International Journal for Educational Media and Technology
2018, Vol.12, No. 1, pp.6-17

Development and Practical Use of e-Learning to Support Students
During Fieldwork in the Local Community
Kenji Inoue
Osaka University, Japan
ino@chega.osaka-u.ac.jp
Hiroshi Nakashima
University of Nagasaki, Japan
nakashima@sun.ac.jp
Kazunori Otsuka
University of Nagasaki, Japan
otsuka@sun.ac.jp
Katsuaki Suzuki
Kumamoto University, Japanksuzuki@kumamoto-u.ac.jp
Our research question is whether we can nurture students’ self-efficacy and problem finding and solving skills with theleast interference from teachers, with a help of the ICT in PBL and fieldwork as the university classes.
In the previous research, we found a desirable PBL should be a one which has least teachers’ interference, such asproviding goals or leading the discussion by the teachers. But in our PBL classes conducted in the previous year, we foundno interference tends to lead students fail in the project. So, we developed a Learning Management System which contains
the following three components; 1) Enabling students to make well-structured fieldwork plans by themselves. 2)
Visualizing the procedure of the interaction between the students and field residents. 3) Visualizing the students’ moving
on site.
With this LMS we succeeded to reduce the number of project failure and increased good actions of the students.

Keywords: e-Learning, Fieldwork, LMS, Project-Based Learning (PBL)

Introduction
The ultimate goal of this research is to find what is the best kind of support for students and to nurture students’problem finding and problem solving skills through the actual fieldwork and Project Based Learning. We havedeveloped a system which enables students to learn by doing (and not teaching) through the problem solving process– students find the problems by themselves, research and think to find their own answers, check the answers criticallyand present them to the people to whom they are related.
For the first year of the project (which was in 2014), we developed a PBL program, called the “Shimanabi Program”.
The PBL course is a mandatory class and all the students of the University of Nagasaki participate in it to solve theproblem of the Nagasaki rural area, which consists of a lot of islands. At first, we (the teachers) designed this program
based on a learner-centered model in which we prioritize the students’ autonomy as much as possible. But the resultof the first year was not as good as we expected, such as poor fieldwork plans, inconsistency of goals and results, andunattained plans caused by the lack of previous research.
Of course, we could have changed our syllabus and program design to strengthen teachers’ role and interference, but,instead, we added some features to the original LMS “manabie” which guides students to design the project bythemselves and lets the teachers observe the process of the project based on the previous research results.

Literature review
In the first year of our “Shimanabi Program” in 2014, the LMS only contained project life cycle management, setting
and submitting the group report and final reporting. But, as we mentioned, many of the students’ projects failed in

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vain. So, we thought we needed to add some more features to the LMS which controls the quality of PBL and studied
the previous research. At first, we reviewed the paper by Thomas (2000) to decide how to modify the LMS, as thispaper reviews the previous papers related to PBL. Thomas defines five criteria of the PBL as centrality, driving
question, constructive investigations, students’ autonomy and realism. The “centrality” means, in the PBL, that the“project” should be the center of the curriculum. A project should be “focused on questions or problems that drive
students to encounter the central concepts and principles of a discipline”. For the students, they should keep attaining
new knowledge and skills to solve the problems. And, finally, the project needs to be “student-driven” and “realistic,
not school-like” to the students. Also, according to Thomas (2000), “Using technology in project-based science makes
the environment mode authentic to students, because the computer provides access to data and information, expands
interaction and collaboration with others via networks, promotes laboratory investigation, and emulates tools experts
use to produce artifacts” (Krajcik et al.,1994).
Hmelo-Silver (2004) define more precise conditions which leads the PBL to success. Table 1 shows the six conditionsof the project-based science approach. According to this table, “Problem” is defined as the “driving question”, andother criteria are largely in common with Thomas’s criteria. Hmelo-Silver also mentions “computer –based tools
support planning, data collection and analysis, modeling and information gathering.”
Based on these previous reviews, we redesigned the PBL “Shimanabi Program”, especially focused on the “driving
questions” and process control introducing some features to the LMS tool.
Table 1
Approaches to Learning Situated in Problem-Solving Experiences (Hmelo-Silver, 2004)
ProblemRole of problem
Process
Role of teacher
Collaboration
Tools

