WASHK丨Learn about our approaches to education in the digital age

Media Insights Derived from?The Standard

?As Hong Kong emerges from the pandemic, educators and schools have the opportunity to reinvent teaching and learning.?Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong (WASHK) - the first private school in the city to be awarded the “Microsoft Showcase School” status - is at the forefront of leveraging technologies in enhancing the student experience.

Tune in to this episode to learn about WASHK’s approaches to education in the digital age:?the school’s focused daily uses of technology, the potential challenges brought by this widespread application and how they can be addressed, and what the future holds for educational digital tools - specifically Microsoft technologies and artificial intelligence.

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Mr. Shahzada Janjua,?Head of ICT/STEAM, WASHK

Mr. Ben Mitchell,?Key Stage 3 Class Teacher, WASHK

Mr. Harris Chan,?Director, Central Marketing Organization, Microsoft Hong Kong

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Gigi Wong,?Senior Reporter, The Standard

(From left)?Harris Chan, Ben Mitchell, Shahzada Janjua and Gigi Wong.

In early 2020, Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong (WASHK)’s classrooms suddenly went remote – a transition schools the world over were forced to make during the pandemic.?Almost three years down the road, the learning experience looks drastically different, even better and more enhanced.

“As Hong Kong’s first private school to be named a ‘Microsoft Showcase School’, the Teams and OneNote technologies form the foundation of our online learning provision,” says Shahzada Janjua, Head of iSteam at WASHK.?“Teachers and students use Teams to communicate and collaborate, and this provision is underpinned by the daily use of tablet technology in lessons.”

Janjua notes that different tools are being used across the board.?For instance, an artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostic tool improves students’ reading fluency by giving teachers practical information in color-coded charts and bars, enabling personalized support to students and accelerating learners’ understanding of a particular text.

Technologies also extend into the socio-emotional domain.?Microsoft Reflect encourages students to identify and express their emotions with adorable monster icons symbolizing different emotions, generating a map of emotions across the whole class.??

And it also serves as a regular check-in at the beginning of the lessons.?“If students are feeling angry or sad, we focus on those students and show them strategies about how to emotionally regulate themselves,”?Janjua explains.

Elsewhere,?Minecraft Education immerses students in a virtual universe where they work in groups to build an architectural structure?– or code robots and agents to build them.?

“With AI, lessons are more tailored and personalized than ever, and we are picking out students’ strengths and weaknesses we need to focus on,” says Ben Mitchell, KS3 Class Teacher at WASHK.?“We get a good idea of where we want to move forward with the next lesson.”

But it’s not just the digital tools that have evolved into something of a ubiquitous application –?teachers have also upped their game to embrace this new era of innovation.?

When it comes to staff training, Mitchell says the Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert (MIEE) program has been completed by all of the school’s teachers.?This means that staffs have worked through a range of activities and resources to get to grips with AI and Microsoft technologies, and how they can apply these to teaching and learning;?there are also regular staff meetings where the community exchange and talk about the best practices.

While the benefits are for all to see, as with all technological advances, these digital tools also bring forth challenges and potential risks. Above all, the major questions about ethics and privacy.?Harris Chan, Director of Central Marketing Organization at Microsoft Hong Kong, pinpoints the principles of security, compliance and transparency as the key to navigating the moral grey areas.

“As a technology provider, it’s important that we are building AI responsibly and ethically.?We need to make sure that this big amount of data is securely stored, and that we handle data with care and respect the privacy of parents, students and teachers,” Chan says.

Now that Hong Kong has resumed normalcy, schools collectively have the opportunity to reimagine education.?With generative AI technologies like ChatGPT gaining traction, Janjua says there has to be “a balance between the amount AI that is incorporated into our curriculum and developing students’ skillset.”?

He says that with AI supporting us, students will accelerate skills regarding?problem-solving, emotional regulation, critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration.

From a technology provider’s perspective, Chan says the world is barely scratching the surface:?“We are gradually moving from AI being good at very narrow, specific tasks, to the era of artificial general intelligence where AI is pretty much good at everything you throw at it.”

“Very soon we are going to take these tools beyond linguistics to other core subjects including Mathematics. We very much look forward to working with schools like Wycombe Abbey School Hong Kong to see how we can take things forward and strike that balance,”?Chan concludes.

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