2021 Volume 71 Issue 6 Pages 48-79
The NHK Broadcasting Culture Institute has been regularly conducting nationwide surveys aimed at schools or individual teachers since 1950 to study the actual status of media environment in school classrooms across Japan as well as to understand the whole picture of the usage of NHK's educational services such as broadcasts, websites, and events. In 2020, however, we had to take into account the following special circumstances: (1) temporary school closures (from April to May 2020) as part of coronavirus preventive measures made it difficult to conduct time-series comparison, (2) there has been a growing interest in “online learning” provided by schools via the internet for students staying at home, and NHK launched new services in response to it, and (3) school media environment is changing as the implementation schedule of “GIGA School Concept” (“one-to-one device” and high-speed internet connection) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has been moved forward. Given these circumstances, we carried out a survey on schools to grasp the overall view of media usage in primary schools, junior high schools, and schools for special needs education (elementary and lower secondary departments) under coronavirus pandemic. It is found that the media environment at schools is generally advancing in terms of media devices and internet connection; in every school category mentioned above, more than 90% of schools are equipped with “internet,” “projector,” “radio/CD player,” and “digital camera/digital video camera” for regular-classroom-use. Nevertheless, schools where internet videos can be viewed without any problems stayed only at around 30% to 40% in all school categories. Meanwhile, more than 90% of schools in all categories use media materials such as “NHK for School,” digital textbook, and internet content for lessons. Leaning/teaching materials used by many schools are: “NHK for School” and “digital textbooks for teachers” (primary schools), “internet content” and “digital textbooks for teachers” (junior high schools), and “original materials made by teachers” (schools for special needs education). “NHK for School” is used by as many as 95% of primary schools (52% of junior high schools, 44% of schools for special needs education's elementary departments, and 43% of their lower secondary departments.) The use of “digital textbooks for learners” was much lower, 26% of elementary schools at the highest, but as they are to be introduced to more and more schools, further changes in the use of media materials deserve attention. A certain number of schools provided “online learning” during the temporary school closure (from April to May 2020), and 30 to 40% schools were doing so at the time of this survey (from October to December 2020), too, albeit with differences in percentages depending on the school category, and some schools intend to provide “online learning” down the road. Once problems such as disparity in media environment at home are solved, and “GIGA School Concept” is put into practice, “online learning” will to take hold as a support for home learning on a daily basis.