Driving Question
Focus for scientific inquiry process leading to artifact production
Prediction, observation, explanation cycles
Introduce relevant content before and during inquiry
Guides inquiry process
Negotiation of ideas with peers and local community members
Computer-based tools that support planning, data collection and analysis, modeling, andinformation-gathering

Methodology
Our research is to substantiate the revised syllabus of PBL and LMS are effective through actual PBL classes of the“Shimanabi Program” which was not successful in the previous year.
In the first program, conducted in 2014, we used commercially available LMS “manabie” for submitting reports ofthe group discussion. But we found many of the projects failed because of the inconsistency between goals andmethods, unachieved goals expected in the plan and lack of previous research. We used the Hmelo-Silver table (Table
1) to analyze the cause of failure, and we found the actual problems of the first “Shimanabi Program”, as shown in
Table 2. In the first practice, we lacked a system to promote collaboration between students and local residents. Also,
we did not define the role of the teachers, and the teachers did nothing or over interfered. To solve these problems,
we set up a local coordinator who could bridge the students and local residents, defined the role of teachers anddeveloped a material which explained how to do PBL through students own thoughts and decisions.
In addition to the overall modifications, we decided to develop our own LMS based on the existing “manabie” toreduce the interference of teachers and promote the autonomous actions of the students without scarifying the qualityof the project result. The new functions of the modified LMS are the following:- Visualizing and guided problem setting tool for students to make well-structured fieldwork plans- Visualizing and checking the interaction between students and local residents- Schedule planner for fieldwork (teachers can check it remotely)- Travel planner (reservation of transportation to the island)- Budgetary control

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Table 2
PBL Approaches in the “Shimanabi Program”
ProblemRole ofProblem
Process

Role ofteacher
CollaborationTools

In 2014
Teacher provided the
problems to solve
What the teachers
want students to learn
Planning->Do>Presentation
The plan is revised and
added
to
the
worksheet made at thestartAdministration of thestudents. Answering
the questions, if any
Group work of thestudents
A worksheet to put theplans down

In 2015
Teacher encourages students to find their own problems, but does
not present them concrete ones.
The actual problems were provided by the local coordinator, but they
are not the only ones to solve. Students can find their own problems.
Themes for the students to think over to solve for the future
Plan -> Presentation of the Plan -> Obtain feedback from teachers >Do -> Presentation of the result -> Obtain feedback
Structured the plan and showed the process leading from theoverview to detailed action
Observation and check of the procedure of the reports submitted by
the individual student and groups
Teachers interferes only the communication between the students andlocal residents fails
Collaboration by the communication between the students and local
residents in the community
Visualizing tool show the structure the plans
Promoting the communication between the students and local
residents
Travel planner, Budget control
Searching and referring to the previous samples of PBL

What is the “Shimanabi Program”?
The “Shimanabi Program” is a mandatory course of the University of Nagasaki consisting of two classes, “Learn in
the islands in Nagasaki” and “Fieldwork in the islands” (Figure 1). This program was implemented with the aid of the
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT, 2014). The country thinks that young people
deeply understanding the attractiveness and challenges of the region will be a means to solve the problem of rural
population decline.
The “Shimanabi Program” basic procedure, A – D, has not been changed over 2014 -15, but we have modified thedetailed process, such as how to provide the problems, the way to plan the fieldwork and the presentation, as shownin Table 2. The detailed modified schedule of the class is shown in Figure 2.
A group consists of around 10 students, and a teacher supervises the group as the facilitator. Each group travels to
one of the remote islands of Nagasaki by ship and conducts fieldwork for about a week in the island. The fieldwork
is aimed at finding the problems of the island and solving them. After the fieldwork is finished, students get the
feedback from the residents about the analysis and plans proposed to them for the revision. The final result (student
report) will be presented to the local government.

