The aim of collaborative action research is for teachers to develop, research and evaluate curricular units that incorporate literacy learning activities utilizing multimodal, media and popular cultural texts, as well as incorporating critical literacy practices in classrooms. Project schools have started to implement action research since February 2009. Below are some highlights of action research carried out by the 12 schools:
 

Engaging Students in Independent Learning

Three classes of Buddhist Wong Cheuk Um Primary School across P.4 to P.6 are taking part in the project. Students experienced self and independent learning and team work, with the collaborative use of new technology.

The P.4A students planned for the programme of a one-day trip in Hong Kong with the adverbs of sequence they have learnt. Mr Hung observed that his students were very skillful in creating a presentation with Photo Story. The class had some fun when designing the itinerary, finding attractive photos, and recording their narration.

The unit which the P.5A class focused on was "help save the animals", which output was a group information text about an endangered animal. Each group, with the guidance of Miss Chow, gathered information from the textbook and online resources, such as the teacher's blog, website of WWF, Wikipedia and online discussion forum. In groups of 2-4, they composed a text which would then be presented to the class, with photos, and some funny facts which they have found about their chosen animal! Students demonstrated very good online multi-searching skills, and their texts will be posted on the teacher’s blog for peer comments.

"Memories of school life" was a teaching unit in the P.6A curriculum and students captured the memorable moments of their final days at school via photostories. Students took around their mobile phones and digital cameras to take photos and videos of their classmates, teachers and school facilities. To personalize their stories, they added in photos of special occasions, and captions of how they felt about their classmates. Their works will be played during the graduation party.

Creating Photostories on Festivals

Three P.5 classes in King Lam Catholic Primary School are taking part in the action research project. Aiming at improving students' writing ability, teachers of the three classes are using Photo Story as a tool to engage students in creating their own stories about various festivals.

The teachers started the project in February 2009 through the demonstration of a fancy photostory about Christmas, and then students tried to create a photostory about Chinese New Year. With the help of these new literacies technologies, students were engaged in expressing their ideas through multimodal resources including choosing relevant pictures/photos, writing captions to go with the pictures, and recording their stories on sound files as narration. Individual students were invited to present their photostories in class. The other students provided feedback on their classmates' photostories. These presentation and feedback-giving activities had made the photostory activity truly interactive.

In the second stage of their action research, students will further practise their acquired skills to produce a story about their favourite festival other than Chinese New Year. Captions, music, photos and narration will again be integrated to enrich their photostories. This digital story making experience has not only provided students with opportunities to learn and practice communicating ideas through information technology, but also integrate English learning with students' everyday life experience.

Creating Comic Strips on Behaving in Public & Writing Book Reviews on a Wiki 

In 2008-09, a P.5 class in Laichikok Catholic Primary School trialed Windows Photostory 3 to create digital stories of their childhood memories. In this activity, students integrated many ways to express their ideas with graphics, texts and sound. They also got the chance to undergo valuable English writing and speaking experience, with the help of new technologies.

In 2009-10, all P.5 and P.6 classes participated in the action research project. Teachers and students have together developed a collaborative pedagogical model infusing new literacies into the English language curriculum.

To enhance students' thinking skills and promote cooperative learning through digital technologies, P.5 students created comic strips using Toondoo.com on the theme of "Behave well in public places". They read a story, Mr. Don't, and learnt how to express obligations and prohibitions using modals and imperatives. Each student then went through the writing process by planning their own stories, storyboarding on draft paper, getting feedback from their teachers, and finally producing comic strips online and sharing their texts with all classmates. Students were highly engaged and motivated in the final stage, as they appreciated each other's cartoons with cheers, praise, and all kinds of advice and comments. They could even "Re-doo" their comic strips in response to helpful and encouraging comments from their peers. Language learning was thus personalized, ongoing and FUN!

For P.6 students, printed books were digitally and interactively shared through a wiki-based book review writing task. Students were shown an online book review on The Wizard of Oz written by the teachers as an example, then learnt the organisational and linguistic features of a book review using the parts of a hamburger as a visual metaphor. After reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory together in class, students went to the computer room and created a personal, informative and multimodal book review on a class wiki, including posters, Youtube videos and songs. The activity was then truly collaborative when students exchanged ideas on each other's review page. Not yet the end, students will continue to develop and enrich their online wiki with several more book reviews in this school year.
 

