FED successfully held the 2^nd and 3^rd postgraduates seminar “HOPE CityU Education Salon”

In the afternoon of March 27 and 28, 2018, FED successfully held postgraduates seminar “HOPE CityU Education Salon” again. Prof. Zhang Xiumei, coming from the School of Information Technology in Education, South China Normal University, brought two excellent seminars for postgraduates entitled “New Theory, Technology and Models of Internet + Education” and “Future Technology: On the Path and in the Dream”.

At the 27^th Salon Seminar, Prof. Zhang elaborated four abilities which teachers need for the process of learning and wisdom education through fundamental theories such as relevance theory and TPACK framework. Then, she shared the new technologies of Internet + Education, for instance, Big Data Era and Learning Analysis, which restructuring the school pattern. Moreover, based on the comparison of Scientism Education and Humanistic Education, Prof. Zhang further explored new Internet + Education model, such as flipping classroom, Mak-er, and MOOC.

At the 28^th Salon Seminar Prof. Zhang transferred to a new frontier topic: Future Technology. In the first part of Salon, she recommended several classic books such as “The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood” and “Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World”, and also introduced the transition of System Science, from System Theory, Cybernetics and Information Theory in the 1940s to the Evolution of Dissipative Structure Theory, Collaboration Theory and Catastrophe Theory in the 1970s, and explored the mysticism of cross-border thinking with the example “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid”. In the second part of Salon, Prof. Zhang invited all the participants to have “a dream in the near future.” She talked about biotechnology, artificial intelligence and robotics, urban brains, quantum computing, brain science, etc., and conversed about the technology which close to realization. At the same time, she thought about possible future technologies based on the thinking of Humanism and Educational Innovation.

In the above two salon seminars, Dr. SHAO Yanju, working as the host of seminars as well as the Programme Coordinator of FED, exchanged ideas with Prof. Zhang on the issues of new model of coexistence of Modern Information Technology and Education, negotionation between Smart Classroom and Traditional Classroom, sustainable development of innovative schools, etc. Besides, in the discussion session, postgraduates discussed with Prof. Zhang on the topics such as the Diversity of Education Innovation and the combination of Information Technology and Modern Teaching. In addition, postgraduates from Institute for Research On Portuguese-Speaking Countries also communicated with Prof. Zhang on the topics of One Belt One Road, Higher Education Internationalization, etc.