In order to demonstrate the advancement in academic achievements due to the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in classes, we asked teachers from all over Japan to report on the results of classes in which ICT was used and classes in which it was not used, and subjected those results to comprehensive analytical evaluation. We first based our analysis on the viewpoint of assessments that were determined by the teachers who held those classes, and showed that teachers who held classes in which ICT was used felt that the academic achievements of students had advanced because of the use of ICT. We then asked the teachers to give their students a questionnaire relating to their opinions after the classes. Factor analysis was conducted to extract factors from the responses and differences was investigated between whether or not ICT was used for each factor, a significantly large effect was obtained when ICT was used in classes, from the viewpoints of all of the factors. Finally, we performed comprehensive analytical evaluation of the results of identical objective achievement tests given to all of the students after the classes, and showed that the grades obtained in the tests by students of classes in which ICT was used were significantly higher than those of students of classes in which ICT was not used.

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ICT use in the class processes of whole-class teaching was investigated. The investigation subjects were teachers who use ICT in their teaching on a routine basis. The results showed that: 1) ICT was used 3.3 times on average in 45-minute classes. The average required time for ICT use was 19.0 minutes. ICT was used for 83% of the first 5 minutes of the class, and for about 50% of the subsequent time. 2) The purposes of ICT use were the presentation of the study task in the introductory stage of the lessons, explanatory material during the development of the lessons, and repetition of the study matter at the last stage. 3) ICT equipment that the teachers commonly used were projectors, document cameras and computers. 4) No clear coincidence was observed between ICT equipment and the purposes of using ICT.

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In this research, a system was developed to enable underlining by learners to promote reading comprehension of e-learning instructional materials, and an attempt was made to further promote such underlining activity by evaluating and providing feedback on the learner's underlining. E-learning instructional materials implementing this feature were created and used as auxiliary instructional materials in actual classes, and a group of learners using instructional materials with underlining capability only were compared against a group of learners using instructional materials which also provided the feedback feature. The following results were obtained for the latter group: (1) The usage rate of the instructional materials was higher, (2) Underlining activities thought to be desirable for reading comprehension were more frequently seen, and (3) The rate of correct answers on a test for confirming reading comprehension was higher. These results suggest that the feedback feature for underlining which was implemented in this research is effective for promoting reading comprehension.

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Investment in the construction of schools has been recognized as an important way of promoting the access to and enhancing the equity of education, as well as the fist step toward improving the quality of education in the developing countries. However, there are many schools which have failed to succeed in improvements in quality and are simply wasting their resources. This suggests that the increase in the quantity of schools should be accompanied with an improvement in quality. The Junior Secondary School Construction Project is the first and the largest investment by the Government of Japan in the area of basic education in Indonesia. Through this project, 596 junior secondary schools were constructed in as many as 12 provinces in three years. This article is intended to evaluate the accomplishment and the challenge of this large-scale project by examining in its degree of actual contribution to the promotion of education in these areas, and the factors which influence the improvement of educational outcomes.

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In the field of education, copyrighted works are not considerably distributed via an electronic medium in a face-to-face class. In many cases, they are distributed via a paper medium. It is thought that the rule, which is shown as a part corresponding to the first clause of article 35 of the copyright law, makes it difficult to distribute the copyrighted work via an electronic medium. This guideline prescribes the condition for the reproduction of a copyrighted work in a school and other educational institutions. As a method to solve the problem, there is a system that considers copyright protection in the field of education at the time of distributing the copyrighted work via an electronic medium. However, in this system, there are some problems. First, it is pointed out that this system is not user friendly. Then, it is pointed out that the system is not easily manageable for a network administrator. To solve these problems, we applied a DACS portal to the system, and thus improved the system. The DACS portal is a system realized by a function for displaying static documents dynamically on a network introducing the DACS Scheme that manages the entire network by communication control on a client computer. As a result, it becomes possible to acquire the copyrighted work via an electric medium, and the system is more user friendly than the earlier one. In addition, this system is easy for the network administrator to manage. For example, changing the network configuration becomes unnecessary.

