Teaching and Learning Technology in a Liberal Arts Environment

Blending the learning environment: The place of eLearning

The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of education (eLearning) continues to grow and develop and is having a major impact on the student learning experience at all levels: social, academic and professional. Through the Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC), the Library, and the Information Technology Services Centre, the University provides considerable support for the use of ICTs as powerful means of enriching and enhancing teaching and learning, and of facilitating the assessment of learning outcomes. While there is no mandated use for ICTs within the University, search engines, online scholarly resources, networking and collaboration tools, and other ICTs offer powerful opportunities for teachers and students alike to engage, collaborate, and communicate more effectively while undertaking research, analysis, writing, and other academic work, and to reconceptualise the learning and teaching environment in the light of contemporary affordances.

Many professional fields, into which many of Lingnan’s graduates routinely go, require significant skills in the use of ICTs, and the University has taken a major step to introduce a compulsory Information Technology Fluency test together with self-study resources to ensure that students become ICT literate.

Enabling Student Engagement and Learning within Lingnan University and the Global Liberal Arts Alliance

An on-going project for which the TLC has received a grant of HK$400K from University Grants Committee (UGC) to launch, it involves collaboration with selected members of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA), a body of liberal arts universities worldwide, to ascertain the preferred instructional technology of students pursuing a liberal arts education. This will allow the TLC to construct an on-line repository of instructional technology and associated training materials, specifically relevant or tailored for a liberal arts environment, for the benefit of GLAA members.