Information Technology Educational Reform, and Tele-educatio
Abstract
Information technologies such as ISDN, CATV, satellite telecommunications, broadcasting, and the Internet are now being used in the field of education all over the world. In Japan there are several reasons for educational reform, including encouragement of individuality, implementation of lifetime learning, and ability to cope with information society. Tele-education is a useful means of coping with these necessities for educational reform.
A number of reports on separate examples of tele-education may be referred to, but a comprehensive analysis about this theme is not available. In this paper, we analyze the importance of tele-education for educational reform in Japan. This paper also presents the current situation of Japanese tele-education, especially that related to higher education, through the application of multimedia according to the authors‘ field research. Several cases of the actual implementation of tele-education will be introduced. The characteristics and issues of Japanese tele-education will be discussed.
Keywords: Tele-education, Higher Education, Space Collaboration System, ISDN
1. Introduction
In accordance with the development of information technology, many applications of multimedia have been implemented in the fields of business, economics, and medicine. In the field of education, optic fibers or satellite interconnects different campuses far away, and students located in different classrooms can share the same lectures. Videoconference systems are used for joint conferences or symposiums for different universities. Most universities and colleges now have home pages in the Internet. In elementary education, classrooms of urban and rural schools are interconnected and share the same educational activities, and pupils of special classes for school-aged patient in the hospital can view the same lecture in the school. Telecommunications technologies have thus been extensively utilized in education and research.
Tele-education has the following benefits: (a) efficiency of education; (b) diminishes regional disparities; and (c) international cooperation. Rural schools, for instance, can be interconnected with schools located in the urban areas and can receive advanced education via multimedia. They can also have easy access to lectures of more able teachers, and have an increased opportunity to come into contact with up-to-date educational information. All can receive the same level of education wherever they live. This is beneficial to diminishing regional disparities.
Tele-education can be also an effective method of international cooperation. Experimental projects have already started to interconnect educational institutions in different countries and to transmit classroom images by making use of multimedia via satellite or fiber optics.
In Japan, there are several reasons for educational reform, including the promotion of individuality, implementation of lifetime learning, and ability to cope with information society. Tele-education is a useful means of coping with these necessities for educational reform. In this paper, we analyze the importance of tele-education in educational reform currently discussed in Japan. This paper also presents the current situation of Japanese tele-education, especially that related to higher education, through the application of information technology according to the authors‘ field research. A number of cases of the actual implementation of tele-education will be introduced. The characteristics and issues of Japanese tele-education will be also discussed
EDUCATIONAL REFORM AND TELE-EDUCATION
In this chapter, the necessity of tele-education is discussed in the context of the current educational reform in Japan. The development of information technology is also presented.
Fundamental Requirements of Educational Reform
The Japanese economy is now in the process of economic transformation such as the aging society, information society, and globalization. The educational system is not an exception. Now that Japan has become a mature economy, it is being asked to play a leadership in the international society. The Japanese educational system has to be changed in accordance with this, from being a catch-up type to a leadership type. The ideal educational system in an information society is not the same as that of an industrial society.
Educational reform thus should include the following objectives: (a) stress on individuality; (b) establishment of a lifetime educational system; (c) promotion of globalization; and (d) utilization of information technology in education. In the catching-up process, efficiency came from mass-production of standardized commodities, and education also stressed the mass-production of standardized students, who were skillful at mastering advanced technology and knowledge, and collaborating with others. On the hand, current Japanese society is in which it is necessary to develop our own direction, since we are in a "frontier" situation and there is nothing that can be imitated, and in such a society human resources filled with creativity and flexibility are required.
In a mature society, people enjoy a high level of income and have enough time to spend it; accordingly, demand for education by all generations is increasing. Education used to be required only at the early stage of life, but now it is demanded by people of all ages and at every stage of the life cycle. In the information society, where ideas, information, and creativity are required, the notion of education itself is required to change to the direction of recurrent and lifetime education, which nurtures the individual skill and creativity. In addition, since in the information society, the speed of the development in the fields of science and technology is quite rapid, the knowledge and skills once obtained easily become obsolete. The necessity of acquiring high professional ability and technological skills is increasing at every stage of life. This type of learning requires full as well as part time engagement in educational institutions.
