[Feature: The Future of Digital Education] Satoshi Atobe: The Light and Shadow of Digital Education—Practice at Keio Futsubu School

In 2021, Keio Futsubu School established a system where all students bring their own personally owned iPads to attend classes.

In this article, I would like to provide an overview of the status of digital education at Keio Futsubu School from the 1990s, when I first took up my post, to the present day, from the perspective of an English teacher specializing in foreign language education using media.

I believe that Keio Futsubu School is an institution that has pursued the essence of secondary education for over 120 years since its integrated education system was established in 1898, even as it transitioned from a five-year to a three-year system after the war.

A school is a mechanism that separates students from their interactions with family and the outside world, allowing them to concentrate on learning in an isolated space.

School education is characterized by being systematic, limited in content, and mandatory, placing one in a school-centered space; this is where it differs from community education. Part of the rules include the fact that it is considered "correct" that one must not write a science report during English class, and while one might walk around to work during art class, one must remain seated during math class. These rules are not limited to explicit ones; there are many implicit rules formed through the behavior of students toward one another. Furthermore, student behavior can never be controlled solely by instructions from teachers.

A fundamental rule at Keio Futsubu School is "do not bring anything unrelated to class." Mobile phones and smartphones are not needed for class, so they are not brought in. Manga and magazines are also prohibited, except for those in the library collection.

Students engage in learning activities in an organized and exclusive environment, learn about human relationships among the same members of a fixed class group, and grow while sharing hardships and influencing one another. While not quite like practitioners secluded from the secular world, we want to strip away unnecessary things as much as possible.

In such a school, the discussion regarding iPads progressed rapidly last academic year. The school recommended and specified models for first- and second-year students, resulting in more than 80% of households purchasing new devices. This year, all students have begun bringing their own personal devices, and the outside world has arrived right next to us.

Various terms such as IT, ICT, and e-learning have been used in education using information technology. "Digital" is the adjective for "digit," meaning numbers or places. In the 1970s, "digital" referred to calculators or cutting-edge wristwatches. The reason the word "digital" is attracting attention again today stems from the concept of "Digital Transformation," abbreviated as DX—the orientation toward fundamentally changing people's lives and improving them in every aspect. It is a broad topic involving the replacement of inefficient existing methods with digital technology.

The GIGA School Program promoted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (GIGA stands for Global and Innovation Gateway for All) aimed to realize an educational ICT environment that is individually optimized for each person and fosters creativity. It planned the construction of high-speed, large-capacity school networks and the provision of one device per student. What was originally a five-year plan starting in 2019 received a boost as the schedule was moved forward due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It did not take long to realize that this new wind had the impact to change the fundamental rules and common sense of the school.

Incidentally, purchase costs ranged from 40,000 yen for the standard model to the 80,000 yen range for a model including a keyboard, pen, and a three-year warranty pack; the 60,000 yen 132GB model was a popular choice.

Looking back roughly at information education over the past 30 years, I feel as though we have climbed three steps, creating layers. The keywords are programming education, information literacy, and information ethics.

The core of information classes is programming education. It is enjoyable for interested students to take elective classes, learn what can be done with computers, and put it into practice.

Information education for all students began in earnest in the late 90s. A "Computer Science" department was established at Keio Futsubu School, and compulsory classes to learn information literacy began. Originally, in library and information science, the term information literacy refers to the ability to search for and scrutinize necessary information using information tools to solve problems, but in Japan, it is often used in the context of computer literacy or IT literacy.

With the advent of Windows 95, classes started with the basics of keyboard usage, moved to word processing and spreadsheets, and in elective classes, students learned HTML to create web pages and enter contests. Unless taught the difference between half-width and full-width characters, some students would write entire English sentences in full-width. The term "digital divide" was born, and there were concerns that social and economic disparities would arise based on information processing capabilities.

Entering the 2000s, issues of information ethics came into focus. Slander and defamation on bulletin boards, impersonation, harmful sites, posts on "underground" school sites, cyberbullying, the handling of personal information, chain emails, copyright, and crimes such as fraud and fictitious billing became social issues alongside the spread of SNS. The areas to be covered expanded infinitely. It became important for those teaching to learn the latest knowledge, including case studies, not only to protect students from becoming victims of crime but also to prevent them from becoming perpetrators, by understanding what constitutes a crime and what kind of damage can occur.

The digitalization of school facilities accelerated in the early 2000s. In English, cassette tapes became CDs and MDs, and in 2002, the LL (Language Laboratory) classroom was abolished to create a multi-purpose classroom capable of wired LAN connections for laptops.

