The purpose of this study was to examine the possibilities for international understanding by using a video program BBC EDUCATION "JAPAN 2000". The authors focused on "viewpoints of Japan from the outside" in this program and investigated whether Japanese students of different age groups could comprehend such viewpoints and what images they remained after they watched them. In this paper, literature reviews on "Education for International Understanding" and "Understanding of Pictures" were introduced. Then subjects, materials, and procedures of the experiment were shown. As for the results of the experiment, no significant differences were found in both their answers and an image-mapping test. Thereby the possibilities for education of international understanding in using this kind of video program were shown.

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This study proposes a method of analytical viewpoints focusing on television program structure, to aim at promoting visual literacy of teachers involved with student teacher training at universities. When the key shot, the key word, and the title were combined, it was found students were able to draw effective relations and structure charts, to understand the subject of programs, the intentions of production, and the techniques of expression. Moreover research was conducted on how students thought about this experiment method after the experiment. As a result, students understood a basic framework of visual material by having experienced this analytical attention.

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An exploratory analysis was conducted to examine the current situation of information technology in Japanese universities and to reveal the most important aspects of facilitating the use of information technology. This study was conducted in 2001 through a questionnaire survey of all universities in Japan. As a result of a factor analysis, we found 4 factors and named as follows; 1) the utilization of the Internet in the classroom, 2) the support system for the use of information technology, 3) teacher training for the use of information technology and 4) the preparation of computers for the staff and students. And then, the Japanese universities were classified in three types based on a cluster analysis of each factor scores: (1) Active use type, which provides a sufficient amount of computers and uses the Internet in the classroom actively, (2) Training Type, which provides many teacher training courses, (3) Inactive Type, which does not use the Internet in the classroom and does not provide many teacher training courses. It was found that these types have some relation to the type of establishment of the universities such as national, private and public, and is also related to the positive attitude of the non-academic administrative officials of their universities.

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A television (TV) broadcast receiving system through communication satellites for educational objectives has been developed. The system has solar modules to generate electric power and the electricity obtained will then be supplied to the receiving system of the TV programs. The TV programs were recorded on videotapes in Japan in March 2000 before the receiving experiment. The programs were sent from Japan through the satellite PanAmSat Pas 4 and they were received at the experimental site located in a remote place, Ban Nong Pha Jam Mai in Mae Hong Son Province, a hill-tribe village on the Thai side of the border area between Thailand and Myanmar. The experiments were carried out during two days on March 3 and 4, 2001 at 18:00 till 20:00 (Thai local time). The Thai TV programs were also received at the same site via the satellite Thaicom. The quality of the TV programs we have received at the experimental site has been very good in terms of picture, voice, and text characters. We have observed the expressions of the persons, both adults and children, who had watched the TV programs at the site during the experiment. After the receiving experiments we performed a hearing survey of the impression those who watched the TV programs formed of them. From the results of observation and hearings we have concluded that most of the persons who watched the TV programs formed good impressions of them. This TV receiving system is one of new approaches to getting the TV programs at the place where there is no commercial electricity supply, and this system will be expected as one of the procedures to solve the difficulties of the educational problems at remote regions in developing countries. The present system is not expensive, easy to install, and easy to maintain.

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Learning the meaning of communication and efficient ways to present oneself in English are increasingly more important for technical high school students who are interested in computers and networks and are planning to pursue technical and scientific careers in an international world. Because of their aptitude toward technology, introducing multimedia into English classes helps to uplift students' motivation of learning English, and to enhance their understanding of the meaning of communication. While acquiring the skill and knowledge of their own specialties, they need to learn basic presentation skills in English as an element of their basic English ability. Based on experiences using multimedia within classes over a four year period a number of clues were acquired to improve English teaching methods.

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