Since the spread of Coronavirus in January many schools in HK have turned to online learning as a way for students to continue their studies from home. But, although convenient, online learning presents its own unique challenges for both teachers and students.

To help teachers find their way, we have assembled a list of learning tools to help teachers cover different aspects of learning and teaching.

Top Online Learning Apps

To produce teaching videos:

• Loom

• Explain Everything

• Screencastify

Online teaching and discussion:

• Google Hangouts

• Zoom

Online assessment:

• Quizizz

• Edpuzzle

• Flipgird

Online classroom:

• Google Classroom

• Edmodo

• Schoology

These free resources enable teachers to make their own teaching resources.

Click here for Chinese version

The development of the coronavirus has radically changed our ways of teaching and learning. Hong Kong school routines have been all been affected. Thankfully, although face-to-face teaching has been suspended, online learning allows us continue with our lessons at home.

Dr. Maxwell Ho, Lecturer of the Department of Education Policy and Leadership, is happy to share with you some tips for teaching online:

1. Avoid reading froma script
   - Mind your speaking pace; not too fast!

2. Pause for thought
   - Pause every 5-8 minutes or whenever an important point is introduced to allow spacefor thinking

3. Stimulate students thinking and maintain learning interest
   - Ask questions of different levels
   - Give examples of common mistakes
   - Provide related exercises to enhance students’ learning

4. Provide feedback
   - Keep track of student learning progress on interactive platform and give timely feedback

5. Increase personal interaction
   - Give more recognitions and praises to students
   - Use students’ names

Click here for Chinese version

The Department of Education Policy and Leadership's Dr Maxwell Ho and Dr Darren Bryant believe that a sound social network for teachers is key to improving the efficiency of online teaching. They suggested a few tips to develop the social networks for teachers:

1. Create chat groups on social media for teachers to exchange ideas and experiences

2. Assign a facilitator to keep teachers engaged and create a supportive environment

3. Provide flexibility for teachers on the teaching strategies and tools (given that the social network is well developed)

Click here for the full article in Ming Pao

Click here for the Chinese version

he COVID-19 crisis has seen school closures throughout the world. To find out more about how schools and organizations are responding, a team from FEHD's Master of Arts in Leading Innovative Learning Organizations spoke to Principal Candy Chan, of PLK Tin Ka Ping Millennium Primary School, to ask about her school's swift response to class suspension.

Principal Chan developed a school-based objective: let the students continue learning, reading and doing exercise.

The school management split student learning into different 3 phrases:

1. reinforce what students have learnt in school

2. provide students with online materials for new knowledge

3. continue learning, and be able to show what they have learnt.

Watch a video of the interview here:

Department of Early Childhood Education has made a series of videos and live shows for parents and teachers of kindergarten children, introducing how children can play and learn beyond the classroom.

The materials cover a wide range of topics, including science and living, joyful cooking, music and play, craft making, and storytelling using colorful books.

Through these activities, parents and teachers can help children learn different skills at home to promote children’s physical, social, language, and math development.

To aid two-way communication between the presenters and the viewers, parents and teachers can submit their questions through Google Form or the live chat function.

Ms. Virginia Lam, alumnus of the Master of Arts in Child and Family Education, made a video to help children exercise and learn English vocabularies at home. The video guides children through an “Anti-Virus Workout,” learning such phrases as “Granny, granny, don’t reuse” and “Nostrils, nostrisl, can’t be shown” while doing aerobics. Ms. Lam will continue to make entertaining videos to help children learn in creative ways during class suspension.

The Centre for Child and Family Science explain five things you can do to help your children cope with the current virus outbreak:

1. Avoid over-reacting when expressing your worries at home.

2. Try to regulate your stress e.g. drink some water, take deep breaths, and set out a regular daily routine e.g. rest, exercise. This also develops a role model for your children.

3. Try to provide succinct explanations to your children about the development of the outbreak. Children can learn how to protect themselves and take the professional and scientific opinions of the medical experts. By knowing that their parents care for them, children will feel more secure.

4. Prevent children from overreacting to, or being overloaded with, information about the virus. Parents should pay attention to their children's responses, and stay with them to respond to their concerns.

5. Try to highlight the positive events during the outbreak, for example people sharing their masks with others.

Read the full version of articles in Chinese:

如何在家庭回應疫情

S.A.F.E. 疫境親子相處

疫情中對孩子多寬容

The Centre for Child and Family Science has designed two booklets to help students manage their emotions and stay happy during the outbreak.

"Anti-Coronavirus with you" 《抗疫同行》 was written by the Centre’s 'Early Prevention, Early Identification, and Early Intervention' programme. The booklet aims to help children name emotions, build a sense of control, and cultivate gratitude. The booklet is available free for all kindergartens and parents.

Download the booklet

The Centre for Child and Family Science produced a booklet, "Psychological support for children and adolescents in outbreak"《疫境童行：兒童及青少年應對病毒心理支援手冊》. Published with the Division of Educational Psychology, it uses the S.A.F.E. framework - short for Sense of Security, Allowances, Familiarity, & Emotion Regulation - to give students strategies to reduce anxiety, fear and stress caused by the outbreak.

Download the booklet

This booklet is produced by the project team “EASP: Early Advancement in Social-Emotional Health and Positivity”. The coronavirus outbreak has brought many challenges to the university students: the change to online learning, internship postponements which may affect their grades and even graduation, the economic recession may negatively affect their job prospects. This booklet introduces some exercises for students to practice at home, so as to help them relieve their anxiety and to mitigate the impact of the epidemic.