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The authors have developed a literacy learning system that presents hiragana characters on a stereoscopic 3D display. Strokes of hiragana character were arranged in depth direction on this learning system. The authors used a Multi-Layered Display (MLD) for representation of depth direction. The MLD does not cause any discrepancy between accommodation and convergence of human visual function. The system was evaluated by children with developmental dyslexia. Three hiragana characters written before and after using this system were compared. The results suggest that stereoscopic vision can help those with developmental dyslexia understand how to write hiragana characters.

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An attitude survey of parents of elementary school students was conducted to derive four factors promoting better infromation moral education in the schools: Guidance at home, Improved infromation moral of parents, Involvement of parents, and Contact with the school. Based on a model that maps the interrelation among these four factors, a cooperative Partnership Program between the school and the parents was developed and implemented. After the Partnership Program had been in place for a year, the parents were again surveyed to assess how their attitudes and awareness had been affected by the program. It was found that the parents' awareness of information moral issues and their desire to participate and cooperate with the school were significantly improved by the Partnership Program.

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This study investigated the effect of speed reading training on the listening comprehension skills of Japanese English learners. The participants involved were 42 university students placed under two class conditions: a speed reading group (N=24), and a dictation group (N=18). In addition to their usual classes, the speed reading group received 10 minutes of speed reading training once a week, and the dictation group received 10 minutes of dictation training once a week. The training sessions lasted for eight weeks. Pre- and post-listening tests were conducted for both groups before and after the training. The results of the t-test showed that the difference between pre- and post-test scores was statistically significant in the speed reading group. However, in the dictation group, the difference in the scores of pre- and post-test was not statistically significant. These results showed that speed reading training has a positive effect on listening comprehension in a foreign language learning setting.

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In English language education in junior and senior high school, we verified the effects of Blended Instruction utilizing WBT courseware on the students' oral reading skill and speaking skill. Blended Instruction in this study means the combination of three learning parts "inside" the classroom: the individual learning parts in which students practice acting the model dialogues in WBT courseware at their own pace, collaborative learning part in which the students perform the dialogues in pairs and assess their performance each other, and a teacher's scaffoldings part. The result of the research shows that the students' oral reading skill was improved in most criteria of assessment. The content and accuracy of their speech were also improved. And the students' listening ability had a tendency of being improved. The students' comprehension of English class was improved.

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Herein, we present a drill-type web-based training (WBT) system, e^2-ELM, which comprises several "smart tools" (ST). The e^2-ELM system can be used to insert answers into test sentences and allows learners to narrow down answer options. This system has been used experimentally in the authors' classes since the latter half of the second semester of 2005. In the present study, both subjective evaluations by students in the authors' classes (who had previously used a WBT system on the market) and quantitative experimental evaluations by student volunteers were collected. After determining their baseline ability, the students learned about Internet technologies using drill-type study materials. Finally, the students' achievements were measured using a post-test. The results indicated that ST functions are effective not only for reducing unnecessary and unproductive actions when answering, but also for enhancing students' motivation to learn using ST. Furthermore, statistical analysis of learning achievements showed that WBT with ST is more effective than WBT without ST or traditional paper-based training.

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Teacher Reflection on conducted lessons is an effective approach to improve the quality of planning and teaching. However, in practicality it is difficult to apply because it is a burden to carry out. This study is intended to develop a methodology to improve teaching quality effectively and efficiently by using information technology. As part of this study, we propose a Teacher Reflection method which teachers can carry out together with their everyday work. In our method, we focus on the differences between the original lesson plan and the actual instructions, which are based on the Double Loop instructional design process model. We then present these differences as the potential points to be reflected upon with the entire lesson process for teachers. By using our proposed method, teachers are expected to be able to reflect on the modified points in the lessons or inadequate points of the original lesson plan at a glance. Experimental reflective activities with our method confirmed that the presentation of differences is useful to recall the events in the conducted lessons and their causes. Compared to the conventional method, we also confirmed that the teacher could conduct the reflection while paying more attention to the contents and the process of teaching with our proposed method.

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