Issues of Teacher Training for Media Information

Education and Leadership in Glocalization : What does “think globally, act locally” mean for education around the world? 21-24 2014 248 Observed Discrepancy of In-service Training for Media Information Literacy between Local and International YOSHIDA, Masami The Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Chiba University Advisor of Thailand Cyber University 2-12 Yayoi Inage Chiba 263-8522, Japan yoshida-mfaculty.chiba-u.jp THAMMETAR, Thapanee Faculty of Education, Silpakorn University Director of Thailand Cyber University Rachamakka Nai Rd., Muang Nakhon Pathom, Nakhonpathom 73000, Thailand kobthapaneegmail.com Abstract This investigational study aims to outline current awareness state of Japanese in-service teachers in comparison with an international trend. A study was conducted to value priority vectors of selected literacy items by ICT training leader. Besides, a questionnaire method for in-service teachers to know their training experiences and opinions of training necessity was done. As indicators, eleven media information literacy items proposed by UNESCO were used. As results, almost half of in-service teachers answered that they did not know the meaning of literacy items in the questionnaire. And, awareness of latest introduced literacy items that included civic and life-long education of in-service teachers was lower, but these were valued to be the higher necessities of training by ICT training leaders. Then, the authors concluded that appropriate training curriculum of media information literacy that included globally spreading countermeasures of information society problems should be introduce to enhance awareness of in-service teachers in addition to the enrichment of school education by ICT. Keywords: Media Information Literacy, Local Awareness, In-service Teacher Training

1 Introduction

Educational Ministry hereinafter MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan advocated ‘the vision for ICT in education’ in 2011 MEXT, 2011. Continuously, active use of ICT in learning has been promoted and installation of equipment and network environment was processed. However, shortage of governmental budget assistances aroused an impasse. Also, teacher training is crucial part for disseminating ICT in education, but the teacher training is mandated to each local government under our de-centralized public school system. Therefore, it needs detailed investigation should be done to know actual figure and issues of Media Information Literacy hereinafter abbreviated as MIL of teachers. In particular, we never have experience to have teacher training with society, such as MIL training with civic education, lifelong education, or democratic education, those contents seen in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization hereinafter abbreviated as UNESCO. Then, the purpose of this investigational study is to know the state of current awareness of school teachers in Japan by referring eleven MIL items proposed by UNESCO.

1.1 Issues of Teacher Training for Media Information

Literacy in Japan According to a survey by the MEXT, regional disparities of teachers’ MIL competencies were rather significant. In fact, only 19.2 of teachers experienced training of the ICT utilization in teaching MEXT, 2010. It is urgently necessary to enhance teachers’ ability to utilize ICT in teaching and to redress regional disparities. The government must make efforts to provide training to in-service teachers, in collaboration with universities as necessary, Education and Leadership in Glocalization : What does “think globally, act locally” mean for education around the world? 21-24 2014 249 while paying attention to the division of roles with local governments. Cited from MEXT, 2011, op.cit., p.32 Therefore, a university needs to have further close relation with educational board of rural government office to develop MIL training with international standard. 2 Historical Overview of MIL MIL has been grown through international working sessions for more than 40 years. Meanwhile, MIL had admitted to involve an important element of contemporary culture and focused towards encouraging citizen’s active participation in society. Summarizing changes of MIL from the historical view, focus of related competencies have been variegated gradually. Here, decode message, encode message, communicate and socialize in this order are keywords of focus enhancement. Besides, used media also have been variegated. Table 1 shows the brief summary of changes in MIL of UNESCO, and we arranged it by selecting criteria to draw the situation of target teachers in this study. And, basic to the target of this study is the assumption that change of MIL training in Japan is stagnant same time as when the Vienna conference came. On the contrary, actual deployment of media use in society is much sophisticated and advanced. This discrepancy implies another problem of Japanese teacher training, and an effective measure should be taken to change the stubborn exclusiveness of social awareness in MIL of Japan. 3 Role of School Teacher In Paris agenda, a recommendation to strengthen of civic education was included. Media education contributes to people’s empowerment and a shared sense of responsibility in society and as such is part of citizenship and human rights education. Cited from UNESCO, 2007, p.2. Continuously, UNESCO offered revised MIL with 11 items Cheung et al., 2011.  Media Literacy  Information Literacy  Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Information Literacy  Library Literacy  News Literacy  Computer Literacy  Internet Literacy  Digital Literacy  Cinema Literacy  Games Literacy  Television Literacy, and Advertising Literacy The last three literacy items were added after Paris agenda, 2007. The latest curriculum of teacher training also included the civic education movement. Then, the MIL curriculum for teachers was designed to develop their understanding of the importance of fundamental freedoms and rights as an integral part of civic education, first in the classroom environment and also in the local and global environments. As they increase their proficiency in teaching MIL for a variety of functions, teachers become champions of MIL in the school system and in the wider society. Cited from Cheung et al., op.cit., p.28. As the trend of revised MIL, literacy of social media has appeared more than literacy of public media.

4 Methods

In this research, we conducted the following two questionnaire studies to know the situation of school teachers by measuring their subjective ratings. Throughout overall process of investigation, we referred MIL items offered by UNESCO. Subjects are in-service teachers in Chiba prefecture and the following data outline ICT facility and infrastructure of Table 1: Changes of Media Information Literacy Year UNESCO Usage Media Enhancement 1982 Grünwald declaration Materials Public media Decode message 1990 Toulouse conference   Encode message 1998 Vienna conference Tools Personal media Communication 2005 Alexandria proclamation  Social media  2007 Paris agenda Environment  Socialize Education and Leadership in Glocalization : What does “think globally, act locally” mean for education around the world? 21-24 2014 250 their areas and schools MEXT, 2013. Student Computer Ratio = 8.3 Internet Connection Rate of Classrooms = 98.1 Internet with NGN Next Generation Network= 99.4 Survey date: 1st March, 2013 Location of Chiba prefecture is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1: Location of Chiba Prefecture 4.1 Importance of MIL Items A questionnaire method of paired comparison was done to know importance of MIL items evaluated by leader teachers who attend ‘the audio visual and media education training for leaders’ coordinated by the Chiba prefectural in-service teacher training center. Date: 20 August, 2012 Subjects: Six leader teachers of ICT and media education Method: Paper questionnaire with paired comparison Items: Five selected MIL competencies: ‘Media Literacy,’ ‘Computer Literacy’, ‘Cinema Literacy,’ ‘Games Literacy’ and ‘Television Literacy, and Advertising Literacy.’ Scale of paired comparison: Table 2 shows the intensity of importance of paired comparison. Here, we selected five items from 11 literacy items. Because omitted six items had larger number of ‘I don’t know’ answers of school teachers. This elimination measure included addressing of information processing theory Miller, 1956 and gave them concentration on paired comparison. Table 2: Intensity of Importance of Paired Comparison Intensity of importance Definition 1 Equal importance 3 Somewhat more important 5 Much more important 7 Very much more important 9 Absolutely more important For calculation, we used a geometric mean by considering Weber–Fechner law, and also geometric means were used to calculate means of six leaders’ responses.

4.2 Experiences and Recognition of MIL Items