On December 12th, I presented on the practice at Itoshima High School, where I am involved, at the Japan Society for Educational Technology Research Meeting held at Niigata University. This practice is part of the “Fukuoka Prefecture New Learning Project,” an active learning promotion project in public high schools currently designated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT).
Mamiko Eto, Koichi Inoue, Masanori Yamada (2015) Effects of Health Literacy Education Incorporating Flipped Classroom and Gamification in High School on Consciousness, Japan Society for Educational Technology Research Meeting 15-5, 49-55
In this class, which combined biology and health education, we incorporated game-like elements into flipped learning and the Knowledge Constructive Jigsaw Method, and conducted the practice over a short period. For flipped learning, we used the NHK High School Course “Science and Human Life” as pre-learning material. For ICT usage, we used Google Chromebooks. We considered allowing students to take them home, but since some households do not have a wireless environment, we built an environment within the school where students could use Chromebooks after school to complete their pre-learning. We used Google Classroom as the learning management system.
Comparing pre- and post-practice subjective effects, we found that literacy regarding health management and interest in science, which were the subjects of measurement this time, had increased. Also, although I was concerned about the burden of flipped learning, the videos were only about 3 to 4 minutes long, and the assignments consisted of fill-in-the-blank and free-response questions based on the videos. Since the assignments could be completed as long as the students watched the videos carefully, I do not think it was too heavy.
Now, for the future… the barriers to introducing information terminals and using wireless LAN are significant, so we must find a way to overcome these. Furthermore, in most municipalities across the country, the use of private cloud services in educational settings is not permitted, and Fukuoka Prefecture is one of them. This was a struggle. Since Fukuoka Prefecture also prohibits connection to private clouds, we could not use Google. However, because Itoshima High School is a designated research school, we received special permission to conduct this practice, partly to examine the feasibility of using private clouds. However, this cannot continue indefinitely.
Inexpensive terminals like Chromebooks have appeared, and while it would be ideal to provide high-performance tablets like iPads, they are expensive, making them difficult to obtain. We often hear voices in educational settings calling for “iPads” as if they were synonymous with tablets, and there are those who prefer iPads. However, the financial resources available to municipalities are limited. If the scope of adoption could be expanded to include inexpensive 10.1-inch Windows tablets or the low-cost tablets now available from Amazon, perhaps the introduction of information equipment into educational settings would progress? Of course, this assumes that teachers in the field are proactive about using ICT. I had expected that there would be many teachers in Fukuoka Prefecture who were anti-ICT, and I was prepared for that when I got involved in this practice, but surprisingly, that was not the case, and many teachers came up with various ideas for utilization. I was quite surprised. Also, when I listened to teachers from other schools, I found that many were surprisingly positive about using private clouds.
Considering the current situation in Fukuoka Prefecture, this practice is quite advanced, but if the use of ICT and cloud services is reconsidered and this movement spreads in the future, I believe that what we have cultivated through this practice will be put to good use. I have high expectations for the future.