Information Technology and Tele-education
Education and learning were traditionally carried out by teachers and students face-to-face in the classroom, or by students‘ reading materials and books directly. Tele-education could abolish these constraints from education. Any person, wherever they live is now able to learn at any time. Information technology makes this possible, since it lifts the constraints of geographical and physical barriers from education and learning. As mentioned previously, current information technology reduces barriers related to education. There is a variety of tele-education depending on (a) how instructors and students interact, for instance, from one- to-one to one-to-many, to many-to-many; (b) way of communication such as one-way or two way interactive; and (c) types of multimedia such as with or without image, still data or motion picture.
Ideally, tele-education with characteristics such as many-to-many, interactive, and motion picture is highly recommendable, and the current level of information technology such as high speed transmission devices and optical fiber networks makes this possible. The most remarkable is the videoconference system, and it is classified according the network it uses such as (a) ISDN, (b) CATV network, and (c) satellite communications, for instance.
Distance learning, which is one type of tele-education, places emphasis more on learning than education. A typical example is of a student far away from an educational institution who can view materials transmitted from the educational institution on the PC screen. In this case, important factors are interactivity or whether they can learn at any time and at any place. Methods of distance learning in this type are (a) broadcasting and (b) the Internet. Since broadcasting is not interactive, it is of the traditional type, but it covers many students at one time at low cost. The Internet, on the other hand, is now widely utilized at all levels of education for (a) lectures, and (b) exchange activities among schools. As for (a), lectures in classrooms are transmitted to students who cannot attend classrooms because of work, hospitalization, and so on. As for (b), schools exchange their information via the Internet.
2.3 Current Tele-Education in Japan
Among Japanese examples of tele-education, it is becoming popular to utilize satellite broadcasting for private tutoring schools and national universities. The latter is called “space collaboration learning” by the Ministry of Education, which will be analyzed extensively later. The former, however, is not interactive. The tele-education analyzed in this paper is focused mainly on the interactive type.
Since 1995, the Ministry of Education started to apply telecommunications and multimedia to develop education in rural areas. The aim of this project is to interconnect schools in the isolated islands or mountainous regions and urban areas through optic fibers and satellites. In addition, another project for hospitalized school-age children has also been started to interconnect schools in the hospitals and the schools they are registered at. For those projects, the Ministry of Education will spend US$5.3 million in fiscal 1997.
These projects, however, are basically for the purpose of interconnecting 2 or 3 schools via optical fibers and share the same lectures, and the related schools are the principal and branch schools, or schools in the same prefecture. There are 22 schools in 10 prefectures involved in these projects. Since 1996, 18 schools in 9 prefectures have joined. In the experimental projects in Kagoshima Prefecture, they use INS 1,500 for transmission cables.1)
3. TELE-EDUCATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Here we analyze actual examples of tele-education in higher education, since we have already presented tele-education in lower education (Tsuji, Taoka, and Teshima [2000a], [2000b]) Applications of the Satellite Communications and Broadband ISDN are presented.
3.1. Space Collaboration System (SCS)
Space Collaboration System (SCS) is a project of the Ministry of Education, and was started in October 1996. SCS utilizes satellite telecommunications to interconnect universities in different places. It has been operated by the National Institute of Media Education (NIME) located in Chiba Prefecture, which is a special agency of the Ministry. The satellite communication is controlled by this center. The aim of SCS is to construct a network of universities to exchange image information for educational purpose via satellite, and to establish a higher educational system to cope with the information society. SCS makes use of the characteristics of satellite communication such as interactivity, wide coverage all over Japan, and simultaneity. SCS are utilized for lectures, seminars, conferences, symposiums, and training courses for different universities. Students and faculty members need not travel to join classes or seminars at remote universities, and many others share scarce resources of education and research. SCS thus contributes to promoting the efficiency of higher education and research.
