Nara Prefectural Kashiba High School
Mr. Yuichi Kawashita

Q. What kind of work do you do?

As a high school teacher of mathematics and information, I teach mathematics and information classes.

I am the homeroom teacher for the first class of the new General Education Expression Exploration Course, which was established in 2020. I also coach the Computer Club after school and on weekends, and in 2018 and 2019, we competed in the national High School ICT Conference.

In 2018, we conducted research on developing information literacy skills as a designated promotion school for the Next Generation Educational Information Promotion Project, "Research on the Promotion of Information Education, etc."

I have many opportunities to learn and create together with high school students, and I enjoy my life as a teacher every day.

Q. The moment the font switch was turned on

This happened when I participated in Nara Prefecture's ICT Education Evangelist Training Training Program.

As a teacher, I had never really thought much about fonts before, but when I heard that a student with dyslexia found it easier to read by simply changing the font, my thoughts changed.

I thought that there might be students at the school where I work who were struggling in the same way, and I realized that I needed to create an environment where students would not find the class handouts and test questions that I casually create difficult to read.

Q. What Morisawa UD fonts do you use most often and in what situations do you use them?

This is the "UD Digital Textbook Font." It maintains the direction of writing and the shape of dots and strokes, making it a familiar font for both students and teachers.

At our school, UD fonts are used not only for handouts used in class and regular exams, but also for almost all documents issued by the school. In the past, teachers would often ask students to change to UD fonts, but nowadays, it seems that many teachers use UD fonts without even realizing it, without such requests.

Q. What would you like to challenge in the future (future vision)?

I want to create many situations where students can use a variety of fonts themselves, and help them develop the ability to use different fonts freely depending on what they are trying to express or what the content is.

In particular, students in the Expression Exploration course engage in a variety of expressive activities, such as linguistic expression in newspapers, haiku, tanka, etc., as well as presentations and video expression using ICT. We believe that if they can master the use of appropriate fonts according to the purpose of each expression, it will be beneficial for their future.

Q. What do you expect from Morisawa's UD fonts in the future?

To date, many UD fonts have been released to meet various needs, such as condensed typefaces and UD Digikyo, but I hope that fonts that meet the needs of the times and those in need will continue to be developed, and that we will be able to use these fonts in our daily lives.

It might be interesting to have a UD font developed in collaboration with high school students that meets their needs.