【School Interview】Aiming for Digital Shift through Children's Voluntary Use of ICTs: Digital Citizenship Education at Notre Dame Elementary School

The following is an interview of Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa and Mr. Tsubota at Notre Dame Elementary School. Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa and Mr. Tsubota are leading the way in digital citizenship education using DQ World since 2021, and we asked them about his thoughts on media education and the use of DQ World in the classroom.

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Topic 1## Background and Introduction

[Cyber Felix] 
Please tell us about the current state of ICT education at Notre Dame Elementary School and the process of introducing DQ World.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
Due to the pandemic, the school was shut down at the end of February 2020, but after the Golden Week holidays in May, we restarted classes online again. The decision was made in a meeting of ICT teachers, one for each grade level, to set up an environment for online teaching after the end of the Golden Week holidays in May 2020. This could not have been achieved without the hard work of the ICT teachers, who had already introduced one iPad to each student in grades 4 and above for three or four years prior to the introduction of online classes.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
After this, the next major goal was to get to a point where ICT could be used on a daily basis. But having read books on digital citizenship, I learned that at this stage various problems and troublesome situations would likely occur. However, as a result of believing that it would be beneficial for the children in the future, we pushed forward.  Now I see that each teacher is moving forward while thinking about what is the best way to use ICT, such as not letting the children use it during breaks.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
However, there are many aspects of ICT education that have not yet been verified, such as what effects it has on the brain, as both parents and teachers are very concerned about the health aspects thereof. If you ask me whether we are responsible for these aspects, I think it is very worrying, but if you ask me whether it is okay to not use ICT, I would respond that the world is no longer structured in a way that would allow us to overlook ICT. Hence, when it becomes necessary to live with something, I would like to see guidelines on how to acquire needed skills.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
That's when I came across the term digital citizenship, and when I looked into programmes in Europe and the US that are advanced in this area, I realized that digital citizenship itself is rather more important than digital skills themselves. The digital is one aspect in citizenship education, which develops non-cognitive skills such as morality, religion, relationships with others and how to build a civil society. Therefore, in terms of language, I think citizenship should come first, but the digitalization part of the GIGA concept is something that teachers also need to learn. As such, I thought it was beneficial and possible to handle both of these aspects.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
I think the advantage of the digital citizenship education as taught by DQ World, in terms of the school education system, is that there is a set curriculum, and if you follow it, a certain amount of digital citizenship learning can be carried out. It is very easy for children to understand what steps they should actually take. I also thought it was attractive that the children currently in school could start learning immediately before they graduate.

Topic 2## Classroom Practice and Scheduling

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
This year, we started learning in the second semester. We decided on the framework of education, but in terms of actual practice, it was still a little difficult to see where we were going to put DQ World  into our timetable. However, I think it is very good that we were able to have this interview, aso we were able to set a timetable and say, "We'll get to it by this point".

[Mr. Tsubota]
I think it was good for the fifth graders that we were able to use screen time, which is the first skill of digital citizenship, in class this time. In fact, I feel that the children are learning through fun and simulated experiences on the DQ World platform.

[Mr. Tsubota.]
Students ask to use DQ World during breaks too, so I think it's great that they are learning along with the structure of the material, where they can collect points and so on. On the other hand, as a homeroom teacher, I want the children to separate what they can do at school and what they can do at home, as I told them in class. It is also good that the children can calculate their own screen time in DQ World and memorize it sensitively, and that they can look back on each category in class and what they were learning.

[Mr. Tsubota]
The teachers have discussed that it would be good if they could continue to teach classes at least once a month each. This time, I made the entire flow of the class in my Keynote and shared it with the other teachers, but I feel that it would be a very high hurdle for each homeroom teacher to prepare for a digital citizenship class in the future.

[Mr. Tsubota]
In addition, as I told the children in today's class, "You are more digitally native than me."  I think there is a possibility that the position of teaching in front of a class will come to an end in the future, for example, because the children know much more than me. In textbooks, the teachers often know more than the children, but when it comes to the digital, the children who have been exposed to it from the beginning of their livesmore often know more. Therefore, I think it is necessary to prepare for the class over a longer period of time.

[Cyber Felix]
In other schools where DQ World has been introduced, the children study DQ World at home beforehand, and then give a presentation about the zone in class in a flipped learning style. Do you plan to develop this type of class format in the future?

