E-Learning has been widely used in higher education and a lot of e-Learning studies have been brought out. Those study results in Japan, however, were neither noticed nor utilized sufficiently among practitioners and even among scientists. In this study, we collected and comprehensively analyzed the findings in those e-Learning studies in higher education during the past 12 years. 136 studies were located from source of six journals. Just twenty-four studies of them were included in the meta-analysis. The overall mean of the effect size was 0.420, which suggests that e-Learning is more effective than traditional face-to-face learning. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis was performed to identify factors that influence effect size. As the result of analysis; it should be noted that higher motivation and low level of media involvement are effective on effect size for e-Learning. Moreover, the result of analysis indicated that experimental design is effective factor on effect size. It means that pre-post test design is more effective than control-experimental group design.

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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: speed reading group (N=24), and dictation group (N=18). In addition to their usual classes, the speed reading class received 10 minutes of speed reading training once a week, and the dictation class 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 classes 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 class. However, in the dictation class, the difference in the scores of pre and post-test was not statistically significant. These results showed that speed reading training has a positive influence on listening comprehension skills in a foreign language learning setting.

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I have developed the "Supporting System Using Evaluation of a Class Video to Enhance Skills of Students on Teacher Training." This system runs on MOODLE as a part of e-learning system, and allows the students' comments recorded and indexed on the time-elapsed scale of the video of teacher training. I have compared and analyzed the results of the students' evaluation of the same class video which they saw twice-before and after their teacher training. The results are as follows: (a) number of comments increase, (b) some specific scenes receive more comments than others, (c) the system is user-friendly, and (d) caption is proved effective for the evaluation of the class video.

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Tracing is very useful technique in program debugging for not only experts but also beginners. It is preferable to study tracing at an initial stage for a beginner to advance the learning of programming effectively. We have developed the support system named DESUS, which guides beginners of programming to use tracing while debugging. In this paper, we describe the evaluation of DESUS, based on data obtained when using it in actual classes. In the experiment, 92% of learners received the guidance of tracing from DESUS, and 52% of learners actually executed the tracing. Thirty six percent of these learners acquired the tracing technique. The learners who were able to acquire skills by using DESUS accounted for 34%. These percentages have increased compared to the percentages in the 2003 programming class, in which DESUS was not used. On the other hand, 40% of the learners in the experiment were unsuccessful in attempting tracing, although DESUS supported them. Seventy percent of the unsuccessful students attempted to use DESUS while their programs had the compile errors.

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This study is intended to develop a methodology for improving quality of teaching, using information technology. We proposed a teacher reflection method by presenting differences between the original lesson plan and actual instructions. Experimental reflective activities confirmed that the presentation of differences is useful as a trigger for recalling the class events. Moreover, when the teacher used our method, the main targets of reflection were his process of decision-making and modifications of the original plan, while he mainly reflected on his action or behavior itself with video-reviewing.

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The main aim of this research is to examine the effectiveness of Blended Instruction in class on the skills of oral reading and speaking in English. Through the blended instruction, the instructional approach based on the notion of the 'Blended Learning', with utilizing a WBT English courseware in English classes at a high school, we have studied what kind of effects the approach has on the students' oral reading skill and speaking skill. The blended learning lessons consisted mainly of the individual learning parts in which students practice acting the model dialogues in WBT courseware incorporating a high quantity of video and sound clips for self-practice, 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 skill of the students' oral reading 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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In this case study, I applied the self-reflective method for the analysis of curriculum development of a university-level pre-service course. The course analyzed in this study was entitled 'Theory and Practice in Classroom Research 1 & 2', which was designed for pre-service students to learn the methodology of classroom research. Throughout the academic year, students were expected to analyze elementary classroom cases of their own interests, and deepen their understandings of classroom practices. I, as a curriculum developer and an instructor, designed and redesigned the course based on the analysis from four different data sets: 1) instructor's journals and self-reflection reports, 2) student reports and results from surveys and interviews with students, 3) results from surveys and interviews with the elementary school teacher who collaborated with the course, and 4) course evaluator's report. Based on the analysis, I suggest the following four essential aspects on the development of pre-service curriculum for classroom research: 1) positive effects of curriculum on students' learning, 2) necessity of reduction of students' work load, 3) the important role of collaborative school teachers, and 4) the importance of instructors' reflection of their educational philosophy to the curriculum.

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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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In this study, we developed a system which can provide a learner with positive feedbacks for his/her inference of the triangular combination proof problems in junior high school mathematics. Errors in geometry proofs in this study were categorized into three types as follows: A1) the case in which preconditions are false, A2) where preconditions are true but unknown and B) where inference rules are false. A positive feedback is a figure which reflects learner error and is created by relaxation of some of the original constraints. The system can provide positive feedbacks for type A1) and B) errors by applying inference rules and figure transformation rules, which are implemented in the system, to his/her wrong inference. As a result of preliminary evaluation, positive feedbacks provided by the system proved to have valid representation and to be effective in spontaneous awareness and correction of errors by a learner.

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An increase of minors' use of the mobile phone has recently involved more and more of them in crimes induced by their uncontrolled use of the phone. The use itself is problematic because minors only have a limited range of legal responsibility for the crimes they will commit by the misusage for the lack of their parents' sufficient control. The aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between the age of minors and the legal responsibility that they can cover and to propose the appropriate age in which and thereafter minors' mobile phone use is tolerable. We first identify to what degree the law and court suppose the minor to have legal responsibility for the relevant crimes. Second, we survey the article database of two major Japanese newspapers, collecting 1,130 cases of such crimes from the four-year data (2002-2005). We further put the 1,314 minor criminals on a distribution chart that represent their age and number, thereby showing how much of the relevant legal responsibility they actually covered.

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