Townhall Meeting in the Rainforest

In the action research project, two P.4 classes in North Point Methodist Primary School participated in a process drama in which a panda (role taken by one of the teachers) visited the Amazon jungle and asked to meet Ted and Todd, two characters from a story book, In the rainforest, which the students had previously read. Mr Panda was sick of eating bamboo and would like to try eating some rainforest animals…

The class was divided into 6 groups of 5-6 students. Each group was assigned to be a rainforest animal (bees, butterflies, parrots, bats, snakes and jaguars) which they represented throughout the project. They needed to defend themselves and justify with good reasons why Mr Panda should not eat them. They also needed to decide which animal should be chosen as 'panda food' in the Town Hall Meeting called by Ted and Todd.

To convince the other animals that they were indispensable and could help maintain biodiversity in the rainforest, each group created a photostory featuring their animal with imagery, narration and music. Their presentations have then been uploaded to a project website which the students, as 'rainforest animals' voted which animal should be eaten by Mr Panda.

The focus of the project is how the students' motivation and attitudes towards their work is affected by a) using a computer programme to create a presentation in English; and b) the opportunity to share their work with an unknown audience on a website, accessed with personalized 'Jungle Classroom' tickets. The two classes do not know each other as one is a morning class, and the other is an afternoon class. The students in these classes have a chance to comment on the photostories created by their counterparts.

Sharing ‘People We Admire’ through Photostories and Blogs 

All P.6 classes in PLK Chee Jing Yin Primary School participated a 'New Literacies' project on 'People We Admire'. Students created a digital presentation about a person they admire most using Photostory. These presentations were uploaded to blogs and shared. Students viewed each other’s presentations and commented on them in the blog discussion boards. In addition to developing English language literacy skills in multimodal text creation, students also developed their information searching techniques, critical thinking and collaboration skills during the unit.

At the start of the unit, students were taught sentence structures and other grammatical elements useful for describing the person they admire most. Then, students were shown a photostory about Princess Diana produced by teachers. This served to give students a holistic experience of the photostory presentation, and was also used to help students notice and analyse the elements of a photostory presentation.  Then students worked on their own photostory about a person they admired most. Many children chose sports stars and political leaders, but others chose scientists, inventors and artists.  In one of the classes, students were introduced to a online collaborative mind mapping programme 'Meadmap' which they used to share and develop ideas with other classmates who had chosen the same famous person for their photostory. Students were given guidance about using the target structures in their captions and oral narration. Teachers actively discussed with individual students about photo selection and sequencing during the Photostory production process in order to stimulate students' critical thinking.

Students' products were uploaded to the website. Students gave constructive comments on each other's presentations, and reflected on their own photostories by reading the comments from classmates.  

Sharing Everyday Life Experience through Blogging

In order to increase students' In order to increase students' opportunities to use English outside classrooms, two English teachers in SKH Tseung Kwan O Kei Tak Primary School, Ms Lui and Ms Pang, infused blogging into the curriculum of two P.4 classes in this action research project.

Teachers commenced their action research with each student opening their own blogging account. Students were then taught and encouraged to start writing and introducing themselves through this online diary. After that, students would be free to share with their teachers and classmates their daily life experiences and thoughts on this online platform. The students were taught and encouraged not only to use words and texts, but also emoticons, smileys, as well as graphics and pictures to enhance communication of meanings and feelings in their blogs. Students would also acquire the knowledge of inserting photos with descriptive captions of their own production onto their blogs.

Just like many other new literacies technologies, blogging is not only available for one way communication. After students had uploaded their own entries, the teachers interacted with students through reading and commenting on their diary entries. Students were also strongly encouraged to give responses to their classmates' blogs with comments and feedback. This would facilitate the exchange of ideas and knowledge. Through this online blogging platform, students not only practise writing and reading skills, but also develop a community of blog users for more genuine everyday communication in English. During the three-month action research period, students' writings gradually increased in length, and the number of students responding to peers' postings has also increased. Some students even received up to 8 responses from peers. A few students who were weaker in writing took the initiative to respond with single words, or simple expressions.

Fan Fiction Writing on Cartoons & Photostories of Tourist Sites

All P.4 classes of SKH St. Michael's Primary School are participating in the project. Aiming at enhancing students' skills in writing, teachers have carried out the action research according to the 'New Literacies Pedagogical Model' and introduced the experience of film review, fan fiction writing and photostory production to students.  

