The learning environment in the Information Age : investigation and training to the teachers

Abstract

Recently, the Internet and multimedia have come into wide use causing the learning environment to change. In order to cope with the present situation, we had promoted Information Education with ICT by conducting investigations of teachers and teacher training. Initially, during the investigations, it became clear that the teachers lacked equipment and skills of ICT. For the improvement of those conditions we arranged teacher training with ICT without any restrictions of space-time. Subsequent to this, as there was ample room for further improvement in the teacher training system, a new teacher training system was tested, which provided excellent results. In the new teacher training system, cooperation between teachers appeared. However, Information Education with ICT had not been conducted actively in common schools, in spite of a tremendous amount of teacher training. We then considered "the place" of learning for an information-oriented society with the following three indexes; "the size of the learning group," "the learning form" and "the relationship." Furthermore, an attitude survey of the teachers concerned with these three indexes, made it clear that the traditional teacher's view of teaching obstructed the realization of a learning environment for an information-oriented society.