Japan will soon start trialling electronic textbooks in primary schools, enhancing the role of IT in the classroom for a generation of “digital natives” born in the wired age.
Under the “future school” project, elementary schools will give all their under-12 pupils tablet PCs and fit their classrooms with interactive electronic blackboards starting as early as next month.
The networked devices boast software that lets them trace complex Chinese characters on-screen or exchange ideas on a virtual white sheet of paper in real time, while a teacher digitally monitors their work.
Japan, despite its status as a high-tech pioneer, lags behind South Korea, Singapore, Britain and other countries in IT use in education, said an official with the communications ministry, which is running the pilot programme.
Nurturing Japan’s human re-sources is seen as crucial for the resource-poor island nation with a shrinking population, and a newly-adopted government growth strategy aims to give every student a computer by 2020.
Publishers of textbooks, software and other educational materials showed off their latest cutting-edge goods for the wired classrooms of tomorrow at the industry fair the New Education Expo in Tokyo.
Toshiba has developed a tablet PC designed for educational use called the CM1, together with US microprocessor giant Intel, which will be used in the “future school” project along with devices made by Fujitsu.
One of the software programmes for it is CollaboNote by JR Shikoku Communication Ware, which allows pupils to share a virtual sheet of paper, to write, read and share information in real time.
It can link students within the classroom but also in remote locations, allowing them to discuss and study a common subject. The programme can help shy students, said the company’s Kazuaki Aonuma.
The company said it has already shipped 5,000 of its software packages to elementary and junior high schools for students aged under 15, charging about 750,000 yen (€6,529) per school.
Today’s children are dubbed “digital natives” because they have been exposed to information technology since they were born, and they quickly embrace such new tools, said JR Shikoku Communication’s Takayuki Furuno.