Information education in higher education began half a century ago in Japan to train information professionals. Currently, it is necessary to provide information education to everyone to consider the future with the rapid changes of information society. In this paper, the history of information from prehistoric times to the present is reviewed, and the basics of information education to develop human resources foreseeing the future information society is considered, focusing on categorization of information heritage museums in the world and their utilization as suitable for learning contents and school types. In particular, the utilization of information heritage museums in school education is considered after information transmission of numbers drawn on murals and of letters and numbers, visual calculations accompanying the movement of objects, calculation tools such as abacuses, simplification of calculations using complements, mechanical calculators, electrical and electronic computers such as mainframes, various servers, personal computers, and notebook computers, and information use in an intelligent information society are categorized.

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The idea of “techne” in ancient Greece philosophy has been passed down to the current idea of technology, although its content has changed over time. It is being developed for present technology and information education in elementary, junior high, and high schools in school education. However, there is no consistency in developing manufacturing education in elementary schools, technology field of Technology and Home Economics education in junior high schools, and information education and vocational education in high schools, where there is no unified educational goal for all school types. It is necessary to establish the comprehensive concept of technology and information education as general education. The Japan Society of Technology Education proposes a ''new technology education framework that creates next-generation learning,'' and presents a new way of thinking that encompasses the whole with the concept of ''system,'' which was not present in current junior high school technology education. To consider the proposed specific content, this research considers technology and information education systematically by incorporating the idea of cognitive science and design science, bridging subjects, and problem solving.

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This study aimed to design lessons to increase students' engagement in the junior high school technology classes, of “D Information Technology” (2), “Solving problems by programming interactive contents using networks,” and to evaluate them using the “Junior High School Technology Education Version.” The study evaluated the results using the “Engagement Scale.” The results suggest that the following three measures may have increased student engagement in the 11 credit hours of practice: “setting learning themes that are familiar to students,” “setting practical and experiential learning activities,” and “setting collaborative learning styles in pairs or groups.” Engagement, a lower-level motivational phenomenon, may have had a bottom-up effect at the domain level (technology learning), a higher-level motivational phenomenon, as well as on students' attitudes toward learning after class.

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In recent years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly advanced, and the need to learn about AI in a concrete and hands-on manner has been increasing. In this paper, we propose education that includes the use of AI in activities to solve problems by programming interactive contents using map data as a method to deal with various problems in life and society in technology and home economics (technology field). In addition to presenting the proposed teaching plan, we used teaching materials for learning neural networks through hands-on experience to understand how AI works and how web map content can be manipulated using AI. Students were able to set tasks to solve the problems they discovered, and program interactive content accordingly. The results of the evaluation of the students’ works and the learning survey revealed that the developed programming education has a certain level of usefulness.

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Under the new Course of Study revised in 2017, there is a demand for the refinement of the questioning and instructing used in worksheets, with a focus on the integration of instruction and evaluation. In this study, we attempted to understand the actual status of questioning and instructing types used in technology education for junior high schools. A total of 142 worksheets were collected from 9 experienced technology teachers, yielding 322 extracted questioning and instructing, which were classified into nine categories based on the combination of the learning process and evaluation perspectives in technology education. The alignment of these questioning and instructing types with goals, perspectives, and ways of thinking in technology education was examined. We found that, in the "Knowledge and Skills" category, a high level of alignment, particularly in "technologies supporting life and society," was indicated; however, questioning and instructing related to "social development and technology" were entirely missing. Alignment in the "Thinking, Judgment, and Expression" category was moderate, while that in the "Attitude towards proactive learning" category remained at a low level. Based on these findings, we considered ways to improve the questioning and instructing that lack alignment.

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