Download the booklet (English version)

Download the booklet (Chinese version)

For many kindergarten teachers, the suspension of school classes has made them unable to interact with the children. Instead, teachers must design home learning activities and communicate with parents to track the children’s learning at home.

To help with this sudden switch, the Centre for Child and Family Science has designed a booklet to ease any anxiety that kindergarten teachers may experience during the epidemic.

“Tips on Promoting the Positive Well-being of Kindergarten Teachers” introduces a range of strategies to help kindergarten teachers communicate with parents and colleagues, design home learning activities, and relieve stress to promote positive well-being.

The booklet was published by the CCFS’s project team “EASP: Early Advancement in Social-Emotional Health and Positivity”. Both Chinese and English versions can be downloaded here:

https://www.eduhk.hk/ccfs/view.php?secid=53422&u=u

In cities the world over, the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to unprecedented scenes of social panic. We witness hoarding of supplies, empty supermarket shelves, and even the armed robbery of trucks carrying toilet paper.

In an article for HK newspaper Ming Pao, FEHD's Director of Centre for Psychosocial Health (CPH) Dr Wai-Kai Hou, and research assistant Ms Tsz-Wai Li, attribute such panic to the way the pandemic has changed people's living habits.

Dr Hou and Ms Li stress that both physiological and psychological needs are important to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and suggest people increase their resilience by following these 3 steps:

1. Use your current resources and networks, e.g., spend more time with your families, uphold personal and household hygiene

2. Try to maintain your lifestyle but in a different way, e.g., use social media to maintain your relationships

3. Develop new habits or hobbies under current constraints., e.g., playing board games to replace hiking

The article was published in Ming Pao. Click here for the full version.

The Department of Special Education and Counselling (SEC) has launched an online life design counselling service to help Hong Kong's schools and communities during the COVID-19 epidemic.

The project, Writing My Life Story in an Epidemic: Online Video Counselling Service, aims to empower users to tell their life stories, and direct their lives in a period of uncertainty.

The project aims to help those aged between 15 to 25 during the current period of class suspension. The service is free, but referrals from schools, institutions, or professional groups are required.

Participating counsellors include current students of the Master of Arts in Educational Counselling [MA(EC)] Programme. The students have a thorough professional training in life design counselling. To ensure the quality of counselling, each counsellor-in-training is overseen by an SEC practicum supervisor, and is held to a professional code of counselling.

All are welcome to participate in the counselling service. The content of all counselling interviews will be treated confidentially. To achieve the best match of participants and suitable counsellors, interested participants, and parents of participants younger than 18, should complete and submit the online registration form:

https://anonmachg2.eduhk.hk/machform/view.php?id=29682768

When the completed registration form is completed, the Programme will inform successful applicants by email or phone.

The outbreak of the novel Coronavirus has seen many people across Hong Kong and China working from home. And, whilst this has its advantages, it can be a challenge for anyone with kids around.

With this in mind, the Master of Arts in Child and Family Education programme has released a series of tips for anyone looking after children whilst working from home.

The Programme suggests caregivers and children discuss together and agree to a schedule of daily activities, or independent time for the children. Caregivers and children can then sign the agreement. This lets the children know that they will get to spend time with their caregivers at some point, and so they will more likely respect the times when their caregivers have to work.

Caregivers can also use visual aids, such as a sign for quiet time, to show they are working. Children can be encouraged to draw or write down anything they want to talk about.

Caregivers should provide instant feedback to children if they work independently in quiet time. The feedback can be a hug or praise. This helps to reinforce the children to work independently.

The Chinse version is available on FEHD Facebook page.

Limiting screen-time for children can be difficult, especially during this period of class suspension. And with many parents now working from home, it's easy to understand why some are tempted to use phones and tablets as “e-pacifiers”, keeping kids quiet and creating free time.

Dr Eva Lau, Associate Professor at the Department of Early Childhood Education, and mother of 2, has ways to limit screen time during this challenging period:

1. Be a role model and avoid excessive use of mobile device

2. Clearly communicate with children about the screen time and content limits. Parents should use the same limits every time as far as possible.

3. Remind children when their time limit is up.

4. Help children transit from the virtual environment to the reality. For example, parents can chat with the children about the video before turning off the device.

5. Let children be bored – boredom can be constructive and foster creativity.

The full version of article is published in a parenting portal, POPA Channel. Click here for the Chinese version.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted family life around the world. School closures, working from home, and social distancing can be tough for anyone, especially those who care for children with special educational needs.

With this in mind, EdUHK's Centre for Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Education (CSENIE) has launched online consultation services and home teaching materials for carers of children with special educational needs.

CSENIE's Supporting Unit for Special Educational Needs (SuSEN) developed the services using a team of specialists in IT, early intervention, behavior analysis, counselling, special needs, as well as art and music therapy.

The online consultation helps to guide parents and caregivers in the daily care of their SEN children. Parents can adjust their strategies and develop a sense of self-management in their daily care.

“Many parents feel stressed when working at home with their SEN children.” said Jessie Fung, CSENIE's Project Manager. “There is a big demand for individual online consultations. We planned to provide 160 sessions from May to August. The places were filled very quickly. We are now extending our services to Wednesday and Friday in May 2020, and hopefully we can serve 64 more families."

The additional online consultation services will be held each Wednesday and Friday through May. Each session lasts 1 hour and will be conducted in Cantonese, English, or Mandarin.

Click here to register:

https://anonmachg2.eduhk.hk/machform/view.php?id=29686312

CSENIE's team has also developed a series of home-based teaching materials for SEN students. The games and activities train children’s level of concentration, muscle strength, and empathy. Here are two of the videos: