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World Economy Not Leading E-Learning






According to the white paper from the Economist Intelligence Unit, Japan was ranked twenty-third in the 2003 e-learning readiness ranking (Economist Intelli­gent Unit & IBM, 2003). The rank was based not only on connectivity, but also the capability of delivering and consuming e-learning, content quality and per­vasiveness of learning materials, and culture, including the number of institutions supporting e-learning. Among Asian countries, South Korea ranked fifth and Singapore sixth. For Japan, a world-leading economy, its twenty-third ranking out of sixty in e-learning readiness was certainly not as high as anyone had expected. At least three explanations seem possible for understanding this situation.

First, Japan, compared with other developed countries and emerging ones in Asia, was late in the development and implementation of a comprehensive na­tional information and communication technology (ICT) strategic plan and the



The Handbook of Blended Learning


use of ICT in education. A comprehensive e-Japan Strategy (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, 2001) was initiated in January 2001 in pursuit of mak­ing Japan the world's most advanced IT nation within five years and connecting all its classrooms to the Internet by 2005. In contrast, the United States estab­lished a $200 million Technology Literacy Challenge Fund in 1997 to help every child in every school use technology to achieve high standards by the dawn of the twenty-first century. The major European countries—Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy—all announced major programs for IT in education in the late 1990s. South Korea began to implement a more comprehensive na­tional strategy, Cyber Korea 21, in 1999 to promote a vision of a cybernation, strengthen the IT industry and telecommunication services, and maximize the use of IT in various systems of the society, including education. Singapore began to implement the master plan for IT in education in 1997.

Another possible explanation for the late development of e-learning in Japan seems to be related to Japanese culture. Japan values synchronous modes of education and face-to-face interaction over asynchronous interaction more than other countries. The Japanese government used to allow only synchronous modes of interaction in distance education until 2001. In other words, until recently, dis­tance education institutions in Japan could not offer their courses at a distance without adding face-to-face components or real-time interactions. Given the heavy uses of the asynchronous features of the Internet technology, e-learning could not easily proliferate in Japanese culture.

Finally, extensive use of mobile phones in personal communications and information search could have slowed the use of the desktop PC-based Internet in teaching and learning. As Tim Clark, who published the Japan Internet Report, pointed out, Japanese people in general are heavy users of Internet-enabled mo­bile telephones to send and receive e-mail, search for information, study simple languages, or play games. In this culture of using the Internet with mobile phones, " accomplishing quick errands" is more emphasized than studying (Clark, 2003).

But as the higher education market is becoming more competitive and new types of technologies challenge the way educational institutions teach, the Japanese government has begun to implement its e-Japan Strategy in various sectors of society, including education. In addition, the Advanced Learning Infrastructure Consortium was established in 2000 as Japan's center to promote e-learning.

Trends in Higher Education in Japan

Over the past few years, Japanese higher education institutions have become increasingly competitive in recruiting students. The student population of Japanese higher education has been declining since 1992, when there were more


Blended Learning in Japan



than 2 million attendants. In 2010, only 1.2 million students are expected to attend higher education institutions. Many colleges and universities in Japan have insufficient enrollment, and the academic abilities of the students they do have is low. Some worry they may have to shut down. Moreover, a new government policy changed the status of the national universities in Japan from public to private (they are now independent administrative corporations) in April 2004. This new policy requires all universities to be evaluated by external quality assurance agencies every six years for continuing governmental financial support.

At the same time, government regulations for higher education have been loos­ened. For example, the face-to-face schooling requirement in distance education was removed for graduate schools in 2001, so graduate degrees now can be obtained without attending any face-to-face classes, and fully online graduate programs can be offered to degree-seeking students. In addition, a maximum of 60 of 124 credit hours required for an undergraduate degree can be offered at a distance.

In this changing environment of Japanese higher education, e-learning has been adopted at several universities to attract more students by providing a bet­ter-quality education or to extend higher education to adult learners. The ex­amples in this chapter illustrate how and why Japanese higher education institutions have blended e-learning with conventional modes of education.

Definitions and Development of Blended Learning in Japan

Blended learning combines various modes of teaching and learning. It can be a blend of face-to-face schooling with distance learning mode. It can also integrate e-learning components in face-to-face or conventional distance learning situations. In this definition, the Internet or network-enabled mobile phones can be used as either a supplementary or a main tool for instruction. A majority of blended learn­ing cases in Japanese universities incorporate the Internet as a supplementary de­vice in classroom instruction. Only a few use the Internet as a main delivery medium and provide online courses with face-to-face sessions as supplementary. The examples that follow illustrate the different modes of blended learning used in ajapanese context.

