associate Head and Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Information Technology
Award: Silver Medal
An automated system was designed to classify types of teacher feedback and student revisions in English as Foreign Language writing, and to detect their connections.
(3) Computerized Task-Switching Training for Enhancing Executive Functioning of Children Living in Poverty
Principal Investigator:
Dr Kean Poon Kei-yan, Assistant Professor, Department of Special Education and Counselling
Co-investigators:
Professor Chou Kee-lee, Chair Professor, and Dr Kevin Cheung Chi-kin, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian and Policy Studies
Award: Silver Medal
A low cost and effective computerised task-switching training apps was developed aiming to enhance the executive functioning (EF) of disadvantaged children. Results of trials in schools indicated improved performance in inhibition task at one-year follow-up.