ISSUES INVOLVED WITH IMPLEMENTING A STUDENT-CENTRED TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOL: The Case of a Multimedia Glossary

摘要

There is evidence that glossaries are perceived by students as highly desirable assets to improve learning. This paper describes the development of a glossary tool, the Multimedia Enhanced Glossary to Assist Understanding (MEGA-U), which can leverage the resources available on the internet, support communities of practice and support student-annotation of glossary terms. Customized glossaries should enhance student-centred online learning environments. However, there are significant barriers to successful deployment of the glossary system in pre-service teacher education Hong Kong. The paper describes the tool, and then examines the reasons why the tool is not being used as expected, highlighting some of the pedagogical, logistical and cultural factors that inhibit the use of the software.