However, compared to cassettes, which allowed for easy speed adjustment and cueing, CDs were less user-friendly. The benefits of digital were only truly felt with the advent of MP3 players.

The use of electronic whiteboards (Interactive Whiteboards) began with the introduction of Smart Boards in 2008. Using dedicated software, teachers could embed not only text but also audio and video materials on the screen and write directly on slides with a stylus. Due to the novelty, student concentration increased, and some commented that the class felt like it ended in an instant.

Later, taking the opportunity of the main building reconstruction in 2015, projectors with electronic whiteboard functions were installed in all classrooms. These devices are suitable for simultaneous instruction, as they eliminate the need to erase the blackboard, allow all board writing to be saved, and enable a quick review of the previous lesson at the start of class. However, in Japanese-style homeroom classrooms where teachers move between rooms every hour, electronic whiteboards required screen adjustments every class, which took time to start. Like setting up and wired-connecting non-permanent laptops each time, it was a laborious task, making them unsuitable for daily use until wireless connections became widespread.

Around 2010, Learning Management Systems (LMS) came into the spotlight. Classes at Keio Futsubu School also use Moodle, established by the Research Center for Foreign Language Education, to present teaching materials and submit assignments online.

Moodle is an open-source platform used in over 200 countries, overwhelming other systems in terms of supported languages and number of sites. It has over one million users worldwide, and academic societies have been established in Japan to promote research on its utilization. Based on the concept of social constructivism, it provides activities and resources helpful for forming learning communities.

In my classes, I use the forum function for writing instruction, which is useful for students to read others' writing and submit revised versions. The Center's Moodle courses are kept for four years, and I believe it is excellent that students can visualize and reflect on their learning records and changes (differences) even after graduating from Keio Futsubu School.

The operation of "personal accounts," which standardized user IDs that were previously fragmented across systems into one per student, began in 2019. The use of G Suite for Education (now Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals) started, and IDs in email address format with restricted email functions were assigned.

The core system is Google Classroom (GC), a system that allows for everything from distributing and submitting assignments to communication and video conferencing in a centralized manner. GC began being used in subject classes and expanded to homerooms, school events, and club activities.

During the temporary school closure from March to early June last year, regular classes could not be held, so GC was fully utilized. To ensure assignments could be submitted via GC or Google Forms, all teachers began using it, establishing a foundation for online classes. It felt as though two years' worth of digital transformation occurred at Keio Futsubu School in just two months.

We attempted to set up "office hours" using on-demand distribution and video conferencing, and to identify and follow up with students who were not successfully adapting to online classes.

There were also failure stories. When a teacher checked submissions or answered questions late at night, the notification function worked instantly, leading to reports from students that they were too anxious to sleep. As the volume of questions and submissions increased, it generated a massive amount of work, and we experienced the difficulty of controlling time in non-face-to-face classes.

LoiLoNote School is used in multiple subjects alongside GC. LoiLo is a system that can easily visualize the thoughts of each individual student; when all students create and submit cards simultaneously, the cards can be shared among everyone instantly. It becomes clear at a glance who understood what and how.

Since images and videos can be pasted onto cards, if students record and submit video of a speech they filmed themselves, it is possible for everyone to perform presentation assignments at the same time. Activities that go beyond the framework of simultaneous instruction became possible during class. Recently, perhaps due to the increase in classes using various systems besides LoiLo, a dilemma has arisen where traffic volume increases, slowing down the network and causing connection issues during class.

In English classes, recitation is performed using flashcards called Quizlet. The evolution of speech synthesis is remarkable, with almost no awkwardness. In writing instruction, the AI system that provides feedback for Cambridge Write & Improve is new. It uses sentences written by non-native speakers as a corpus (database), identifies common errors from big data, and allows students to rewrite and resubmit as many times as they like.

The use of diverse systems has increased mechanisms to supplement limited class time and connect to home study. A Flipped Learning style has also become possible, where explanations and lecture-style elements previously done in the classroom are shifted to home study, allowing more time for exercises and collaborative learning during class.

Upon the introduction of one iPad per person, the following rules were established at the beginning of the academic year.

1. Do not take it out of your bag when commuting to or from school.

2. Do not use it without the instruction or permission of a teacher.

* When not in use for class, keep it in your locker or Keio Futsubu School bag.

* Do not use it without permission or do unrelated things during class.

* Use outside of class is permitted only in the presence of the subject teacher.

