This study attempts to clarify how using ICT and educational data in schools have been promoted since 2020 through case reports. From a survey of elementary school teachers in one city, it became evident that there were some differences in teachers' understanding of the relationship between ICT and educational data use. It is argued that this result is a problem, and an issue to be discussed when considering the potential use of ICT in education.

We used the database to analyze how elementary and secondary education had been facing COVID-19 since 2020, while using technology. The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), an online library sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, was used to search for relevant articles from 2020 that included "COVID-19," "Elementary and Secondary Education," and "Technology Use in Education" in their abstracts. Peer-reviewed articles were surveyed. As a result, 110 articles were retrieved. Among the 110 articles, 57 dealt with distance education, 41 with barriers, 35 with teacher attitudes, 28 with access to computers, 23 with the teaching method, 15 with learner engagement, 14 with equal education, and 11with educational change.

For instance, Yanoski et al. (2021) and White et al. (2022) demonstrated how an ICT environment can contribute to the safety and security of students when they have been stopped from learning. They identified what was required of schools, administrators, and teachers, as well as what responses were effective in bridging these regional gaps. Burgin et al. (2022) pointed out the importance of examining student engagement in distance learning and bringing needs and voices into consideration in lesson design. Naff et al. (2022) found that the home environment, socioeconomic status, and previous mental health or disability diagnosis had an impact while addressing the effects of COVID-19 on the mental health of PK-12 students. Administrators should focus on well-being of children and teachers, carefully examine their emotions, and be agile in advancing policies with teachers on how to respond to crisis situations (Kwatubana & Molaodi 2021; Wilson, 2021; Farhadi & Winton 2022). Yıldız and Göçen (2022) examined teachers' opinions on leadership and guidelines for teachers' behavior to survive in turbulent times and attempted to identify what teachers should do in response to the new normal.

Thus, the articles published over the past three years confirm that elementary and secondary education, through its response to COVID-19, has become more confronted with the digital divide and the students' mental health care that exists in the region and the importance of the attitude and role of principals and teachers in facing these issues. Through our research with ERIC, we found that since COVID-19 started, the use of ICT in schools has been discussed in detail as a response to various problems, with references to ICT as a tool for guaranteeing learning and close communication. However, we did not find many references to the use of ICT for data application in solving various problems.

The research question for this study is: In relation to the use of ICT in schools, do teachers consider the use of ICT in the classroom and the use of educational data as two separate things?

We discuss the results of this research on the current state of ICT use in schools and classrooms, including efforts in 2022, when face-to-face instruction were the norm. The participants in the survey were elementary school teachers from City A. Elementary school teachers have made more progress in using ICT in their classes than secondary school teachers. We selected teachers with three years of experience working for the school because we wanted them to respond to the question about their experience since 2020, when the school environment changed. We decided that it was necessary for the purpose of this study to identify how teachers were using ICT, so we asked elementary school teachers to cooperate. City A is a large city that includes mountainous and urban areas, and we requested their cooperation because we believed that, as a city in Japan, the location of its schools was unbiased and representative. All study participants provided informed consent and the study design was approved by the appropriate ethics review board. Forty teachers in leadership positions and 177 teachers in their third year of service who accepted to participate in the survey were requested to complete the questionnaire in early June 2023. However, only 20 teachers in leadership positions and 80 in their third years of service responded to this deadline. At the end of June, we requested 177 teachers in their third year of employment who had already participated in the survey to self-evaluate their use of ICT. Consequently, 132 teachers responded to the deadline. A survey was conducted on the use of ICT in schools using the following 8 questions among teachers in leadership positions during teacher training and in their third year of employment. Participants were asked to respond to the questions rated on a 5-point scale, with five being very positive and one being very negative. Q1.Teachers' use of ICT in the lessons. Q2.Students' use of ICT in the lessons. Q3.Teachers' use of ICT in school affairs. Q4.Utilizing various survey information on students to understand students. Q5.Utilizing various survey information on students to improve lessons. Q6.Need for teacher training on the use of educational data. Q7.Conducting self-designed surveys to understand how students are doing in order to improve lessons. Q8.Conducting self-designed surveys to understand how students are doing for classroom management.

The results showed that teachers in the two positions rated the school in the same way regarding the use of ICT by teachers and students in the classroom in Q1. and Q2. However, in Q4 through Q6, teachers in both positions gave lower ratings to the school's efforts to use educational data than in Q1 and Q2. Teachers in leadership positions were willing to consider the need for training in the use of educational data in schools, but teachers in their third year of service were somewhat reluctant to actively promote such training. There was a difference between the school's efforts and one's own efforts in Q2, " Student's use of ICT," and Q5, "using survey information to improve lessons," and that there was variations in the responses. Looking at the results of Q7 and Q8, it could be identified that the respondents were more negative, on average, to conduct their own surveys to improve their lessons and classroom management than the results of the other question items. The standard deviation was also larger than that of the other questions, so it could be interpreted that there was a tendency for variation in response among teachers. According to the "free answers" of teachers in their third year of employment, it was evident that they tend to consider the "use of ICT in teaching as well as learning activities" and the "use of educational data using ICT" to be two different things. The tendency has become evident that "ICT use in teaching and learning activities" was understood as an initiative that contributes to the improvement of teaching and learning, and "ICT use of educational data" is considered as an initiative to evaluate students.

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