In March 1998, 61 national universities and 10 private universities (11 stations) were participating in this project and 77 stations are in operation. Including other national research institutions, there are altogether 89 universities and institutions involved this project and 106 stations are in operation. In what follows, some of the basic statistics of SCS are shown. Types of usage and number of usage are summarized in Tables 1 and 2-A, 2-B, 2-C, respectively.
Table 1 No. of Organizations and Channels Operating SCS (as of March 1999)
(2) System
SCS consists of the HUB and VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) Stations. The former is located at the Media Development Center in Chiba Prefecture, and controls satellite communications. VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) Stations are located at each university. In each VAST station, the following equipment are installed: 70 inch monitor TV, 42 inch CRT monitor TV, 29 inch monitor TV, three cameras showing instructor, students, and educational materials, microphones, VTR, speakers, and PC. All these equipment are easy to operate and there is no need for an assistant to assist in their operation.
3.2 Broadcasting University
Another type of tele-education in higher education is the University of the Air, which uses broadcasting. The University of the Air is authorized as a regular four year university for lifetime learning by the Ministry of Education, and it is a special agency of the Ministry. It was established in 1983, and started operation in April 1985 in the Tokyo area (Tokyo Metropolitan Area, and 6 nearby prefectures). At that time, it was a broadcaster on UHF television and FM radio. In 1989, the first 544 students were graduated. Since then, the number of students has increased, and by March 1999, the total number of graduates was 13,424, and it has had 73,446 students. The age range of students runs from 18 to the elderly. At the beginning, the area was restricted to the Tokyo area, but since 1998, it has been broadcasting via CS digital broadcasting throughout Japan. In accordance with this, Learning Centers were established in all prefectures, which have core facilities for schooling, for instance.
3.3. Case Study: Kouchi Institute of Technology
Characterisdtics of the Kouchi Institute of Technology
The Kouchi Institute of Technology was established in 1997 at Tosa Yamada Town, Kouchi Prefecture, and it has only an engineering department. It consists of the following 5 faculties: Material and Environmental System Engineering, Intellectual and Mechanical Engineering, Electric and Optical Engineering, Information System Engineering, and Social System Engineering. The Graduate School of Engineering was opened in 1999, and for the Master‘s degree program consists of the following eight courses, namely, Environmental System, Material Development, Electronics and Optical Electronics, Information System, Telecommunications Network, Social Infrastructural Engineering, and Entrepreneur courses. Only the Entrepreneur course carries out Distance Learning.
Each of the five faculties have eighty students, and each of the eight graduate courses has 25 Master‘s degree and 5 Doctor‘s degree students. The faculty consists of 54 professors, 31 associate and assistant professors, and 4 lecturers.
Systems of Distance Learning
Only the Entrepreneur course of the Kouchi Institute of Technology offers distance learning, and the aim of this course is to nurture entrepreneurship, and teach know-how and strategies for starting-up by focusing on the integration of technology and management. It offers lectures such as Entrepreneur, High-tech Marketing, Venture Capital, Innovation, Support Network, Technology Strategy, and Industrial System Economics. The Doctor‘s degree program offers lectures such as Risk Analysis, International Collaboration, Industrial Technology Policy. It is one of the most unique courses in Japan which focuses on nurture entrepreneur and venture business.
Tele-education at the Kouchi Institute of Technology consists of three classrooms: (a) one in the headquarters in Tosa Yamada Town, and satellite classrooms in (b) Tokyo and (c) Osaka. Those are located in the Tokyo and Osaka Offices of the Kouchi Prefecture Government. Face-to-face lectures are mainly undertaken at the headquarters, and they are transmitted to satellite classrooms by the ISDN network at a speed of 128kbps. Pictures of satellite classrooms are also sent to the headquarters at the same time. The transmission system used is the NTT Video conference system named "Phenics 2000". The headquarters has the following equipment: (a) 50-inch monitor TV which shows satellite classrooms, (b) a camera to show the textbook and educational materials on the desk of the instructor, (c) an audio system, (d) a monitor TV of still pictures, and (e) controller. In the satellite classrooms, there are the following equipment: (a) a 29 inches display showing lectures at the headquarters, (b) a camera to show the satellite classrooms, (c) a monitor TV for still pictures, (d) a camera to show text book and educational materials on the desk, (e) an audio system, (f) a controller; and (g) facsimile and copying machine. With these systems, three classrooms are interconnected interactively each other. Cameras enable automatically focus one the speaker.