In the first round of action research, teachers aim at enhancing students' writing skills using fan fiction. To help prepare students with review-writing, students watched a cartoon clip of Tom & Jerry with the guidance of teachers. Then students watched 5 popular cartoon trailers - Shrek 2, Kung Fu Panda, Bolt 3D, Madagascar 1 and Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. With teachers' illustration of the main characters and the plots, students were familiarized with the English content with lively words and expressions. Students were taught how to write a more in-depth film review with elaborated comments.

The concept of fan fiction was introduced using another example of Tom & Jerry. Students experienced generating a fan fiction story together. All the students contributed their ideas together with their teachers to write a new story about Tom and Jerry, involving other characters from popular cartoons. After that, students created their own fan fiction story based on their favourite cartoon. At the end, students typed their fan fiction online and commented on the stories written by their classmates. The most outstanding writer of fan fiction story was selected by teachers and got an award.

In the second round, students researched their favorite place to visit in Hong Kong and worldwide and produced a photostory presenting their chosen tourist site. Many students chose to present Disneyland and Ocean Park in their photostories.  Through making a photostory in a group, students trained up their writing skills, oral skills and  collaborating skills. Teachers produced their own photostory of a tourist site as an example to elicit students’ learning motivation. They demonstrated different elements of a photostory step by step in the computer room. After observing teachers’ demonstration, groups were able to compose their own photostory in the lesson. Their final presentations were uploaded to the website and shared with their classmates.

Using Digital Presentations & Online Mind Mapping to Explore Stories

Two F.1 classes and one F.3 class from Lai Chack Middle School are taking part in the HK New Literacies project. By introducing new literacies practices in their classrooms, the teachers aim primarily at helping their students to see learning English as a fun engaging activity.

The specific objectives for F.3 students were to enhance critical thinking, to engage in creative rewriting, and to develop presentation skills. The students had to critique and reflect on a chosen movie or a book; they also had to use their imagination and rewrite the ending of the movie/book. After this they had to present their work in the form of a digital story. Fion, the class teacher, demonstrated the different elements of digital storytelling and modeled good presentation skills through her own critique and reinterpretation of the well-known and well-loved Forrest Gump. The students were then given an opportunity to work on drafts of their critiques in groups and got continuous feedback on their practice presentations from Fion and the other groups. In their final presentations, the students delighted the audience with a mix of movie clips, song excerpts, pictures, and verbal descriptions.  The story endings reinterpreted by the students were creative and fun!

All kids love the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and this was the story read by the students in the two F.1 classes. In one of these classes, students had to write about their favorite story character (and not surprisingly, many chose Charlie!). In the other class, after reading the story, students were taken by Isabel, their teacher, on an exciting exploration of the world of chocolate. These students had to do some research using online resources on their favorite type and brand of chocolate. Both classes were taught to use brainstorming techniques to organize the collected information. bubbl.us, a free web application (http://bubbl.us/) was introduced as a convenient way of organizing information into colorful, easily modified and shared mind maps. The project was going well, but unfortunately it could not be completed in one of the F.1 classes due to the swine flu outbreak. We are all looking forward to receiving more news on this project from the school at the beginning of the next semester.

Bringing New Literacies into Classrooms

Two classes in Ling Liang Church E Wun Secondary School are participating in the project. The English teachers infused new literacies elements in the lessons for their action research.

In F.1E, Mr Freddie Sum introduced Photo Story to his students as a tool to present their views on Tung Chung, the district where most of them live in. Instead of report-writing, students, in a group of four to five told their classmates the advantages and disadvantages of living in Tung Chung through the effective use of music/ songs, imagery and narration. To bring their presentations alive, students have done research about the district, taken photos and given their personal views in class. Through this activity, it was hoped that the students could be more critical about what they perceive and understand that the appropriate use of music/ songs and narration, photos and size of captions can help convey their messages effectively.

In F.3E, Ms Emmi Hui introduced the elements of a good plot when writing a short story. Through group exercises, students identified those elements: a clear storyline with interesting and unexpected events and an unpredictable ending. Students later composed the ending of a story about an outdoor survival training programme in New Zealand with toondoo.com, a free comic strip creation software. The student groups created diverse story endings and they each presented their versions in class. Students enjoyed looking at the endings created by their classmates.

Creating Comic Strips in 'Reading Circle'

Three F.1 classes in St. Bonaventure College and High School are participating in the project. Various 'new literacies' elements have been infused in the English curriculum.

