Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an innovative way of teaching and learning, which is based on the ideology of Open education. Open signifies that “anyone can learn anything from anyone at any time” as Bonk claims. By using MOOCs, learners have access to quality education from elite universities without paying fees. MOOCs have opened a new door for global learners. Unfortunately, learners who do not have a good command of English are often left out since most MOOCs are in English. There are some courses which provide subtitles, but Japanese subtitles are not very common. Thus, Japanese learners suffer from a language barrier. To bridge the gap between the potential of MOOCs and the language barrier for Japanese, this study aims to explore the perceptions of MOOCs with Japanese and English subtitles for Japanese and international learners, and the effects of the subtitles on the performance of a test. As a result, firstly, the study found that subtitles are a very effective way to support MOOC learners using either Japanese or English subtitles. Secondly, learners who used English subtitles statistically performed better than those using Japanese subtitles. Thirdly, learners using English subtitles had statistically higher satisfaction than those using Japanese subtitles. Nevertheless, subtitles do support learning both for Japanese and international participants in the MOOC learning environment.

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In recent years, teachers have been requested to contribute to improve the quality of learning by the use of ICT for learners. Then, this study pay attention to 「Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge」 that has been pointed out as important in order to enhance the teacher professional competency. The reason is why it related to the quality assurance efforts that hone the expertise of teachers involved in the design of learning activities. This study reviews elements of the expertise of teachers, the structure of preservice and in-service teacher education program, and a study with respect to the method of program evaluation that lead to the quality assurance, in reference to the research results and specific initiatives case of TPACK. As a result, it became clear that the following three points are the dim parts in currently preservice and in-service teacher education program regarding to ICT in Japan. 1) to clarify the framework to position the technical knowledge as a professional knowledge of the teacher to the teacher education program, 2) to clarify the developmental-stage image of the use of ICT in the classroom and at school, and 3) to clarify the method of assessment such as 「evaluation of efforts」 and 「evaluation of the results」.

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In this research, an educational program which acquires media literacy through an activity of reading, interpreting, and appreciating manga targeting 5th grade students in an elementary school is developed. After students learned the explanatory text about a manga artist in Japanese class, they read the artworks of that artist thoroughly and did activities such as writing manga reports or making wraparound bands and point of purchase advertising. In the comparison of the average score of capacity rating scale between before and after this research, all the items improved significantly. Also, the average score of the experimental group improved significantly compared to the control group. In addition, from the facts that the average score was over two points in the evaluation of the three in the evaluation criteria, and that the match coefficients of Kendall were all over W=.7, it is suggested that the educational program in this research was effective.

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This study reports the development and evaluation of the usability of the multimedia courseware of English lessons for elementary school students. The courseware consists of seven chapters (Mime-time, Tokotoko Street, Short English stories, Chants-chants, Nihongo and English, Yasumatsu monkeys, and Unknown stories of Tokorozawa). Each chapter incorporated English phonology, familiar characters and animations, explanations of topics related to the local city the students live in. Further, the pace of the lessons was carefully considered during the production of the courseware. In addition, each chapter is free standing, so the teachers could use any chapter and part flexibly according to their teaching plan, as requested by the teachers before the development of the program. The overall evaluation of the usability of the courseware, which was given by 142 homeroom teachers who used the courseware in their classes for one year showed a positive tendency overall, with 3.92 out of 5 points on a Likert scale (1. Poor to 5. Excellent). Factor analysis also identified five factors used to describe the courseware. They are 1) overall appropriateness of the courseware, 2) familiarity with the teaching/learning activities, 3) familiarity with the students’ everyday life, 4) familiarity with expressions and content, and 5) clear information to be delivered. Replies to an open-ended-writing question in the questionnaire suggested that the courseware apparently motivated the students’ learning of English and improved their attitude toward English learning.

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