FUJI XEROX / JOHO-JUKU (Information School)

Home > About Us > Social Contribution Activities > Social Contribution Relating With Our Core Business > Joho-Juku(Information School)

Seminar for university students that began in 2006 Since 2001, the Corporate Research Group of Fuji Xerox has been organizing "JOHO-JUKU" (Information School). The JOHO-JUKU is not a regular computer school where students learn how to use software and the Internet, but rather a place where, as the name suggests, its focus is on "information," intended to teach students understand the basic concept of information, such as "What is information?" "How can information be used?" and "What is an information society like?" in a concrete and practical manner.

In the field of copying/printing documents, competition on added-value services in the world of "information and meaning" becomes more and more severe. Believing that it is our mission to convey to the future generation the knowledge that has been acquired in the domain of "information and meaning" at the Corporate Research Group of Fuji Xerox as "intellectual stimulus", we have started "JOHO-JUKU".

Closing ceremony for the 5th-term participants Directed towards first-year and second-year middle school students, the "JOHO-JUKU" is a day-long course, in the format of a short-term seminar, where the students think about what information actually is. Held 6 times a year (3 times for first-year middle school students, and 3 times for second-year middle school students), approximately 10 to 15 students participate each time. The course is designed so that students think about "What is information?" throughout the entire course, with themes for each course based on contents such as (1) creating a homepage, (2) playing a game where students run companies, (3) storytelling, (4) making first steps towards JAVA programming, (5) holding an impromptu diagram presentation, and (6) ideas and patents. There is one teacher supervising each theme, and all of the teachers are experts at Fuji Xerox (including some outside experts).

The contents of the course are unique, with many programs relating to information and individuals, such as the gathering, understanding, accumulation, management, editing, transmission of information, etc., and aim to create opportunities for learning the "foundation of information literacy," through actually using easily accessible devices such as computers, the Internet, digital cameras, and mobile phones. Many of the students who participate remarked that "there were some difficult topics, but above all, it was fun," and there was strong interest from school teachers regarding the target and approaches for JOHO-JUKU in that it is not simply a place to teach how to use a computer.

Many "JOHO-JUKU alumni" now participate as staff members to support the students' studies. The support staff is organized completely of volunteers, including other university student staff, and they are increasingly becoming self-sufficient. In 2005, there were a total of 50 staff members, a large number to enable good support to all of the students. In addition, to respond to the fact that the children nowadays come into contact with information environments at an increasingly younger age, we have also launched an "introductory course" for children by visiting elementary schools as part of their curriculum. This course was implemented twice for a total of 10 classes with 366 students.

In addition to 6 basic courses for middle school students, we held 12 courses, such as seminars, etc., targeted towards university students in 2006. There were a total of 83 first-year and second-year middle school students, and in total, over the course of 6 years ever since the JOHO-JUKU was launched, there have been 594 students.