Old-Type Blended Example

The University of the Air (UoA) began to offer distance education to adult learn­ers in Tokyo via terrestrial broadcast channels in 1985. It extended its service area to cover all regions of Japan in 1990 by establishing video-based learning centers and in 1998 by using Communication Satellite Broadcasting (University of the Air, n.d.).



The Handbook of Blended Learning


Blended learning at UoA requires all students to take twenty credit hours of face-to-face classes, called " Schooling, " during their course work. " Schooling" can take one of the following three forms: once-a-week schooling, weekend schooling, or an intensive schooling. For the twenty credit hours of face-to-face classes, reg­ular classroom lectures are provided instead of broadcast lectures. UoA is a good example of broadly defined blended learning where face-to-face interaction is blended with conventional distance education. With the introduction of the In­ternet technology, this practice of blended learning begins to integrate online com­ponents in its conventional distance education system.

An Initiative for the Future

The WIDE Project was launched in 1988 by Keio University to establish a widely integrated distributed environment, a new environment based on operating sys­tems and communications technology. In 1997, the Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) project opened the WIDE School on the Internet (SOI), or the WIDE University, to provide a unique educational opportunity to stu­dents from all over the world (WIDE University, 1997). The WIDE University now has more than eight hundred hours of classes available through its archives. Each class consists of video lectures and class handouts to support learners' independent study. Bulletin boards are used for interaction, and an online report submission function is also available.

According to Jun Murai, known as the innovator of the WIDE project and referred to as " Mr. Internet of Japan, " the way to improve the quality of con­ventional university education was to blend his online teaching environment called WIDE with his own face-to-face lectures.

Sharing a Learning Management System

A joint research team from the National Institute of Multimedia Education and the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies at the Graduate School of In­terdisciplinary Information Studies at the University of Tokyo started a project called " iii online" in 2002. The " iii online" (Interfaculty Initiative in Informa­tion Studies, 2004) is an e-learning site with four graduate-level online courses, which also provides management functions such as online registration, report sub­mission, upload and management of on-demand video and supporting materials, and asynchronous interactions using bulletin boards and e-mail. The iii online has also offered an open learning management system, exCampus, to the public. exCampus is known as an online tool to support blended learning. The iii online attracted more than forty-six thousand viewers, including students of the University of Tokyo and those in the general public interested in lectures from


Blended Learning in Japan



Japan's most prestigious academic institution. In this example of blended learning, Internet technology was used as a main instructional tool.

More Toward Online Than Face-to-Face

Shinshu University created the Graduate School of Science and Technology on the Internet as the first case of a totally e-learning graduate program in Japan and accepted eighty-seven graduate students in 2002. It then started its online under­graduate program in 2004, targeting juniors who have completed sixty-four or more credit hours in other universities and now wish to earn an undergraduate degree by completing the remaining credit hours using the Internet. Twenty-two students were accepted to start their junior year at Shinshu University. Shinshu's under­graduate program is a blend of online and campus-based courses. An online course at Shinshu consists of lecture notes, a free bulletin board, and tests.

Blended Learning in a Liberal Arts College

Here, we discuss a case of blended learning adopted in a liberal arts college in Japan and analyze instructional approaches and strategies for integrating online technology into face-to-face instruction as supplementary.

A Liberal Arts Education

The International Christian University (ICU) is a small liberal arts college with a fifty-year history, consisting of about twenty-eight hundred undergraduate stu­dents and two hundred graduate students. Students represent forty different na­tionalities, includingjapanese. It is a bilingual institute using both Japanese and English, and is composed of 158 full-time faculty, including 47 non-Japanese mem­bers (International Christian University, 2004). ICU has been recognized as one of the finest universities in Japan pursuing high-quality liberal arts education based on the ideals of democracy and Christianity. The following features seem to have stimulated some of ICU faculty to use online technologies to support their class­room teaching environments:

Interdisciplinary General Education Program. At the core of the liberal arts edu­cation avauable at ICU is the General Education program (GE). AH ICU divisions are expected to offer interdisciplinary GE courses face-to-face in addition to the courses in their specialized fields of study. Many of the GE courses have an en­rollment of over one hundred students.