Distance Learning
All lectures offered by the Entrepreneur course, which are 12 for the Master‘s and 3 for the Doctor‘s degree program, are transmitted to satellite classrooms. These lectures are carried out on weekends for mainly part-time students with jobs. They are also required to participate in schooling at the headquarters in Tosa Yamada Town twice a year.
So far, there are 16 first year and 8 second year students in the Master‘s program, and 8 first year and 8 second year students in the Doctor‘s program. At the Tokyo satellite classroom, registered students are 2 first year and 2 second year for the Master‘s program, and 1 first year and 3 second year for the Doctor‘s program. At the Osaka satellite classroom, 7 first year and 3 second year students for the Master‘s program and 3 first year and 2 second year students for the Doctor‘s program are registered.
As for the costs of this distance learning, US$54,000 to 55,000 is for equipment, and the monthly average of telecommunications charges is about US$2,000. Since they utilize the offices of the Kouchi Prefecutral Government in Tokyo and Osaka, no rental fee is required.2)
Characteristics of Distance Learning of the Kouchi Institute of Technology
The Kouchi Institute of Technology is located in an isolated area in Shikoku, and it utilizes satellite classrooms in metropolitan areas. The number of students in those satellite classrooms is small, but more than half of the total graduate students in the Entrepreneur course uses distance learning. This shows the large demand for advanced degrees in the metropolitan area, especially the demand for recurrent education.
4 CONCLUSION
As emphasized in earlier papers (Tsuji, Takoa and Teshima [2000a], [2000b], Tsuji, Teshima and Mori [1999]), the Japanese educational system, especially K-12, is world renowned, and has had less incentive to make use of tele-education so far. The situation is now changing. Due to technological development, tele-education can be is much more easily implemented. The necessity of early education for information technology such as the Internet is increasing, and it will promote tele-education at the elementary level.
Recently, it is often recognized that the Japanese capability of creating new ideas and innovation in higher education has been deteriorating. This is mainly due to the poor organizational network among higher educational institutions. Individual researchers and professors have their own research networks among different institutions, but as a whole, Japanese universities are rather isolated from one other. The projects of NIME surely provide the basis of collaboration for many higher educational institutions for research and other information exchange.
Recently, many universities have been establishing so-called satellite campuses or extensions near city terminals. This is their reaction to the increasing demand for higher education and recurrent education. As the desire for acquiring professional and higher knowledge increases, educational institutions will diversify in the provision of education by utilizing diversified information technology such as the Internet.
NOTES
The content of projects and schools related to this project are analyzed in Tsuji, Taoka and Teshima [2000a], [2000b], and Tsuji, Mori and Teshima [1999].
None one takes care of the equipment. Each student is required to switch on and off by himself, but due to this, machine trouble are reported to occur often. This result in rather high maintenance costs.
REFERENCES
Tsuji, M., M. Teshima and M. Mori [1999] "Applications of Telecommunications and Multimedia Technology in the Fields of Medicine and Education: An International Comparison Based on Field Research of Local Governments," Osaka Economic Papers, Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 1-21
Tsuji, M., F. Taoka and M. Teshima [2000a] "Information Technology, Educational Reform, and Tele-Education: A Comparison from Field Research of Japan and the U.S.A." Journal of Information and Communication (in Japanese), Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 109-23
Tsuji, M., F. Taoka and M. Teshima [2000b] "Multimedia Technology and Tele-Education: An International Comparison," Proceedings of the International Conference on Distance Education, Distance Learning and 21st Century Education Development, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, April, pp. 15-21
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