Figure 1. The courses in the “Shimanabi Program”

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Figure 2. Course schedule of Learn in the islands in Nagasaki

Our original LMS “manabie”
Our original LMS “manabie (Figure 3)” is a system developed based on the idea that a new framework of e-learningis needed considering support for fieldwork. The trial in 2014 was implemented by combining “manaba course2”, aready-made LMS, and Google Document and Spreadsheet. After we distributed a template (with entry examples) ofa worksheet and explained how to advance discussions, students created their group plans. However, because thetemplate was assumed to be used for output on paper, the following problems arose: relations between the columnsof purpose, goal and method of achievement are difficult to see visually (e.g., even if irrelevant sentences are mixed
in, students are only slightly aware of it). Also, even when a means of transportation is incorrect, if students orteachers are not aware of it, then they go to fieldwork without correction (e.g., even when the order of visits waschanged and, consequently, the distance lengthened from 1km to 10km, the mode of travel remained “walking”).
Some groups had situations in which discussions were stagnant and moved forward only slightly. The university as awhole wants to grasp destination arrangements and transportation expenses related to fieldwork. Therefore, a list
must be made manually. Because it was assumed that the burden would become too heavy for teaching staff if
fieldwork for 600 people was implemented in 2015, we investigated functions and earlier studies related to “support
for fieldwork.” Collaborative learning online includes those realized with existing tools, such as those described for astudy by Ohsaki and Fukawa (2015), and with plug-ins running on LMSs, such as those described by Nagaoka, Niwa,
Hiraoka, and Kita (2015). However, we found no function to break PBL and fieldwork into small steps or to checkthem automatically. For that reason, we developed an LMS “manabie” specialized for fieldwork support. The “manabie”
has been used since 2015. Although it was the first e-learning operation at the University of Nagasaki overall, allstudents were able to create their fieldwork plans. All conducted fieldwork without confusion. The “manabie” is used
not only for planning of “Learn in the islands in Nagasaki”, but also in “Fieldwork in the Islands”, for tasks such asdata accumulation, submission of daily reports, communication during fieldwork and for creation of works after
returning to the university. The state of individual work and group work to be submitted can be understood at a glance(Figure 3). We also produced screens for teachers clarifying the states of various students. Additionally, we madeavailable multi-dimensional evaluation, including Assessment of Fundamental Competencies for Working Persons(self-evaluation) and mutual evaluation, using evaluation tools other than conventional tests and reports.
Assigning importance to the intent of the program, in that students identify issues and create and execute a plan, wedeveloped the system to minimize deficiencies in plans to the greatest extent possible by students themselves
ascertaining the big picture of their plans: by grasping the state of progress and by becoming aware of deficiencies
through automatic calculation of the consistency of transportation and time. The following five functions wereparticularly difficult to realize using existing LMSs.
1. Visualizing and guided problem setting tool for students to make well-structured fieldwork plans
2. Visualizing and checking the interaction between students and local residents
3. Schedule planner for fieldwork (teachers can check it remotely)
4. Travel planner (reservation of transportation to the island)
5. Budgetary control
We describe implementation of the respective functions of “manabie” in the next section and thereafter.

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Figure 3. Front page for students from “manabie"

Visualizing and guided problem setting tool for students to make well-structured fieldwork plans
Using the worksheet that has been used since the beginning of group work in “Learn in the islands in Nagasaki”,
students think about “Theme”, “Meaning for the Islands” and “Novelty and differences from previous ones”
individually. They then come together, each bringing their own ideas. After examining the ideas using KJ method, theysubmit it as a group report. This is done in the sixth through seventh classes of “Basic Plan (Plan #1)” in the lessonplan shown in Figure 2. Following the eighth class, students gather together in groups to check issues that students
considered and submitted individually in the seventh session by all members of a group in terms of “goals to beachieved” and “methods of achievement” based on their theme (there is a list screen). They organize the goals andmethods as a group after having a discussion. Then, they make a report (Figure 4).
The work up to this point is called the “Base Plan”, which represents the planning stage in the context of a project.
Although “Theme”, “Meaning for the Islands”, “Goals to be achieved” and “Methods of achievement” were arranged
separately in a trial version of the worksheet, “Goals to be achieved” and “Methods of achievement” were structured
into the “manabie.” In doing so, we gave consideration to enable students themselves to check visually whether the
methods are satisfying the goals.