The Handbook of Blended Learning


Language programs. ICU faculty can offer their courses in English or Japanese. Between 15 and 30 percent of ICU's courses are offered in English. To support the students, ICU offers two language programs: the Japanese Language Program (JLP) and the English Language Program (ELP). Each ELP or JLP course is conducted with a group of fewer than twenty students.

Interaction and internationality. Emphasizing interaction and international-ity in teaching and learning, ICU has implemented a set of policies to support interactive teaching and learning and international collaborative activities. These policies include financial and administrative support for special lectures given by foreign scholars, fellowships for visiting scholars, support for student exchange programs, and support for a variety of international discussion forums.

Time constraints. ICU adopted a trimester system. With three terms per year, students taking an average of fifteen credit units per term are fairly busy. Considering all the teaching and advising responsibilities, administrative and other social services, and personal research activities, ICU faculty members are also under a great deal of time pressure during the terms. For this reason, efficiency is valued at ICU.

Development of Blended Learning

As with many other universities in Japan, the Web has been used as a tool to pub­lish course syllabi at ICU. ICU Web syllabi can be retrieved only within the on-campus intranet. In addition to posted syllabi, a great number of ICU faculty members have used e-mail as a tool to collect assignments and communicate with students. However, using personal e-mail for these purposes has been noted as in­efficient. Consequently, after the introduction of WebCT, a commercially avail­able online learning management system, by one of the faculty members with the financial support from the university in 2000, several faculty have begun to adopt WebCT as an integral part of the teaching and learning process in their courses. Currently more than twenty courses are using WebCT.

Analysis of Instructional Approaches and Pedagogical Strategies

Most of the courses adopting WebCT at ICU follow a model in which online learning components are added to a traditional face-to-face environment in order to facilitate different types of instructional purposes. Four popular instructional approaches to blended learning have been identified. These approaches are shown in Figure 19.1.


Blended Learning in japan



FIGURE 19.1. A FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS OF INSTRUCTIONAL APPROACHES TO BLENDED LEARNING.

Blended Learning as an Approach for Open Interaction


Blended Learning as an Approach for Information Dissemination


Blended Learning as an Approach for Knowledge Creation


Blended Learning as an Approach for Efficient Management

As seen in the examples of UoA, the WIDE project, and Shinshu University, many Japanese universities use online technology to disseminate lectures. A limited number of cases promote efficient class management and interactions by intro­ducing online technology. At IGU, however, online technologies have been integrated into traditional classrooms to facilitate knowledge creation and support a variety of open interactions as well.

We now look at four dominant instructional approaches for a mix of online technology and face-to-face classes at ICU. These approaches are elaborated with a collection of pedagogical strategies indicated as effective by the instructors.

Blended Learning as an Instructional Approach for Open Interaction. This example uses blended learning to promote open interaction in a large GE course taught in English, where a majority of students are nonnative English-speaking students. With 147 students in a GE course on multicultural education, in-depth discussions on important or controversial issues could not be implemented during the face-to-face class sessions. The instructor decided to use the WebCT discus­sion board to stimulate in-depth discussions among students. The following major strategies are used:

; small-group debate teams. The instructor created twelve debate rooms with one controversial issue in each room. Students were required to sign in to one of the rooms. For example, in room 1, students would debate on the issue of " whether foreign children should learn the main language quickly." Stu­dents would post their opinions with the following questions to guide their


 

The Handbook of Blended Learning

discussion: " What do you agree with or disagree with? Why? What evidence can you give? Look at the arguments on the other side." In addition, the instructor gave detailed explanations on each issue and directions for students to get involved in the debate.

Encouraging integration of classroom lectures in debate. The instructor encouraged students to integrate what they learned in the classes and what they read in the class materials in their online discussions. Students whose primary language was not English seemed more comfortable participating in online debates and posting mes­sages in English than participating in the face-to-face classroom discussions.

Assigningfacilitator and " wrapper, " In each debate group, one facilitator and one " wrapper" were assigned. The role of the facilitator was to lead, monitor, and facil­itate the debate, whereas that of the wrapper was to summarize the debate and post the summary note at the end of the discussion.

Integrating online activities in assessment. This online debate lasted one week. Students were required to post at least one message a day. The number of mes­sages posted and the quality of messages were evaluated by the instructor and included in the evaluation of student performance.

Reducing face-to-face classroom time. During the online debate, no face-to-face classroom meeting was scheduled. The students were able to spend a whole week for the debate.

On average, each student posted about ten messages during the one-week dis­cussion period. The instructor felt that the online discussion activity helped stu­dents apply face-to-face lectures in analyzing real-world problems and developing critical thinking on the given issues.

