Mobile Users

When cellphones began to spread among teenagers in the late 1990s, it became something of a teacher’s nightmare, and nowhere more so than in rules-oriented Japan. Mobile phones were immediately banned, but students’ enthusiasm could not be contained: phones went off in the middle of classes, students relayed emails to friends all day long, and cheating using the phone during exams became pervasive. But recently, there has been a change of heart among some Japanese educators. In fact, some teachers at universities and high schools are requiring that their pupils show up in class with a mobile phone.

Cell phones were used in the first experiment of its kind in Japan to transmit and receive sightseeing information in Kuwana, Mie Prefecture. The experiment was conducted by six companies, including an aeronautical map manufacturer and a cell phone company, under the auspices of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry. Given the growing participation in the Wiki-series of content-from-all, content-for-all open-editing projects, mobilers in Japan may just be onto something.