How to use ISDN Video‐Conferencing to Develop Efficient Remote Education and Corporate Training

Abstract

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is available today in Macau and has been since 1997. It is emerging as a mainstream telecommunications network that will serve a wide variety of users’ needs. It has improved service capabilities, reduced costs and improved productivity for Macau organizations, both large and small. The following are short notes on possible uses.     

东亚五大城市幼儿园教师工资待遇比较分析

分析深圳、香港、首尔、东京和新加坡五大东亚城市幼儿园教师的工资待遇发现:(1)香港幼儿园教师的工资架构最简单,很难客观反映教师的实际工作表现;深圳和首尔的工资架构最具全面和综合性;东京和新加坡的工资架构相对全面、均衡.(2)东京幼儿园教师的工资水平最高,首尔、香港、深圳随后,新加坡的工资水平最低.(3)从食物购买力角度考察,东京幼儿园教师的实际购买力最强,香港第二,首尔和深圳随后,新加坡最弱.(4)从租房能力角度考察,东京幼儿园教师的实际购买力最强,首尔和深圳随后,香港倒数第二,新加坡倒数第一.针对香港和新加坡幼儿园教师工资待遇偏低问题,研究者建议当地政府进一步完善幼儿园教师工资架构,考虑发放住房、交通、子女教育等津贴,以切实解决幼儿园教师的生活困难,吸引更多优秀人才从事幼儿教育工作.     

Globalization,values education,and school music education in China

This paper examines music education’s legitimation of values as a means of preparing students for entry into the new ‘knowledge society’ of the People’s Republic of China in a global age. It explores the ways in which values education relates to the teaching of both musical and non‐musical meanings in the dual context of nationalism and globalization, and discusses some problems that values education faces in school music classrooms. It examines the ways in which globalization has pressured values education into resolving the apparent contradiction between national identity and national unity in the ever‐changing play of Chinese history and politics. It concludes with a discussion of how music education might juggle three pairs of apparently contradictory relationships in the curriculum: between contemporary cultural and social values on the one hand, and traditional Chinese and Communist ideologies on the other; between collectivism and individualism; and between national and global cultures.     

Behind the scenes of music education in China: a survey of historical memory

This study explores how the government of mainland China values Chinese nationalism as a component of its historical memory and traces its relationship with music education from the twentieth century to the global age within broader social contexts. In a rapidly commercializing and modernizing China, nationalism remains the main driving force shaping Chinese music education, while historical nationalism and familial relationship have been reinforced by the current regime's educational socialization. Love for country and family and an emphasis on nationalism and Confucianism are the pragmatic tools employed by Chinese authorities to maintain their primacy in and power over education, particularly song teaching.     

The Paradox of Power in Leadership in Early Childhood Education

Western frameworks for school improvement, including the stakeholder model and the model of decentralized leadership, have recently been promoted as solutions for school improvement. Using early childhood education in Hong Kong as an illustrative case, this article focuses on the power and authority of leadership in school decision making. The interview data collected from the two case study schools reveal a paradox of power in leadership that is characterized by tensions between centralization and decentralization in the change process, where decentralization is advocated by policymakers but traditional hierarchical cultures remain. The relationship between the leaders and school stakeholders incorporates a concept of harmony that functions to defuse the potential power struggle embedded in decision making.     

Developmental Changes in Executive Functioning

Although early studies of executive functioning in children supported Miyake et al.'s (2000) three‐factor model, more recent findings supported a variety of undifferentiated or two‐factor structures. Using a cohort‐sequential design, this study examined whether there were age‐related differences in the structure of executive functioning among 6‐ to 15‐year‐olds (N = 688). Children were tested annually on tasks designed to measure updating and working memory, inhibition, and switch efficiency. There was substantial task‐based variation in developmental patterns on the various tasks. Confirmatory factor analyses and tests for longitudinal factorial invariance showed that data from the 5‐ to 13‐year‐olds conformed to a two‐factor structure. For the 15‐year‐olds, a well‐separated three‐factor structure was found.     

Drawing on the variation theory to enhance students’ learning of Chinese characters

The variation theory of Ference Marton and his collaborators has widely been used as a framework for explaining what can possibly be learned in a particular classroom and what cannot. This paper reports on an experiment that put this theory to test in the context of students’ learning of the orthographic structures of Chinese characters. The experiment was carried out in the classrooms of two primary schools in Hong Kong. In each of the schools, two classes of students were taught differently, as informed by the theory, about the significance of the location of a component in the orthographic structure of a character in relation to whether the component provided a clue to the meaning of the character (called the part–part relations). The results of the experiment are consistent with the prediction of the theory that those students who were given the possibility to experience variation in the locations of components in the orthographic structures significantly outperformed those who were not. The results of the experiment demonstrate the power of the theory in guiding the design of teaching that affords students’ learning to happen.     

An analysis of continuous teacher development in Hong Kong

Education in Hong Kong has developed rapidly since the 70s in parallel with the economic boom. To support such development, the government has invested heavily in initial teacher education and will soon impose professional training and graduate qualifications as prerequisites for entering the profession. Continuous teacher education (CTE), generally regarded as equally important as initial teacher education if not more so, is not given comparable emphasis. This paper aims to study CTE in Hong Kong, including its policy, practice and provision at the system level. Some special features of the system are identified and scrutinized, including ad hoc, policy led, and competence based. The centrally provided CTE is also closely examined in terms of its relevance to the profession, impact on schools, and cost‐effectiveness. The paper ends with a close look at its latest developments, obstacles encountered and prospects.     

The evolution of special education in Malaysia

This article traces the evolution of special education in Malaysia across four chronological stages: before and during the early colonial period (before 1900), pre‐independence (1900–1957), post‐independence (1957–1990) and modern Malaysia (1990 to the present), through document analysis. By placing current issues and trends within a historical perspective, we can provide a context for understanding current practices in relation to shifts in policy paradigms. The effects of policy changes throughout the years are discussed in the context of issues facing special education today. Identifiable areas of improvements are organised into eight themes: (1) provision of education for students with special needs and the degree to which they are inclusive; (2) encouragement of diversity within highly structured education systems; (3) the importance of funding; (4) restructuring pre‐service teacher preparation; (5) multidisciplinary support and collaboration; (6) programme outcomes; (7) provision of related services; and (8) epidemiological data.     

Mixed Methods Research – Nonverbal Observations of Cultural Convergence in Online and Offline Contexts: Testing Hall’s Low- Vs. High-Context Framework

ABSTRACT

Extending the existing low- and high-context culture theoretical framework, the current research examined the extent to which globalization has shaped low- and high-context cultures in relation to nonverbal communication. The current study employed an exploratory sequential design mixed research method. The first phase of the study observed cultural convergence evident in people’s nonverbal communication in real life and reported the observations qualitatively. In the second phase of the study, a quantitative content analysis was carried out. The content analysis, namely sentiment analysis, examined the occurrences of people of diverse nationalities expressing their emotions when they provide reviews of airlines on a travel website and empirically test the relevance of low- and high-context theoretical framework in the era of globalization. A total of 85,228 reviews of 592 airlines available on a travel website were downloaded using a web crawler. The qualified records used for analysis included records from the following regions: Africa, Asia, Australia, Latin America, Northwestern Europe, Southern Europe, and United States. An analysis of variance on the number of words people used in writing travel reviews online yielded significant variations among the seven regions. This data also sheds light on cultural convergence.