This study developed an educational unit to foster media literacy for the social media era and examined its educational effect. The learning objectives and activities of the unit were designed around components of media literacy in the era of social media. The unit was characterized by participants’ use of educational SNS to interact with classmates in the classroom context only, alongside the implementation of lessons that asked participants to think about the characteristics and ideality of SNS. It was thought that discussing phenomena arising from learners’ own SNS interactions would enable them to relate practically to the content. A validation exercise was carried out based on the education unit, and in order to evaluate the outcomes of the learning activities, the study conducted a questionnaire survey, analysis of SNS usage logs, and analysis of worksheets. The results confirmed improved ability against many of the learning objectives, proving the effectiveness of this educational unit.

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In this paper, the author aims to figure out in what kind of learning activity the students can acquire Media Literacy. 7 students made newspapers of voting rights for 18-year- old, working separately making 4 roles, which are the chief editor, the reporters, the searchers and the editorial. As a result of qualitatively analyzing students’ reflection sheets using SCAT, which is characterized by its explicit process of analysis and the integration of theoretical coding and qualitative data analysis, the author found that the students nurtured the skills of understanding media feature, critical thinking, and expression ideas by the media through analyzing newspapers, and the skills of critical thinking and communication by the media through making newspapers.

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Recently it is common among young people to obtain information via social media. Nevertheless, learning methods focused on the characteristics of communication pathways with regard to information disseminated through social media have not been established. While there exists abundant primary information on social media, in some cases, the primary information is mediated by multiple individuals and is often difficult for the recipient to understand. Based on the assumption that evaluating the credibility of information via social media requires a consideration of the 「communication pathways」 and evaluation of the credibility of mediators, we developed a learning program aimed at cultivating thinking to evaluate the credibility of information based on the 「communication pathways」 and verified its efficacy in a university class. The efficacy of the program was analyzed with regard to two areas of 「thinking」: 「thinking skills」 and 「thinking dispositions」. Our study confirmed a certain level of efficacy in both areas, but at the same time, some differences in its efficacy between the two areas were also identified, including time differences in the learning effect and differences in the training methods required for developing the two areas of thinking.

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The purpose of this study is to clarify how teachers organize a lesson to fostering thinking skills by thinking tools. The authors have conducted collaborative research on lessons for fostering thinking skills between Japan and China. The authors collected videos, field notes, interviews on Chinese lessons in which teachers participated in the collaborative research, and analyzed how Chinese teachers designed lesson in which students try to think deeply from the viewpoint of interactivity. The result showed four findings. (1) Chinese teacher made rules and decisions with children in the class; (2) Chinese teacher organized learning activities without deviating from goals by using teaching materials such as bulletin board and thinking tools; (3) Chinese teacher nurtured social and emotional domain of students as formative assessment based on thinking tools;(4) Chinese teacher shifted to teacher-centered strategies to complete lesson within limited time at the end of lesson. The authors found that Chinese teacher interacted with students to organize context of the lesson in order to help students think deeply. On the other hand, because of constraints of school regulations and curriculum, teacher-centered strategies were taken in order to complete within limited time. Both student-centered and teacher-centered strategies co-existed in the same lesson. In this study, it is worthwhile that the authors can present how class activities between teacher and students were organized socio-culturally.

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The purpose of this study was to clarify what helps teachers feel comfortable using tablet PCs in the classroom. Teachers in B City have been obligated to use tablet PCs since the governor set up an environment in which every student in all schools has a tablet PC. However, teachers were upset about using these tablets without proper training. Therefore, the authors conducted teacher training for 15 teachers in charge of information education in each school. After 1 year, teachers in B City started using the tablet PCs. The authors analyzed the data collected from the teachers’ reflections and interviews with some of the teachers to clarify what helped the teachers feel comfortable using tablet PCs in their classroom. The analysis found the following three factors associated with tablet PC use in the classroom: 1) teachers were placed in an environment where they could immediately use tablet PCs, and where it was possible to ask other teachers and co-workers questions when necessary; 2) they continued to utilize one tablet PC for each student in the classroom; and 3) difficulty in purchasing applications and unclear guidelines for information education hindered the use of tablet PCs in the classroom. Based on the above results, we have three suggestions for educational practice: 1) formulate guidelines for the informationalization of education; 2) establish a cooperative relationship between municipalities and schools; and 3) create a role giving one person responsibility for tablet PCs utilization.

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This study proposes a Trial Program for elementary school to acquire Information Literacy, which includes the idea of new course of study commenced in 2020. In a new course of study for elementary school, they emphasize to acquire information literacy and propose to develop it throughout all subjects. In fact, we can find the elements of information literacy in the aims and contents of all subjects in new course of study. That means, teachers require designing every lesson to develop both the skill and knowledge of each subjects and abilities and qualities of cross-sectional such as information literacy. As the results of this study, we propose three points as follows for developing information literacy effectively. First, we reorganize the elements of information literacy which include in each subject systematically from the perspective of “curriculum-management” in whole educational program in each school. Second, we establish the learning objective which achieve both a skill and knowledge acquired in its own unit and information literacy, the ability and qualities of cross-sectional. Third, we make a detailed plan including the process of Active Learning to achieve objective mentioned above, including concrete activities.

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In this information technology era, the teachers who are in special needs education school are offered to utilize Assistive Technologies and ICT. The presence of others affects to the teacher's action regarding new technology use. Thus, the authors aim to reveal how the outside personnel such as researchers and school volunteers encourage the teachers when they install technologies into their educational practices. The authors collected interview data from a teacher who utilized OriHime, a tele-presence robot in her lessons with outside personnel. As a result, we found a boundary that a teacher can individually act, and it can be expanded by cooperation with outside personnel and other teachers who are belonging to the school. Outside personnel such as researcher and school volunteer can help the teacher through active participation to the educational practice.

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