The paper examines how an Avatar Robot as part of a learning environment can help students to create a proactive and collaborative “performance” based on a practice in special needs education. The concept of “performance” is used in performance phycology，seizing on Lev Vygotsky’s discovery that young children learn and develop because they are supported to do what is beyond them. The author discusses about ICT and the learning environment by illustrating the process of students’ newly generated performance and the activity of simultaneously being being-who-you-are and who-you-are-becoming through which they grow.

　This article focuses on the utilization and deployment of communication robots，particularly in the medical and nursing fields. I will explain how to think and use the communication robot as a new technology. I will also explain the influence of the presence of the communication robot，the relationship between the two types of users，technology literacy，and examples of usage. This time，I will use this commentary to show why communication robots are interesting as user interfaces in the medical and nursing fields.

　In introducing robot as learning media, it is essential to uncover the suitability of robot to learning. This paper focuses on engagement in learning, and discusses why and how robot could contribute to enhancing engagement. Following the discussion, this paper also demonstrates how to design learning with robot. Considering contexts requiring communication such as collaborative reading in English and requiring attention/concentration such as lecture, in this work, we have designed robot partner for collaborative reading, and robot lecture. The results obtained from case studies with these robots suggest that learners’ engagement could be enhanced.

　Programming education is attracting attention, with the word “programming thinking” as the key. And, in Japan, since it is a cross curriculum that incorporates programming education into existing subjects, it is a problem how to implement programming education. This paper introduces a model for development of programming thinking using Venn diagram, Yes / No chart, visual programming language, and communication robot, introduce its practical case and learning environment based on it. The characteristics of this model are to conduct programming with the goal of deepening the understanding of the contents to be learned in the subject for classification, and to make the abstract program the concrete thing as the interaction with the robot.

　This research proposes an automated explanation system of the technical terms with voice recognition for career support. When students do not understand complicated career related words，they cannot reach consensus in the discussions. This system support teachers’ instructions intelligently in group learning. When students have inadequate knowledge，teachers need to intervene the discussion for giving further knowledge. However，the teacher cannot intervene with many groups at a time. Therefore，we provided a system to support students rather than teachers in group learning. We experiment to analyze the effect of the automated learning support for words in the job posting sheet at auto-teaching. This experiment compares students who use this system and those who does not use the system. The students discussed the problem on the job posting. We found that the experimental group had a higher score than the controlled group. There was a significant difference between two groups. Results show that the system adequately teaches terms，and there was a prominent effect on students learning.

　Popularization of mobile terminals and the prosperity of SNS have widely penetrated into daily communication activities and exert a considerable influence on the qualities，learning style and needs of learners who learn foreign languages. This paper aims at considering the possibility of educational use and educational design，focusing on mobile applications as a tool for foreign language learning in mobile popularization，SNS prosperity era. Specifically，it is about examining effective educational design that develops nonstructural learning activities that rely on learner’s subjective use into structural language learning activities necessary for acquiring a foreign language. For the consideration，we will take up the ’Wave Chinese “You（游）”’ which the authors are developing，and the interactive learning application of quiz format ’Little You “（小游）”’ using SNS. We will consider examined through the case of Chinese language education，and we would like to contribute to the future preliminary study of foreign language education and language education research.

　This paper discusses the problem of “college students’ poor PC operation skills” from the viewpoint of keyboarding. According to a questionnaire survey targeting college students，when writing a 2,000-character report，about 80% answered that they would do all the work on a PC. However，about 6% would type on a smartphone first. In addition，about 13% would draft by handwriting or on a smartphone. Students using smartphone and handwriting have low self-evaluation on ICT skills towards the future. To improve their self-evaluation，it is necessary to use the PC more frequently from primary and secondary education and to get used to the keyboard.

　In this study，we applied project-based learning and problem-based learning in a software development exercise for undergraduate students. This exercise was the result of an earlier one，which has been conducted since 2010，to improve practical skills among such students through collective software development. As with the earlier exercise，the aim with the present one was to give opportunities for students to learn by themselves while acquiring knowledge and skills. We found that the present exercise had a good learning effect. However，the load on the students was high，and it was difficult for them to complete the assignments on time; accordingly，the degree of completion of the deliverables was not high. In this paper，we clarify the problems we observed with the present exercise and identify the possible effectiveness of various improvement measures.

　In cooking practice in a registered dietitian/dietitian training course, students first take notes on the teaching materials while watching the teacher’s demonstration. After that, the students are divided into their own groups to practice. However, in cooking training, there are cases where the process is complicated and it is difficult to confirm the teaching materials with bare hands during cooking. Therefore, it is thought that the introduction of an education support system that can be operated without contact will increase the learning effect. In this study, we developed a digital teaching material system that enables gesture manipulation using Kinect in cooking practicing. This system consists of a 3-D depth sensor (Kinect) that monitors the motions of the operator, a display monitor, and a PC with an application to control them. In this system, we conducted a questionnaire survey on dietitian training course students after they actually experienced using the system and examined the usefulness of the system.

　“Voice card” is a phrase card that character image files combined reading voice. In this research, an application called “Kotobanarabe” for learning to create sentences using voice cards was developed for learning of children who need special support. The developed application was implemented a function that connects multiple voice cards and can output voice as one sentence. In addition, the function to judge the correctness of the completed sentence was added. In practice using “Kotobanarabe”, even Child who is not good at character recognition was able to voluntarily work on learning to create sentences.

　Teaching materials for programming，such as Scratch and VISCUIT，have been utilized for elementary school programming. However，such teaching materials present difficulties in comprehension for many teachers in using the materials in their instruction. Previous research pointed out that these materials had difficulty in applying to group learning and costed to prepare learning environments such as tablets and kits. In this work，we developed some teaching courses to solve these issues by using a new physical programing teaching material. These teaching courses are designed for all grades in elementally school with easy and intuitive operation. Using these introductory materials，we conducted an experiment and questionnaire survey at elementary schools. The results of the questionnaire survey administered to the students at the elementary school showed that it was effective for the children and teachers to use the materials.

　This paper discusses the verification of results of a study on the effectiveness of ICT teaching materials based truancy support that is being performed in classrooms featuring adaptivity counselling in Nagoya. The verification was not limited to a questionnaire; it also included an analysis of the history of learning that the ICT teaching materials are based on. By combining these approaches we could discover the relationship between the development of independence and changes in learning behaviors.

　As online video streaming services become more common，it can be said that there is a growing number of problems invited by such services. As part of this study，we developed a teaching program on the theme of information ethics，which included original video material that tells a story about a child facing problems due to an online video streaming service. Through the test classes that were delivered to 5th and 6th grade elementary school students，significant differences could be found before and after the survey，in terms of questioning the students’ perceptions of online video streaming. Their free description answers indicated that they had their own opinions on the topic by the end of the class. However，there is still room for improvement regarding the in-class discussion process.

　IoT（Internet of Things） is attracting attention as a technology that supports society; consequently，there is a need to develop a teaching program to learn about the mechanisms of IoT and its uses in society. In this study，we developed a program that incorporated interactive digital teaching material and application development exercises. The results of the study revealed that the implementation of such a program for high school students can improve the learners’ understanding of IoT.