In order to motivate students to read English books, comic strips writing with ToonDoo.com was introduced in 'Reading Circle'. 'Reading Circle' is a scheme which has been carried out in F.1 in the past school term. Students were asked to read several English storybooks assigned by their teachers. 

In the action research trial, teachers introduced the comic strip software in class. Teachers selected different scenarios of the story Mr Harris and the Night Train as the background of students' comic strips. Teachers demonstrated how the comic strips can be created using ToonDoo.com in the computer room. Students were interested in creating their own graphics and enjoyed the opportunities to make  comments about their classmates' comic strips online.

The focus of this action research is to raise students' interests in learning English by infusing 'new literacies' elements in the English lessons. Participating teachers are planning to implement another round of action research using Photostory. A blog has been set up for senior form students to discuss some controversial issues  http://anothernarrative.wordpress.com. A similar blog will also be set up with the F.1 classes and with more age-appropriate topics.

Helping Students with Dyslexia to Learn English with Multimedia

Three classes from TWGHs Mr and Mrs Kwong Sik Kwan College participated in the project, using the Photo Story software to create presentations around specific themes of the teaching units.

F.1A students created digital stories about the places they visited recently. Some of the students had just returned from their school trip to Xian and could use the pictures they took to describe their adventures. Ms Siu first showed her own story about the school’s English camp at Dongguan. Then, students were asked to brainstorm about their own most exciting outing using a mindmap. The teacher guided the students to write and edit captions for their chosen photos and the corresponding scripts. To help practise their pronunciation and fluency, students were asked to record their narration by using MP4 players. This was one of the most exciting moments for the students as they had never heard themselves speaking English. This was also very useful because they could record themselves several times before they were satisfied with their own performance. The class finished with an online poll - students voted for the best 3 stories in terms of content, technique and creativity. The students in the class developed a sense of ownership of their photostories.

"Green inventions" was the theme of the F.2A action research project. Mr Chan asked the students to create a photostory about the environment at the end of the teaching unit, using some language items they had learnt in the lessons. It was expected that the students could enhance their critical awareness of Hong Kong’s environmental and broader social issues and identify their roles and responsibility in environmental protection.

Ms Li, the teacher of F.3A, hoped that the project on "What's your personality?" would engage students in developing their self-identify and collaborating with classmates to create a photostory. Students were introduced vocabulary on western star signs, Chinese animal signs, and adjectives on personality through direct teaching and games. The latter were often infused with students' popular cultural interests (e.g., movies and favorite actors). The students had a chance to work on photostories on "Friendship" as a group and then produced a personalized story of their own, e.g. about themselves or their pets. Through this experience, they learnt to co-operate as a team and learn from each other.

The student population at this school contains a large proportion of students with dyslexia. It is because of this that in their action research the teachers focused on examining the potential of using new literacies-based pedagogies to help students with dyslexia to learn English better. The preliminary findings are encouraging and suggest that relying on multisensory information (as in photostories, for example) may help these students to overcome their anxiety of writing and speaking English and engage them in using the language for authentic purposes. 

Creating Comic Strips as an Alternative Reading Report

A F.3 class in YCH Wong Wha San Secondary School had infused comic strip production in their book reading scheme. Instead of reporting their reading in the traditional format of book report, students were engaged in creating comic strips to report on their reading. 

Students were divided into groups of 3 or 4 and each group was responsible for producing 6 to 9 comic strips to present an episode of the novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Ms Jensen, the English teacher, spent a lesson to demonstrate the basic functions of ToonDoo.com (students can create their comic strips on this website) and allowed the students to explore the website in the computer room in the next lesson. Students then worked together to identify the key scenes to be presented on the strips, select images to represent the characters, then rewrite the story content to become speech bubbles or narrations. Their refined and finalized versions of comic strips were presented during class.

Through this action research, Ms Jenson hoped that her students could have a deeper understanding of the story, develop the skills to convert the story content in print version into multimodal representations including the use of graphics, images, and speech bubbles. It is also believed that as an alternative form to the conventional pen and paper type of reading reports, comic strips creation would raise students' interests in reading and sharing feedback on books.

As the first teacher in the school to experiment with this action research idea, Ms Jensen has identified the following challenges for other teachers' references: 1) the division of labour among students in each group; 2) the difficulty for students to find a suitable place outside classroom with IT support to work on the project; 3) students' ability to understand the content of the story thoroughly; 4) their ability to summarize the story content succinctly and accurately; and 5) the amount of time students need to spend working as a group.