Scholars at The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) garnered 16 education technology awards at the International Invention Innovation Competition in Canada (iCAN) in August 2020, including three Gold Medals, three Silver Medals, four Honour Prizes and six Special Prizes.
Congratulating the winners, Professor Lui Tai-lok, Vice President (Research and Development), said: “The six award-winning innovations cover well-being technology, educational games and environmental science. This integration of technology into different fields of education demonstrates a new stage of computerised training and learning. We look forward to seeing the University’s innovations being used widely locally and internationally.”
The University’s inventions aim to support learning and teaching, and enhance learning effectiveness. They are:
1. Environmental Pollution Control through Practices: From “Waste” to “Treatment”
- Principal investigator: Dr Chris Tsang Yiu-fai, Associate Professor, Department of Science and Environmental Studies
- Awards: Top 20 Best Invention Awards, Gold Medal and Special Prize
- A prototype which enables students to understand and replicate biofiltration: a pollution control technique, which uses living materials to capture and biologically degrade pollutants to treat wastewater and remove odours.
2. The MAndarin Spoken Word-Picture IDentification Test in Noise – Adaptive (MAPID-A)
- Principal investigator: Dr Kevin Yuen Chi-pun, Associate Professor, Department of Special Education and Counselling
- Awards: Top 20 Best Invention Awards, Gold Medal and Special Prize
- A computerised automated testing system which quantifies young children’s speech-recognition ability in Mandarin in noisy environments, helping understand and resolve children’s listening-learning difficulties.
3. Remote-controlled Digital Hydrometer
- Principal investigators: Professor Yeung Yau-yuen, Adjunct Professor, and Miss Leyla Liu Yan, Master of Education Student, Department of Science and Environmental Studies
- Awards: Gold Medal and Special Prize
- A digital hydrometer allows highly precise density measurement of multi-layer liquids. This low-cost device, which is internet of things ready, is suitable for remote measurement in school laboratories and the food industry.
4. Automatic Children Hearing and Listening in Noise Ability Screening System
- Principal investigator: Dr Anna Kam Chi-shan, Associate Professor, Department of Special Education and Counselling
- Awards: Best Woman Inventor Award, Silver Medal and Special Prize
- An automatic screening system which enables hearing and listening in noise-ability tests to become routine in child healthcare examination. Test results can reveal hearing problems resulting from infection or effusion, as well as indicating auditory processing problems, which may be a contributing factor to dyslexia.
5. Computerised Working Memory Training for Students with ADHD and RD
- Principal investigator: Dr Kean Poon Kei-yan, Assistant Professor, Department of Special Education and Counselling
- Awards: Best Woman Inventor Award, Silver Medal and Special Prize
- A mobile app which facilitates students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and/or reading disabilities to make improvement in literacy, as well as phonological and visual-spatial working memory through a five-week training.
6. m-Orchestrate: A Mobile App for Teacher Orchestration in Collaborative Science Inquiry
- Principal investigators: Dr Song Yanjie, Associate Professor, and Mr Cao Jiaxin, Doctor of Philosophy Student, Department of Mathematics and Information Technology
- Awards: Silver Medal and Special Prize
- An app to support teachers in conducting science field studies. Students can learn through a collaborative science inquiry process by using the app’s platform to chart and reflect on results of research and experiments.
