| The First International Conference on Hybrid Learning was organized by City University of Hong Kong, Caritas Francis Hsu College and Caritas Bianchi College of Careers in August 2008. ICHL2008 was an innovative and consolidative experience for Hong Kong tertiary higher education. The conference aims to unify the traditional classroom face-to-face learning and Internet eLearning into one teaching and learning method––hybrid learning––for both teachers and students. Its audience are educators and eLearning practitioners. The conference obtained sponsorship from six local universities in Hong Kong: Hong Kong Baptist University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, University of Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Lingnan University. It was also sponsored by Pei Hua Education Foundation Limited, and K.C. Wong Education Foundation Limited.
Hybrid learning originated from North America in 2000 and is an ongoing trend. It is not merely a simple combination of direct teaching and eLearning, but comprises different learning strategies and important elements for teaching and learning. It focuses on student center learning and provides an environment for knowledge learning. Students are given more opportunities to be active learners and practice practical skills such as communication, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, self-management, self-study, problem solving, analysis and numeracy.
It was our pleasure to have three keynote talks for the conference, namely, “You Can’t Do That in a Classroom! Realizing the Potential of Distributed Learning for On-Campus Students” by Cath Ellis, “A Proposal for a Lifecycle Process for Hybrid Learning Programs” by Won Kim, and “Just-in-Time Knowledge for Effective Hybrid Learning” by Michel Desmarais.
We are thankful for the effort of all the conference Organizing Committee members for organizing the conference, and also all the conference Program Committee members for reviewing the papers. Special thanks must go to Frances Yao for the support of City University of Hong Kong in holding the conference. The conference attracted about 142 submissions, and only 38 papers were accepted for the conference proceedings in the series Lecture Notes in Computer Science published by Springer.
On behalf of the conference Steering Committee members––Reggie Kwan from Caritas Francis Hsu College, Philips Fu Lee Wang from City University of Hong Kong, Victor Lee from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Joseph Fong from City University of Hong Kong––we trust you will enjoy the papers in this volume. |