JAPANESE EDUCATION IN THE INFORMATION AGE SOCIETY

1. JAPANESE EDUCATION IN THE INFORMATION AGE SOCIETY Fumie Kumagai, Ph.D. KYORIN UNIVERSITY, TOKYO, JAPAN E-mail: fkumagai@sfc.ne.jp URL: http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~n96287fk/

2. Outline of the Presentation • Introduction • Community Network • Digital Kids and Participatory Education • Media literacy Education in Primary and • Secondary Education • Growing Up Digital and Youth Education • Online Higher Education • Media Literacy Education for the Elderly • Conclusion

3. Introduction • The Information Age Society • The Internet • Essential Part of the Infrastructure • New Communication Medium • The ADC Principle • Autonomy • Distribution • Collaboration

4. The ADC Principle in Education • IT & Media Networking →Emergence of a New Network Society • Highly Unexpected, Discontinuous, and Sudden Changes • Needs for the Changes in the Management System: • from the Authoritarian Power of the Top-Down Organization • to the Autonomous, Distributive, and Collaborative System of Bottom-up Organizations • Application of the ADC Principle for the Study of Japanese Education in the IA Society

5. What Is Community Network? • The Information Technology • Narrows Gaps in Information Services due to Regional Variations • Revitalization of Local Administrations • Distributing Information beyond the Boundaries of the Local Community

6. Services of Community Network To Meet the Needs of IA Citizens • The Content • Must be proposed clearly • Need to be understood fully • The Telecommunication Infrastructure (Universal Service) • Information Infrastructure (cabling, equipment, etc.) • Information Services (Email, Web, etc.)

7. Figure 1 The Four Components of a Community Network People Information Network Infrastructure Services INFRASTRUCTURE

8. Digital Kids and Participatory Education • Education Fostering Humanity • Education Encouraging Creativity and Independence • Education Meeting the Demand of the Information Age Society • Education Establishing the Sense of Community Sharing

9. Digital Kids and Participatory Education • Too much emphasis on the entrance exams for colleges and universities • Information & Memorization›The Intellectual Growth of Children • Lack of Communication Skills • The Learning Process=A Series of Trial and Error Explorations • Learn from the Failing Experiences • Resulting in fully formed human being with autonomy and creativity.

10. Figure 2The Process of Education Encouraging Creativity and Independence Diversity in Orientations CREATIVITY Imagination Positive Attitudes toward Theory Construction Theory Construction Skill TASK Logical Reasoning INDEPENDENCE

11. Figure 3 The Process of Education Meeting the Demand of the Information Age Society IT Education in the Information Age Society Skills for International Individual ●English Skills ●Communication Autono-mous Self INTER-NATIONAL INDIVIDUAL ●Cross-Cultural Understanding ● Personnel Management ● Team Work ● Multi Media Skills ● Leadership ● Information Selectivity Skill ● Stress Management ● Human Management Skill Overcoming Pressures

12. Figure 4 The Process of Education Establishing the Sense of Community Sharing Pupils Teacher School Par- ticipatory Team Teaching Par-ticipatory Learning Participatory School Com- munity SUPPORTIVE FAMILIES Community Sharing Parents ↓ Elderly Home Community Sharing ↑

13. Children’s Attitudes for Autonomous Study • By the active use of Internet Search Engines • Web Sites both in Japanese and English • Expand communication network into the Worldwide Cyberspace Community • Open Mindedness • A Willingness to Study on Their Own

14. Youth and Media Literacy Education in Japan • Published by Japanese Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (June 2000) which highlights 3 kinds of abilities: • The ability to read and understand media. • The ability to access media and utilize them effectively. • The ability to communicate creatively.

15. Media Literacy Education in Primary and Secondary Education • Assist to develop creativity and imagination in children. • Children take the initiative on the technical aspects of learning. • The teaching staff facilitate the learning activities with the children.

16. Growing Up Digital and Youth Education • Youth Socialization at Home= Intergenerational Communication between Parents and Youth. • Don Tapscott (1997): Growing Up Digital (‘net generation and adults) • The N-Gen (Net-Generation of under 16) • The Grown Up includes all the others.

