Online and blended learning are essential components in active learning in the 21st century. Beginning 2019, Hong Kong Shue Yan University has been working on the platform called CRIO supported in a 20 million project funded by QESS to develop such a platform for the self-financing university sector.
The system was put in use last year. While Hong Kong Shue Yan University has returned to normal teaching and learning schedule, Crio which is integrated by uReply, a web-based Student Response System (SRS) to use with mobile devices, can still be used to facilitate effectiveness and interaction in teaching. Since 2021, the system has been used in more than 27 undergraduate courses in Hong Kong Shue Yan University. In total, a number of 4119 activity sessions have been created during online, face-to-face or blended teaching on Crio and a number of 15,787 students’ responses were recorded. To evaluate the effectiveness of the system in supporting classroom interaction during different modes of teaching, Hong Kong Shue Yan University has conducted an evaluative survey. Around 40 teachers and 690 students were surveyed. Most of the teachers and students were satisfied with the experience of using the system and agreed that the system facilitated interaction during class.
Hong Kong is lacking an online teaching solution that is locally hosted, free from privacy issues, accessible in the Mainland and well-integrated with LMS as well as sophisticated interaction and examination functions. CRIO has many of the core functions of Zoom, and to address the afore-mentioned issues, CRIO is currently being enhanced with the locally hosted and protected server, accessibility, integration with LMS and interaction and examination functions.
The objective of this proposed project is to further strengthen the platform and launch it for use in the primary and secondary school sector.
The use of Crio during a blended learning course in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature in HKSYU