This commentary paper describes the trend of e-learning in the education for health care workers in Japan, as well as the background of each professional education. The authors have been organizing Japan Exchange Meeting for Medical e-Learning (JMeL; since 2007) where the topics in this paper presented.

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In this paper, the relationship between quality assurance in higher education and institutional research or IR is discussed mainly from the technological perspective. Among many roles in IR, education and learning are emphasized and precede the activation of other areas in Japan. To support quality data research and to enhance appropriate report to stakeholder, IR system can contribute in data gathering, analysis and dashboard design. It would be critical for higher education institutions to develop tools that can communicate essential information including KPI to targeted stakeholders in an easy-to-understand format. Professional development and creation of dummy data set will be needed to advocate the further growth of IR.

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Spontaneous motive for continuous training is essential in health promotion. From the viewpoint of motive, a framework of performance support is required in addition to prevention of injury. In this research, we developed a wearable system named “Kyoso-kun” owing to personal training support. The system which comprises wireless sensors, audio and visual devices, provides a virtual rival who contributes a promotion of trainee’s performance step by step while helping the pace setting and form. If the form tends to become unstable, the system makes trainee aware of it, and provide her/him a conscious attempt to improve the situation. Additionally the system promotes her/his motive by producing a racing against the rival. We conducted the comparative experiment for trainees who achieve a certain level of running. From the result, our proposal is same or better performance than two other methods while there is the possibility of holding down the situation of unstable form.

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With the global increase of lifestyle-related diseases, health intervention using information and communication technology (ICT) has attracted attention as an effective approach to getting people to change their health behavior and to engage in physical activity. The transtheoretical model (TTM) is mainly applied to the development of the health intervention system as a behavior change theory in the United States and Europe. However, the existing transtheoretical model scales to measure people’s behavior change in Japan are designed for a face-to-face intervention and are not applicable to the intervention using ICT. We have developed new TTM scales for ICT intervention through the Internet survey of 4,400 randomly selected people. As a result of stepwise exploratory factor analysis, one factor self-efficacy scale with 5 items, two factors decisional balance scale with 10 items and one factor process of change scale with 10 items were developed. Statistical procedure showed that these scales had reliability and validity. Practical effectiveness was verified through an actual 3 month health intervention using “Happy Walking”, a walking support system. The results supported the validity of these ICT scales.

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The authors developed educational software using 3-D Computer Graphics (CG) animation for children with intellectual disabilities. The software aimed to allow learners to practice reading Japanese hiragana characters by looking at CG animations of hiragana characters and listening to their sounds. The leaners can simultaneously watch the mouth movements of hiragana characters while listening to their pronunciation in order to understand the relationship between hiragana characters, their pronunciation, and mouth movements. The authors also developed drill and practice software as well as game software for the purpose of learning hiragana characters. These three types of software were utilized at a special support school in Kurume, Japan, with our university students assisting children in using the software in the classroom.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the software, the learning process of the children was videotaped and analyzed. The results showed that children could read hiragana characters more accurately after studying with the software.

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During fiscal year 2010, I. hospital changed its educational modality for new nurses from conventional classroom education to participatory education using an e-learning. Results show that 1) new nurses became able to learn anytime and anywhere. 2) Irrespective of the time and place, senior nurses became able to give advice related to questions and problems that new nurses had encountered according to a specific scenario. 3) The new-nurses training program which utilized e-learning based on the image showed the effect to the new nurse technical acquisition also from the result of the skill test and the interview.

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This article describes “lesson study” with utilizing the peer review system “FD Commons” in a Japanese university. The qualitative analysis of focus group interview in lesson study revealed the following three points : (1) professionals participating in this project expected that FDer advised her colleagues to improve their practices with her specific knowledge and skills of educational improvement, (2) the class images with reviewers’ comments, as feedback data from the system, were so impressive that lesson practitioners would be aware of severe teaching evaluation with no excuse, and (3) the new functions were needed to deal with class practitioners supportively and collaboratively by controlling and navigating review activities.

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The present study aimed to establish the effect of constructing environments on teachers’ reflection, creating connections among courses using e-portfolio. It also sought to explain the improvement of teachers’ reflection. The study was an action research that focused on curriculum improvement using course portfolio in the department of physical therapy in higher education. The findings of the study revealed that a connection among courses improved teachers’ reflection. The major contributions of this study are a deep understanding over the nature of students’ learning and the possibility of connecting one course of instruction to the others. Finally, the findings suggested the possibility of connecting quality assurance in higher education in the e-portfolio environment.

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The current authors previously proposed and utilized a 3-phase learning process that included a web-based review to facilitate effective blended learning of Chinese as a second foreign language. The authors have also focused on motivation fostered by e-learning materials as a way to increase the desire to learn. The current study develops guidelines for the design of motivational e-learning materials in Blended Learning based on the ARCS model. An experiment was conducted using the e-learning materials and a survey was also conducted regarding the developed motivational design guidelines that they were based on. The survey results indicated that the learners evaluated the e-learning materials positively, thus the guidelines have feasibility for implementation.

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