Blended Learning as an Instructional Approach for Knowledge Creation. This

example uses blended learning to facilitate new knowledge development by promoting internationality in a small course. With five students in a graduate course on media education, international experts specializing in media educa­tion would be too expensive to invite to face-to-face classroom sessions to pro­vide diverse perspectives on the use of media in education. The instructor instead invited three experts to the online classroom.* This solution had a number of benefits:

Bringing internationality into the class. To discuss a variety of ways of using dif­
ferent media in education and training, three experts with international experi­
ence in media education were invited to a one-week online discussion session and
a one-hour online chat session. The three experts were from the United Kingdom,
Korea, and Japan.


Blended Learning in Japan



Combining asynchronous and synchronous online interactions. The one-week asyn­chronous discussion focused on how different media were used in teacher edu­cation in different countries. Two experts, one from the United Kingdom and the other from Japan, participated in this online discussion. As a follow-up activity, the one-hour synchronous online chat was organized after the discussion. Two ex­perts, one from Japan and the other from Korea, provided answers to students' questions and shared their own experiences during the chat.

Promoting anchored learning. Before joining the discussion and the online chat, students were asked to read an article introducing various international applica­tions in the use of media in education. One of the authors of the article was the invited expert for an online class activity. This reading was to provide anchored points for online discussions.

Integrating online activities in final assessment. The number and quality of mes­sages posted during the online discussion and the summary of the online chat were evaluated by the instructor and included in the final evaluation of student performance.

Reducing face-to-face classroom time. During the one-week discussion, no face-to-face meeting was scheduled. Instead, the students were required to read the article before participating in the online discussion, post at least one message a day, and participate in the online chat.

Students' comments confirmed that these online activities succeeded in bring­ing internationality into the class and contributed to the development of new per­spectives of the issues discussed. One student commented after the online discussion:

I had a great time reading the comments and information about the usage of technology for education around the world. I want to make a great use of this rare opportunity for my paper.... (I have to write a twenty-page report about ICT usage in education for another course... [laugh].) Well, thank you very very much to all of you!! Thank you for so many postings and joining our online discussion. It was a great experience for me to share the opinions with the experts!! And also to our great facilitators!! Thank you!!

Blended Learning as an Instructional Approach for Information Distribution.

This example shows that blended learning can be used to distribute information efficiently. With fifteen students in a class, the instructor wanted the students to read all the articles before the class and check the related Web links. After the class, the students were asked to review PowerPoint materials and class handouts posted on the Web.


The Handbook of Blended Learning

This approach had these components:

Posting articles to read before each class. The instructor used WebCT to distrib­ute article readings to the students. The articles were distributed one or two days before each class so that the students could read the materials, print them, and bring them to the class. Sometimes video materials and Web links also were provided.

Providing PowerPoint file and class handouts after each class. The instructor used PowerPoint materials for each lesson. Other types of class handouts were also pre­pared and distributed during class hours. These materials were posted after each class was over. The instructor thought that the students might not pay attention to the lecture if they read the class materials beforehand.

Tracking students' viewing of the materials. One of the features of WebCT is that an instructor can check log-in data. The instructor of this class wanted to make sure that his students checked the readings and class materials on the Web. He analyzed the access day of each student. For those who did not access the reading materials before the class, the instructor sent a private e-mail message.

For this instructor, WebCT was simply an additional teaching tool, like hand­outs, the chalkboard, and PowerPoint. The instructor felt that integrating Web technology in the class helped the students develop better ideas about the course by being able to read the materials before they came to class and also encouraged the instructor to become more structured.

Blended Learning as an Instructional Approach for Efficient Class Management.

This example uses blended learning to improve efficiency. In a course with sixty stu­dents, the instructor used WebCT to manage course assignments and provide individualized feedback more efficiently. The approach had the following features:

Submitting assignments electronically. Students submitted all their assignments in the designated assignment boxes on WebCT. The instructor could easily check late submission since the WebCT system recorded the submission date and time of each student posting.

Providing feedback efficiently. After receiving each assignment, the instructor provided feedback to each student with a grade. To provide feedback more effi­ciently, the instructor created a list of twelve kinds of feedback on common mistakes students would make. Each student was provided with one or more kinds of feedback from this list along with a short personalized message.


Blended Learning in Japan



TABLE 19.1. EXAMPLES OF PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES FOR BLENDED LEARNING.


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