Figure 4. Group report screen for the Basic Plan(Plan #1)
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Visualizing and checking the interaction between students and local residents
The screen shown in Figure 5, which is to be used for “Implementation Plan”, has a function for students to findFigure 5. Group report screen for the Implementation Plan(Plan #2)
local cooperators by themselves or ask local coordinators to introduce them, as needed. “Completed” and “Not yet
dealing with” shown in “Concrete measures” in Figure 5 indicate whether local coordinators have arranged local
cooperators for each concrete measure. For local coordinators, we prepare a screen that is specialized in handling thearrangement apart from the screen to enable them to check concrete measures that students have input, including
whether they must be dealt with or not. When checking each concrete measure and thinking that the content isincomplete or has an ambiguous part, local coordinators can ask students questions or make comments. The condition
can be understood by balloon icons under “Completed” and “Not yet dealing with” on the screen for students (Figure5). When a balloon part of each concrete measure or “Editing” is opened, a detailed editing screen (Figure 6) isdisplayed to check the content of comments and to edit concrete measures, as needed. If a comment has arrived froma local coordinator, students must send back the response status (from three statuses of “Dealing with completed”,“Currently dealing with” and “Not yet dealing with”). (By selecting the status in the lower right part of the commentand closing the screen, the status is sent back to the local coordinator.) The mutual confirmation of the status servesto prevent oversights in the following routine: students rewrite the content of concrete measures, responding toquestions from a local coordinator as comments, and send “Dealing with completed”; then, the local coordinator
checks the contents once again and arranges cooperators. To avoid overlooking important information because of
information overload in the comments section and to be able to conduct mutual exchange (revised plans andcomments) without confusion, we intentionally removed comments from students.

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Figure 6. Editing screen of the Implementation Plan

Schedule planner for fieldwork
To set a schedule, various elements, including a geographical sense of the site, appointments with local cooperatorsand physical constraints, are needed. It is a very difficult activity under the circumstances, in which many students who
have never been to “the Islands” are involved. By structuring the elements and establishing the order, we gave
educational consideration to students to be able to advance scheduling independently.
A schedule is to be set in two stages, in the 12th session and in the 13th through 14th classes. In the former ,12th class,students create a rough action plan and divide roles in each concrete measure. The 13th and 14th classes are, as a
“Final Plan, to create a plan for means of transportation and accommodation within the islands and accompanying
materials (in a form of questionnaire survey in the case of Figure 6).
With regard to the “Final Plan”, we present an explanation in the next section. Figure 7 presents a screen to build up
a rough action plan. By the session, the plan has been advanced to a condition in which concrete measures are almost
solidified with the worksheet as shown in Figure 5. The session is to check, with a bird’s-eye view, whether the schedule
is reasonable or not, dividing it into preliminary investigation, fieldwork (first day to fifth day) and post investigation
work. If local cooperators designate time, then the schedule will be fixed. Otherwise, students can decide forthemselves. Merely dragging “Concrete measures” on the left to “Itinerary” on the right changes the order, etc.,
immediately. Students can share such information with local coordinators and grasp advice to gather near sites together
to make a visit on the same day (improved transportation efficiency). Moreover, they can grasp incorrect inputs andinconsistency in taking advice.
For the 12th session, we prepare a setting screen to allocate tasks to group members in addition to the screen shownin Figure 7. It visually displays who is in charge of which concrete measure for each member, which can prevent an
imbalance of roles within a group.
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Figure 7. A screen to build up a rough action plan

Travel planner (reservation of transportation to the islands)
During the 13th and 14th classes, students access a screen to input details of itinerary, such as transportation within
the islands, accommodation and lunch (Figure 8), as a “Final Plan.”In the classes, in addition to concrete measures (fieldwork) from the first day to the fifth day, as shown in Figure 7,
students set up transportation within the islands, meals, accommodation, and drop-by spots (to use for short-time
activities, such as rest). The university has a rule that rental cars driven by students will not be used as transportationon the islands. Students can choose a means of transportation at the island from six alternatives: route bus, taxi, pickup service, walking, short-distance ferry and chartered bus. In the case shown in Figure 8, the part displaying a few
lines and placed between “India Port” and “Ice City Hall” represents the means of transportation. (Walking to a bus
stop is attached to before and after the transportation by bus, which produces three itineraries.) Clicking the part takes
the user to a detailed editing screen (Figure 9).
The screen portrayed in Figure 9 is used to input and change the means of transportation, which displays an exampleof “route bus” in the figure. When changing the means of transportation to any other service, students can choose
another mode of transportation described above by clicking the lower right button.
As an input support function for “route bus”, the “manabie” is equipped with timetables and bus stop maps. It displays
a bus stops map covering the starting and arriving addresses (Figure 10) to enable students to choose bus stops to geton and off from near bus stops. Having chosen bus stops both for getting on and off, students can automaticallysearch and input the route between the two stops. The bus stop map displays open data (bus stops and bus routes)
released by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (2017) on Google Maps in a layered fashion.
The mechanism itself is available for route buses across the country. However, because home pages of local routebuses often have no function for transfer guide, the input function was equipped with the system.

