Multimodal Stories for Language and Cultural Exchange

This project initiates sustainable linkages between universities and schools in Perth, Guilin and Shanghai for the purpose of advancing communication and mutual understanding between Chinese and Australian lower secondary aged students. This is achieved through the design and implementation of a mechanism for the exchange of multimodal e-books created by school students in these three locations. Employing mobile technologies, students will exchange multimodal e-books to assist each other in learning about each other's language and culture. Staff from The University of Western Australia, the Hong Kong Institute of Education and East China Normal University recruit two participating schools in each location. Students and teachers in each school work with academic staff to create multimodal stories using a range of technologies, including Web 2.0 and mobile technologies such as tablet computers and smartphones. Multimodal stories are based on traditional tales of the countries concerned as well as traditional tales with a modern twist, which will include images of modern settings. Stories are written and/or narrated in the two target languages - English and Mandarin Chinese. The objectives of this project are: 1) This project initiates sustainable linkages between universities and schools in Perth, Hong Kong and Beijing for the purpose of advancing communication and mutual understanding between Chinese and Australian lower secondary aged students. 2) This project identifies enablers and barriers in setting up such linkages/programs to inform other schools and universities who may wish to set up such programs. 3) This project results in a repository of bi-lingual culturally informative e-books for schools, teachers and students participating in the project to use in the future.

Funding Source: Non-HK - Others^^