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Foundation reports

Overview

Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, primary schools must now deliver an 8-module “Computer awareness programme” as part of IT for interactive learning.

While schools have flexibility in how this is delivered, and many schools differ in terms of programming language, software, platforms and editors, the Education Bureau do recommend the micro:bit as one of the tools in their curriculum guidance.

girl with micro:bit

The module “Interacting with programmable physical objects through micro:bit activities” covers introductory activities with the micro:bit and MakeCode.

To support teachers with this curriculum, the Education Bureau, Hong Kong Computing Educators Associations, British Council Hong Kong & VTC work in partnership while supporting the growth of micro:bit activities throughout the region.

Teacher support and training

Given the recommendation within the curriculum, the micro:bit is now ubiquitous in Hong Kong. Teachers are benefiting from a rich offering of training programmes and an active community of micro:bit teacher user groups. These offer both specialists and those new to micro:bit a wide network of support in which they can connect and share ideas.

The growth of these communities is in part due to the work of passionate teachers who built teaching modules for their schools, working with local micro:bit resellers and teacher training providers who run courses, coding camps, competitions and events for teachers and students. They also combine hardware into the offering for schools and teachers.

Examples of projects

  • British Council Hong Kong worked with Vocational Training Centres (VTCs) to deliver training and hackathons to over 200 educators from across subjects, who then integrated micro:bit as part of their digital transformation strategy
  • Centum Charitas Foundation launched a micro:bit focused initiative–Coding AI-micro:bit Champion School for 60 Primary schools, training over150 educators, provided more than 20,000 micro:bit devices with training to students from the selected schools since 2019
  • City University Apps Lab Hour of Code Initiatives, championing Hour ofCode sessions with micro:bit every week. So far, there have been at least80 sessions of micro:bit Hour of Code being carried out to families in HongKong since 2017.
  • Hong Kong Association for Computers Educators conducted numerous competitions since 2018, namely Smart City Challenge, IoT Challenge, and Digital Making Championships.
  • IET (Hong Kong chapter) championed Training and Competition of FaradayChallenge with micro:bit in Hong Kong and Macau since 2017
  • Teacher association "AitLE" (Association for IT Leaders in Education) also run a major project called the InnoSTEMer Camp which had a micro:bit module added in 2018. Each year schools apply to send students to a 3-day camp where students work collaboratively, culminating in a final maker project.