Technology and Education
Shedding light on the transformative power of digital technologies in education
Technology is rapidly developing and is transforming every aspect of our lives. In education, it is critical that we understand the role of technology in helping us teach and learn.
Professor Li Ping, CILME Co-Director, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Sin Wai Kin Professor in Humanities and Technology at PolyU, is an internationally renowned neurolinguistic scholar. He is leading his research team to study the integration of technology for education and to understand human behaviour.
It is commonly believed that digital technologies, such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Extended Reality (xR), and metaverse, make learning much more interesting and, hence more effective. Professor Li’s research has revealed deeper insights. Take learning a foreign language as an example, students motivated to interact with VR objects exhibit better attention levels and gain better learning outcome than those who memorise long lists of words. Effectiveness is measured using real-time behaviour, eye-tracking and neuroimaging methods. His research found that learning through immersive virtual reality (iVR) facilitates long-term memory retention and retrieval, and that these effects are reflected in the learner’s brains: more brain areas, in both left and right hemispheres, become active during and after iVR-based learning, compared with the method of word list associations. These findings and the data collected provide valuable insights into designing iVR products and tailored learning materials. It also lays a foundation for building adaptive and personalised education systems.
PolyU has partnered with the Education University of Hong Kong to establish the Centre for Immersive Learning and Metaverse in Education (CILME), which serves as a powerhouse for the study of technology-enhanced learning and teaching. Future research focuses include developing adaptive tools based on machine learning, AI and big data analytics to cater to individual learning needs, e.g., to accommodate both fast and slower learners. In his latest research, Professor Li found that Large Language Models such as ChatGPT can perform like the human brain when being trained in similar ways as humans in processing language, providing significant insights into AI model development.
Professor Li said,
