The Academic IT Steering Committee (AITSC) has received from the Resource Allocation Committee a budget of $1 million per annum for three years, starting from 2007-08 to establish a Courseware Development Grant Scheme (CDGS).

AITSC is now inviting applications from members of the teaching staff for projects funded under this allocation. Projects must be related to UGC-funded courses and programmes. The deadline for this call is Friday 31 August 2007. Please take advantage of these last few days to submit your eLearning request. More information can be found at: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning/announce/CDG.htm.

The use of web technology in teaching and learning is a growing trend at CUHK and there are now some excellent examples of good eLearning practice at our University.

So, this is a good time for colleagues to share useful eLearning practices. The eLS@CU is inviting a selected number of CUHK teachers to share their experiences with their colleagues in the "Expo: Excellence Online". We have designed an interactive Expo event to facilitate conversation and sharing.

The Expo, to be held in the Esther Lee Building, will have two main components: a keynote speaker and panel session (approx. 1.5 hours), followed by an assembly of poster presentations and demonstrations (approx. 1.5 hours).

We are selecting colleagues who are well known as having interest in and experience of using eLearning at CUHK. Interested parties, please visit our site at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning/expo or contact us at eLearning@cuhk.edu.hk

Technology is part of daily life in the 21st century. Are our universities equipped to educate a new generation of learners who come to us with sophisticated use of emerging technologies? How compatible are their life styles with current teaching practices? We are seeking to answer these questions by finding out how teachers and students already use technology in their daily lives.

We have joined with the six other UGC-funded universities in Hong Kong in a project to survey first year students and teachers who teach first year courses about their use of technology. We earnestly seek our colleagues' cooperation in this study which will provide us with solid evidence for planning the IT environment at CUHK.

Our eLearning website (http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning) has just been renovated with richer information and a more beautiful layout to welcome the new academic year. Please visit.

WebCT CE6 is now open for 2007-08 course applications at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning/webct6/index.html (APPLY). This new version of WebCT has enhanced user-friendliness, easier content upload and many new functions. Favorable comments have been received from teachers using new tools such as HTML Creator and Selective Release Map. A number of training sessions will be held to prepare teachers for the updates. Please read the 'Forthcoming Events' in this newsletter for some of the activities.

Teachers should also be reminded that the old WebCT CE3.8 server will be decommissioned on 30 September 2007. Old course contents copied from CE3.8 to CE6 (which are now marked with Old2006-07 in your WebCT course list) will also be removed by the time. If teachers plan to reuse the old contents for their WebCT courses in 2007-08, they should apply to open the courses before the end of September.

WebCT CE6

The eLearning Service provides eLearning suggestions and resources for all teaching staff at CUHK. However, individual faculties and departments may feel that more targeted and specialized resources and materials would better address the interest of teachers in a particular discipline.

Prof. Jhaveri (the eLearning Liaison Person in the School) has collaborated with the eLearning Service to develop a self-help eLearning site for teachers in the School.

The demo and accompanying guidance site will demonstrate and explain Moodle activities that teachers at the School may find especially useful.  The site will also provide teachers in the School with information about the eLearning strategies and benefits relating to the various Moodle activities and functions. Selected functions in Moodle (e.g. course document delivery functions, forums, quizzes, glossary and database) will be demonstrated on the site using specific examples from a Law course. Teachers in the School will also be encouraged to discuss eLearning-related issues on the site. Please contact Swati (swati.jhaveri@cuhk.edu.hk) if you want to learn more about the site.

ELearning Service will assist the development of other discipline-specific resources if desired by other faculties and departments.

Prof. Swati Jhaveri

Gong is a freeware developed by HKUST that provides students and/or teachers a platform to participate and to record discussion in groups using their computers either synchronously or asynchronously. The Gong system provides a platform for participants to leave text or voice messages. This added feasibility of the online learning system to share audio-recordings can be turned into in-class or out-of-class activities that have real learning potential. Below are some ideas:

1.	Use Gong as a means to post additional audio-based learning materials for students. For example, these can be short clips of teachers' recordings, or interviews with practitioners in the field.
2.	Use Gong to record students' presentations. The recorded presentations can then be used for peer-review activities. For example, students can give each other comments on their performance after listening to the recordings at home.
3.	Gong also facilitates teachers to turn some of the text-based assignments into oral tasks if the change is deemed appropriate. For example, oral debates can be more realistic communicative tasks in language courses. Pronunciations are also more easily checked in recorded oral performances too. Professional communicative skills (such as communications in a Law court or a clinical setting) are also better developed with the opportunity to record and review oral performances.

The Gong feature is now available in our CUHK Moodle platform. A simpler version of Gong is also available on our WebCT CE6. Teachers may want to contact us (elearning@cuhk.edu.hk) for more information about the function to ensure smooth-running of the activities particularly if they are using it the first time. More information on Gong can be found on an external site at: http://gong.ust.hk/

Workshops on WebCT CE6 have been organized by ITSC over the past few months to provide demonstration on how to use new platform for both teachers and students.

EXPO: Excellence Online (Poster Presentation & Keynote speech)
Date: 18 October 2007, Thursday
Time: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Venue: 1/F, foyer & G/F, LT1 Esther Lee Building
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Website: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning/expo

ITSC Seminar & Workshops
Forthcoming ITSC seminar & workshops on eLearning are:

Date	Event	Language	Remarks
27 August 2007	WebCT CE6 Workshop	Cantonese	Click here to register
31 August 2007	Seminar: 'eLearning platforms and consultation service at CU'	English	Click here to register
4 September 2007	Moodle Workshop	English	Click here to register
7 September 2007	WebCT CE6 Workshop	Cantonese	Click here to register

mLearn
http://www.mlearn2007.org/
Date: 16-19 October 2007
Place: Melbourne

Ascilite
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/
Date: 2-5 December 2007
Place: Singapore

Dr. Clayton Wright has written a comprehensive list of educational technology conferences for 2007-2008. We would like to express our gratitude to Clayton for his kindness in allowing us to redistribute the list to interested teachers. Please download the document by following the link HERE.

eLLP (eLearning Liaison Person): The recruitment of departmental eLLPs is still open. These colleagues are in an excellent position to enable us to understand the eLearning needs of departments and programmes and how these needs can be best met. They will also be the contact points between department teachers and the eLearning Service. Please contact Alex Wong (alex.wong@cuhk.edu.hk) if you would like to find out who is the eLLP in your department, or would like to be an eLLP.

eLearning clinic: We provide free face-to-face assistance to teachers on eLearning matters. Contact us to arrange for appointments at: elearning@cuhk.edu.hk

Course outline revision service: We assist teachers in reviewing course outlines of their courses (based on CUHK's teaching and learning 'Integrated Framework'). The version of a course outline put on the course website should provide students with rich information about the course. See http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/eLearning/resources/course_plan.htm. Please contact us for more details: alex.wong@cuhk.edu.hk