Advancing online learning: Aligning pedagogy, course design and ICT with open-source delivery

Despite the promise of web ? based instruction, universities in Hong Kong have been slow to utilize available technology to produce quality courses (Lee & Chan, 2008), meet the changing learning needs of students, successfully engage a large number of teachers in innovative new web learning technologies, tap emerging and nontraditional local and regional student markets, and increase their visibility in the Region. This presents a gap in the instructional landscape, one brimming with potential for institutions wanting to break with a continued reliance on past learning paradigms, and establish a presence through high quality online courses (Rovai & Downey, 2010). This project focuses on the development and dissemination of cutting ? edge closed and open source web ? based, student ? centered learning materials accessible from a range of static and portable devices. These modes of delivery and learning, such as podcasts and wikis, are relatively nascent and in need of further research into how they can be leveraged in the interest of student learning (Heilesen, 2010; Hulsmann, 2009; Kear et al., 2010). Building on knowledge collected during the development of an initial set of web ? based courses for the IEMA program, this project aims to extend HKIEd ' s foray into online learning through the design of innovative online instructional resources using a range of pedagogies carefully integrated with social networking tools (c.f. Ally, 2009; Amhag & Jakobsson, 2009; Benson & Samarawickrema, 2009; Lonn & Teasley, 2009; Sayed, 2010).