17. Online Higher Education Online Degree Programs in Higher Education • Enrollment of the Japanese People in Online Education • Online Education and Burden to the Instructors • Higher Education as Distance Education • Online Textbooks

18. Online Degree Programs in Higher Education • Correspondence Course College Education • In the 1980a=The introduction of the VCR • In the 1990s=The Internet and online education programs. (=the Internet equivalent of the correspondence course.

19. Distance Education

20. Enrollment of the Japanese People in Online Education • Conversational skills are secondary. • The primary English ability is to express one’s ideas. • Therefore, Japanese who lack good conversational English skills are not at such a disadvantage.

21. Online Education and Burden to the Instructors • It absorbs too many hours in preparing lecture notes, and to place them on the Internet. • Time consuming to respond to students’ queries by email. • Students show strong interests in the online education. • However, being a good teacher will not contribute much toward one’s tenure and promotion.

22. Higher Education as Distance Education • Some programs enable the students to pursue and complete a degree program entirely through the Internet. (e.g., Athabasca University) • Students:raw materials → customers • Higher Educational Institutions: the Secondary Industry of Manufacturing →the Tertiary Industry of Services

23. Online Textbooks • Some publishing houses in the U.S. are eager to adopt IT in their college textbooks. • Example: Dushkin McGraw-Hill (http://www.dushkin.com/) • The Social Sciences • Sociology and various topical areas • Education in the 21st century is truly global in the sense of SPACE and TIME.

24. Media Literacy Education for the Elderly • Digital Divide in Japan • Not between the middle class and the poor. • But among the disabled and the elderly. • A great majority of Japanese elderly are healthy and active. (Active Seniors) • They possess strong desire to learn the IT of the 21st century.

25. Elderly Friendly Media Environments • Voice Recognition Software (Via Voice by JIBM, Smart Boy by NEC vs. keyboard) • Zoom Text (by NEC enlarges the screen text) • Me-no-Tasuke (Visionary Assistant, enlarges letters on Web sites) • The PC Pico (by Richo, allowing to input letters by pencil rather than by keyboard.)

26. Senior Network Groups Friends Saloon: http://www5a.biglobe.ne.jp/~tsalon/toppage2.htm Links for Aging Society: http://www.kahoku.co.jp/senior/links.htm Mellow Society Forum: http://www.mictokyo.co.jp/mellow/index.html Senior Live: http://asahi-net.or.jp/~by7m-kkmm/ Senior Network: http://www.lec.handy.n-fukushi.ac.jp/senior/index2.html SeniorNet Link: http://www.seaple.icc.ne.jp/~fukai/no.8link-link.html SeniorNet Sendai: http://www.kahoku.co.jp/senior/index.html SeniorNet: http://www.seniornet.org/

27. Tips for the Success of Senior Net (by SeniorNet: http://www.seniornet.org) • Teachers are older adults themselves. • Not to give tests or pressure about the rate of learning. • Classes to be small with no more than 20, usually under 10 students. • For every 3 students, 1 coach to assist students while the teacher instructs. • Instruction should focus on issues of concern to older adults such as keyboarding skills, using a mouse, and increasing type size.

28. Conclusion-1 • Japanese Education in the 21st century and the IT • Education on Demand • English as Lingua Franca (Samuel Huntington, 1997) • English Skills based on the sound knowledge of the Japanese language • Identity Formation

29. Conclusion-2 • 4 Steps for the Globalization of Japanese Society (Kumagai, 1996) • To know oneself. • To understand the partner. • To realize the ethnocentric orientation of ourselves. • To be cultural ambassador.

30. Conclusion-3 • Socialization of children in the Information Age Society. • Place school children in an easy access to the media facility in the community. • The Internet facilitate people to carry on communication globally. • Need for the educational reform so that Japan is accepted as a true partner in rapidly evolving global communities.

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34. 図９－３ 暮らしの共同体と開かれた学校確立へのプロセス 生 徒 暮 校 先 生 学 ら 加 参 型 し 助 手 族 チ ー ム 学 習 参 加 開 か れ た 学 校 地 の 家 域 ・ の 共 授 母 父 作 り テ ィ ン 業 ー グ チ 同 ↓ 高 家 齢 者 庭 体 ↑ 体 暮 ら し の 共 同