In order to support visitor-centered learning in museums, a mobile interpretation material should provide information suited for visitor's previous knowledge and his/her learning purpose. However, it is difficult to forecast them, thus this paper proposes the learning system linking pre-visit and museum learning materials. The visitor who had learned a viewing method by a pre-visit learning material could have necessary previous knowledge and a learning goal. They choose what they want to know among viewing methods, then the mobile interpretation material provide a tour and interpretations along the line of viewing method. As a result, novice visitors could develop their museum experiences with the mobile material but we need to consider the usability of the material to reduce inconvenience when the visitors use the material with looking museum exhibitions.

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The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate an e-mentors' workload reduction system. Although most former systems aimed to support e-mentors focused on the activities during the course, it attempts to pay attention to the pre-course period. And the system was developed in line with the categorization of learners in asynchronous distributed e-learning courses. It features some pre-course supporting functions for e-mentors such as learner categorization based on his/her characteristics of Self-Regulation, the indication of mentoring guidelines, the automatic generation of mentors' action plans and the message sending to selected category/categories of learners. It was tested in two university classes with two e-mentors in each. Post-course interviews, questionnaire and activity log showed two major results; e-mentors experienced their workload reduction by all developed functions and the learners didn't have significant problems regardless of the usage of the system.

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This paper reports the design and evaluation of an education framework for Embedded Systems Architects with an intensive retreat method and PBL. This framework has been designed for engineers who have limited work experience and practical abilities. From 2008 to 2010, we conducted the Embedded Systems Architects Developing (ESAD) Program with a total of 59 future Embedded Systems Architects. The beneficial effects of the program have been confirmed by observation and feedback from the program participants. 1) Intensive retreat method and diverse community promoted learning. 2) 2 stage PBL model was well-functioning. 3) This program encouraged the embedded systems architect mindset.

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In this paper, we developed a web-based course portfolio program. A course portfolio is a systematic documentation and analysis of course design, implementation and student learning. Our program spanning over one semester consisted of course portfolio templates, a workbook of the program and peer review process. Three university teachers conducted a trial of our program's effectiveness, and they confirmed that course portfolio was helpful in promoting teachers' reflection and had potentials for improving their course design.

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The purpose of this study is to illustrate processes of teacher's task performance in organizational development of schools. In recent years the study of organization development for schools started in Japan. In this area of study, however, it is not always clear "in what kind of processes" or "why" teachers take action during their tasks related to grades and classrooms. This is a practical research that tries to illuminate the relationship between teachers creating and performing their tasks. I found the following points: (1) if teachers get Clear Image of Practices for School Goals (CIPSG) they undertake action for their tasks; (2) if their CIPSG are Modified (M-CIPSG) their practices are modified; and (3) the continuation and modifications of their practices are influenced by their appreciation of the school goals.

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The present study investigated how international students perceive the three communication media of cell phone calls, cell phone text messages and e-mail via PC, and what kind of factor (s) influence on their perception. A questionnaire was conducted on 518 international students enrolled at Saitama University. As a result, it was clarified that (i) they perceived differently among the three communication media in terms of information transmission, friendship promotion and interpersonal tension; (ii) their perception differed in information transmission due to their economic situations, while different perception in friendship promotion were resulted from their genders and economic situations; (iii) in terms of the information transmission, friendship promotion and interpersonal tension, in addition of their ages, their history of using Japan's cell phones, frequency of using cell phone calls and cell phone text messages, and skill in typing cell phone text messages influenced on their perception. The present results suggest the necessity of considering users' personal factors when examining any perception of communication media.

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