午夜剧场

With programming education becoming compulsory in elementary schools from the 2020 academic year, attention is growing regarding ICT-based education, including the promotion of one tablet per student in all schools and the introduction of digital textbooks.

However, it remains unclear in actual educational settings which grade level is appropriate to start ICT utilization or which subjects it should be used in. Therefore, at 午夜剧场 Yochisha Elementary School, in the class I supervise (currently 6th grade), we introduced one tablet per student starting from the 1st grade and began trial lessons by incorporating ICT utilization into the curriculum for subjects such as Japanese, Mathematics, and Life Studies (Integrated Studies).

This is because I believed it was important to use tablets as familiar stationery from the lower grades and to build learning habits over six years so that they can be used effectively as a new type of stationery. Even just during the lower grades, we conducted over 30 class hours of practice using tablet devices. This practice is still ongoing. Through these practices, the children mastered the correct use of tablet devices from an early stage and developed judgment, creativity, and the ability to utilize information regarding various learning tasks.

The records to date were compiled as a doctoral dissertation, but this book is an educational text that reconstructs that dissertation to be easy to understand and read, while adding the latest topics.

Through the use of tablet devices, we can see an expansion of possibilities not only in the acquisition of information literacy but also in the improvement of students' proactive attitudes toward learning, such as their interest, concern, and motivation. Furthermore, it has become a daily sight to see students solving problems themselves or teaching one another when they encounter difficulties with tablet operations.

I hope that school teachers and students will use this as a reference for ICT practices, and that parents will find it useful for home education.

Around the world, the use of tablet devices in schools has been introduced from an early stage, bringing out new possibilities and talents in children one after another. I would be honored if this serves as a reference for raising children who will live robustly as leaders in the AI era.

Tsugumasa Suzuki (Author)

Shodensha

200 pages, 1,400 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of writing.