A learning management system, (LMS), is now being widely adopted to complement face-to-face lectures at universities. Although it is suggested that organizational support is important in promoting effective utilization of the LMS, such framework is not fully available at Japanese universities. The authors take Kansai University as an example, where the institution provides the support system for using a LMS, and examine effectiveness and problems by analyzing three cases of teaching practices. The authors found that although the LMS is effective in involving the students in learning, there are issues of requiring extra work for the instructors and of promoting active participation of the students. In addition, it is found that the support activities by the teaching assistants and advisory staff specialized for instructional design and the LMS support team in both helping the instructors and maintaining the LMS itself strongly affect the successful utilization of the LMS. It is important that the knowledge and experience obtained from these activities are to be utilized in faculty development efforts at the university-wide level.

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This paper will attempt to find the important factors in the effective utilization of Social Network Services (SNS). At first we analyze the academic utilization influenced by the characteristics of SNS. Secondly, we illustrate various practices and our engagement for the educational improvement at Kyoto university of Foreign Studies. Finally we discuss how to utilize the service more effectively. When we use SNS in higher education, we can support and improve education at university by using the diary and community's functions. Moreover we can share information about problems specific to universities and carry out discussions. At Kyoto university of Foreign Studies, we utilize SNS as a tool to support classes, the tool of communication among students in Japan and in France, the tool of mutual exchange information about the education with relation to Faculty Development, and Course evaluation. In order to make good use of SNS at universities, it is important to give personal information such as self-introduction and diary, and to share useful information with other participants for example experiences in studying abroad.

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Students who wish to become business people are expected to obtain a high degree of media literacy using ICT. Therein, as a part of faculty development (FD), in order to clarify a methods for students to obtain high-level expressive abilities using IT, we conducted model classes inviting outside teachers. Our four teachers observed the instruction and learning behavior of the outside teachers and ten students, recorded the classes on video, and conducted interviews of students following each class. Based on an analysis of the video recording, it was clear that positive knowledge-of-result (KR), thorough questioning, and promotion of debate were particularly frequent. From the interview analysis, it was clear that selection of materials, investigation of themes, and critical thought given to existing work were valued. From this information, we were able to improve syllabi for media systems classes, communication theory systems classes, and for other related curriculum.

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With a general aim to improve the teaching/learning in large-scale classes on educational media and teaching methods at teacher-training colleges or departments, we teachers, as researchers, implemented the use of Communication cards, in which our students wrote their comments on the contents of the teaching and the way it is conducted. We teachers responded to their feedback in the following classes, and this cycle was continued throughout the course. This study is a report on bthe content of this activity. It is shown that, judging from the analysis of the comments made by the students and of the questionnaire distributed to them, this activity (1) made them aware that there is continuity in their learning and contributed to the improvement of the classes since we teachers were able to know what the students understood and what they did not on the teaching, (2) motivated the students for the next classes and created an atmosphere in which the teaching and learning take place as a result of cooperation between teachers and students, and (3) provided the students with opportunities to recognize the important roles of teachers and to reexamine their thoughts on the practice of teaching.

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This article is a review of research trends in the automating instructional design tools for supporting activities of instructional design, especially focusing on existing reviews of them. The original framework was developed from twelve items with reference to previous research and applied to five examples. The considerations for tools and examples are as follows: (1) support for the application of the instructional design theories, (2) support for learning instructional design theories, (3) standardization and reuse, (4) future prospects.

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The effects of different presentation styles on learners' understanding are examined in a study of 73 junior high school students who learned the mechanical system of a toilet tank, which was presented with static diagrams and text. They were divided into three groups. Group 1 was shown four sets of the explanation of the mechanism on one sheet (whole presentation style); Group 2 was presented the explanation with four separate sheets shown sequentially (continuous presentation style) ; Group 3 (control group) was given the whole explanation on one sheet Although no evidence was found that any one presentation style led to superior performance than others concerning the retention of simple facts such as the names of parts, Group 2 produced significantly more inferences than the other two in inference tests. The results indicate that the continuous presentation style could be most effective when the instructional goal is to help learners understand how mechanical system works. Particularly this could be true to low working memory learners.

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Blended learning is increasingly permeating and transforming conventional university education worldwide. Knowledge and skills to design and implement online activities in an effective and efficient way have become one of the essential competencies of university faculty today. As an attempt to contribute to a better design and implementation of e-moderating strategies for online discussion in a blended learning context, this study examines the effectiveness and efficiency of Salomon's five-stage model in creating and implementing e-tivities and e-moderating strategies for online discussion in a conventional college course, and revises this model adaptable to blended learning systems based on the quantitative and qualitative data obtained from sixty students and two e-moderators. The study presents and discusses the revised model of e-moderation for blended learning in details, and concludes with future research topics.

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