Concerns were also discussed, such as game addiction, late-night use, and viewing inappropriate sites. These were (supposed) to be solved with a remote management system called MDM (Mobile Device Manager). It is possible to remotely distribute necessary apps all at once, restrict downloadable apps, and control the sites students can view. Camera functions can also be controlled, and it is said that most anticipated concerns can be addressed. Previously, we had to check the charging and settings of each device one by one before class, so being freed from that task provided benefits to teachers that far outweighed the disadvantages.

In fact, the situation where all students have a tablet device at hand and can use it immediately in class is welcomed by many students. In a questionnaire survey using Google Forms conducted during the first class of the second semester on September 13 (answered by 211 third-year students), 170 (80%) evaluated it as "helping to acquire information utilization skills," and 106 (50%) as "enabling individually optimized learning tailored to each person's understanding and ability."

When asked to list the good points of learning using iPads etc. in the free-response section, more than 30 students mentioned points such as being notified of assignment deadlines or being able to submit assignments online. Additionally, more than 20 students noted that "I can immediately look up things I don't understand on the spot." Other points raised by students included "I can see the board writing at hand through screen sharing," "I can review the board writing after class," "I can take photos to record during experiments," and "The number of paper materials decreased, making my bag lighter."

On the other hand, 93 (44%) answered that "multi-tasking devices with various functions are distracting and reduce concentration on learning," 85 (40%) that "using digital devices causes high levels of fatigue," 80 (38%) that "using digital devices leads to a disruption of lifestyle habits," and 68 (32%) that "long-term internet use has a negative impact on brain development." In the free-response section, more than 20 students pointed out that "I get distracted because I can do other things like games and web surfing" and "I end up watching unrelated things like YouTube during class," with some mentioning that "the presence of such students worsens the atmosphere of the school."

More than 10 students answered, "I cannot concentrate, I give in to temptation," and a similar number mentioned, "My eyes get tired, my eyesight is failing."

Other comments included, "I wasted time by looking at unnecessary sites for a long time," "Even though I have something easy to use at hand, I can't use it during breaks; I want to be allowed to use it more," "Since I stop taking notes on the board, usual board writing feels very troublesome," "There are times when I can't submit assignments due to the internet connection status," and "I often see people using them secretly in school," highlighting off-task use during class and the inability to follow rules for use during breaks.

Although the questionnaire survey conducted this time was simple, it was meaningful to have the opportunity to hear the raw voices of the students. If they can acquire the ability to understand the pros and cons and manage their relationship with information terminals and the internet well, there would be no greater harvest.

With the increase in time spent at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the most noteworthy issue now is likely related to the prolonged use of the internet.

Ophthalmologists point out that an unprecedented "era of extreme myopia" has arrived. One cause of myopia is the increase in time spent on "near work," looking at things at a close distance of within 30 centimeters. As a result, the "length of the eye" from the cornea to the retina—the "axial length"—stretches, and the number of people with "axial myopia" is increasing. In fact, I also experienced hospitalization and surgery for retinal detachment in October last year and still suffer from inconveniences such as distortion as aftereffects. As someone who has experienced this, I believe that prolonged use and eye problems are issues that must be raised as a warning.

Another issue is related to internet addiction. This is a problem where life becomes prioritized around internet use, leading to an uncontrollable state that results in sleep disorders or depression, or where family relationships deteriorate due to verbal abuse or violence toward family members who offer warnings. In the case of students, it can lead to an inability to continue academic studies due to tardiness, poor grades, or school refusal. On the website of the Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center (formerly National Kurihama Hospital), which has worked on addiction research and treatment for many years, there is a screening test for internet addiction, which I introduced to students and had them answer. When I had them include their scores anonymously in the survey, the average value was 47.8 out of 100. While 30% of students were average users with a score of 39 or less and had "no problem," 60% scored 40 or more, indicating "some problems," and 7% scored 70 or more, indicating "serious problems." This test consists of 20 items and was developed in the US in 1998; although some parts are slightly outdated and do not fit current circumstances, I introduced it as a way to raise awareness.

When interviewing parents of students whose grades had plummeted, there were stories of being troubled because the rule that was previously an agreement until 10:00 PM had been broken, with the student claiming they had online assignments. As a school, we should not be giving out assignments that must be done at night, but there is a tendency for this to become an excuse for children.

In an era where the internet and information terminals have become generalized as social infrastructure, it is clear that there are limits to how much a school can regulate them. With terminals within reach anytime and anywhere, the possibility of falling into a state where one cannot control oneself is the same for both adults and children. In such times, it is becoming necessary to prepare a system where families and schools can provide support, offering counseling and various options for guidance. Deepening such knowledge will likely be one of the challenges for the future.