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Figure 8. A Screen of the final plan (Plan #3)

Figure 9. A screen of editing transportation

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Map from ©Google, ZENRIN

Figure 10. A screen of choosing bus stop

Budgetary control (costs for plans)
The program has a system in which expenses related to transportation to “the Islands” (ferry, etc.), transportation
within the islands and accommodation are borne by the university. There is an upper limit on costs for transportationon the islands during fieldwork not to exceed the budgetary ceiling and to maintain impartiality among students.
Students must plan, grasping the costs which have been incurred.
For that reason, the “manabie” has a function for students to estimate roughly how much in costs will be incurred forthe itinerary in the final plan that they are creating. Figure 11 portrays a screen to check the differences in the amounts
between a taxi and route bus. Because a taxi is sometimes cheaper, students check it and do planning. The amounts
are estimated roughly based on fares for respective bus companies and fare charts of taxi companies. Although the
choice of route makes a difference in the case of a taxi, the function enables students to get a rough grasp. In addition,
the total amount for five days can be checked on a screen for students.
A function for administrators enables teaching staff to download data of the total amount for each group to check
whether there is any budgetary problem before implementing fieldwork.

Figure 11. A screen to compare the fee and cost

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Evaluation
We evaluated how the 2015 implementation, which used “manabie”, changed from its trial version of 2014, based on
the results of a questionnaire administered after fieldwork (Figure 12).
Items 1 and 2 are items related to preliminary planning. Items 3 through 5 are those related to fieldwork. Item 6 ispresented by dividing free descriptive answers into three clusters and others. We tested differences between the twoyears for each item and placed an asterisk where a significant difference was found.
With regard to planning, “Preliminary investigation/ Securing means of transportation” accounted for nearly half of
Item 6 responses in 2014. However, in 2015, “Did not have communication/ Did not consider a means oftransportation” decreased to a large degree for Items 1 and 2; in fact, few problems arose. Consequently, we infer thatthe function of the “manabie” was useful.
Regarding Item 3, most students were “Positive”. Fieldwork became compulsory in 2015, although it was only offered
to students who wished to do so in 2014. Still, the percentage increased. We consider this occurred as a result of thefollowing influences: giving autonomy to students and preventing discussions from becoming stagnant by breaking
them down into small steps.
Although it was a small increase, a significant difference was found in the achievement of goals and transportation in
Items 4 and 5. We think that, even as fieldwork became compulsory and various students participated, the program
presented enhanced certainty by a check function of “manabie” and with local coordinators.
Functions to visualize the plan structure, to visualize communication and to check the consistency of transportationon the islands might help students who undertake group work while improving their autonomy.

Figure 12. Results of a questionnaire

Conclusion
In our previous project, we carefully designed the curriculum and used LMS, but the project didn’t go well. This means
that, even if you use the technology for PBL, it does not guarantee the students learn what the teachers intend. To
withdraw the autonomous actions of the students, the less interference of the teachers, the better. It’s very importantto reduce the direct interference of the teachers, but it can easily cause project failure because of poorly organizedplans and spontaneous activities without the teachers’ care. To solve this ambivalent requirement, we revised materials,
project procedure and LMS to guide students to develop their own plans and promote communication. We proved
such a “watch over, but not interfere” system leads the PBL project success, as we set in the research question.
PBL classes like the “Shimanabi Program”, which are conducted in cooperation with local communities, universities,
and students, will increase. In such projects, LMS, which support the procedure of the fieldwork, will be inevitable.
We believe that our research and the LMS “manabie” can contribute to realizing a future real-life community-based
educational environment.

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