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
After trying to incorporate flipped learning and project-based learning in other subjects, I still feel that it is important for teachers to have an awareness of their role as facilitators and coaches, rather than being a repository of knowledge. Hence, I think that digital citizenship classes have a great affinity for project-based learning and it would be better if it was used in such a class.

Topic 3## Changing Attitudes and Expectations of Teaching Staff

[CyberFelix]
Have there been any changes in the awareness of teachers and staff towards the use of ICT as a result of the introduction of DQ World?

[Mr. Tsubota]
To be honest, we need to make more use of it. In fact, we had a very slow start, so I think that in another month or two this will start to come out a little bit more.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
I think a change in mindset will occur when each homeroom teacher takes up the challenge from the basis that Mr Tsubota has created. It will no longer be the idea that a specialized department will undertake ICT education, but that it will become its own thing, and that's what I expect.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
I also think that digital citizenship in the lower grades will be important in the future, and if we can create repeated learning opportunities over six years, children's learning will improve significantly. Right now, we are trying to implement the DQ World curriculum in two years for grades 5 and 6, but I thought it would be great if we could come up with a coherent schedule for how to build a solid foundation up to grade 4.

[Cyber Felix]
In terms of connecting the lower and upper grades, there is a case study of a school in Toda City where a workshop was held for pupils in grades 1, 2 and 3, in which students started working on DQ World in the fourth grade to solidify their digital citizenship foundations. In addition, we will be introducing an add-on function to include furigana in DQ World in the future, so that DQ World itself can be introduced to the lower grades. In terms of lessons, we are also developing teaching plans for different levels, such as lower primary school, upper primary school and junior high school.  We hope that you will make use of these tools as well.

Topic 4## What We Want Children to Achieve

[Cyber Felix]
Do you have a vision of what you would like children to become in terms of using ICT through learning with DQ World in the future?

[Mr. Tsubota]
I hope that they will be able to judge when they should use their iPad and exercise self-control during breaks. In addition, in Japanese classes, when we tell the students that they can write their thoughts honestly in their impressions, some of them write words that appear on SNS. I think it would be great if the children could naturally make the decision that even if they are being honest, they need to choose their words with the understanding that they will later be made public for everyone to see. I would be happy if the children could see what they have learnt somewhere, even if it is just in one everyday situation.

[Mr. Tsubota]
I think it's also a good idea to choose DQ World topics that match the timing of related subject topics. It is easy to do so because DQ World is divided into eight digital citizenship skills. I expect that I will be able to connect more with the students in class, saying, 'we saw such a video on DQ World'.

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
At the moment, I think that children are not yet aware of how to better use iPads. For example, there is an organization called the Beautification Committee that announces which class has the cleanest shoeboxes, but they only say which class has received this award. I think it would be better if the children were given data on what criteria were used, how they were investigated and how the Committee  came to this conclusion.

[Mr. Tsubota]
As a means of doing this, you can use spreadsheets on the iPad to input data and make graphs. Unlike in the past, when there were no tablets, if you can visually show the results of a contest, the children will be more convinced. And since they can see what the decision points are, they can think about how to make a better shoebox. I think that ICT can be used for this kind of thought-provoking activity.

[Mr. Tsubota]　
I imagine that the core of the use of ICT is for children to be able to choose good ways to use it and think about it on their own. The next step is for students to be able to lead their school life in this way on their own initiative.

Topic 5## Message to Schools that Want to Start Digital Citizenship Education

[Vice-Principle Mr. Arakawa]
I think the message that DQ World is conveying is that the future is bright. This message promotes the awareness of citizenship, which I mentioned at the beginning, that you and everyone else should live happily, and certainly sounds like a lot of fun. I don't see it as such a difficult thing, but something fun and enjoyable to learn.

[Mr. Tsubota]
I also think that DQ World will help children understand that ICT is fun to use and has a positive effect on them, as long as they have a firm grasp of the rules that are taken for granted when they enter society. When you try to teach, you tend to say 'no' and 'no', and this is one of the great points of DQ World, children can learn spontaneously based on a certain set of rules.

[CyberFelix]
-Thank you very much!

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\\ Voices of pupils who have started learning with DQ World //

When we spoke to children who started  learning with DQ World, they told us about their impressions. 

◎ "I want to make this kind of game in the future, and I want to do this kind of work, too.
◎ "I sometimes do this with my parents." I was able to think about how to use the internet again with my mother because she would interrupt me from the side and tell me to be careful online."

We hope that DQ World will become the  bridge to a balanced use of devices at home and at school.