Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Weeks 1 thru 3 copied from JournalHome

Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - Week 3 - Thoughts
I decided to start my blog entry early. I'm having problems with this blog. Herb is unable to add comments to my blog, and my instructor sent me an email that she also added comments but I can't view them.
How did Mark log on and add comments?
This is all new to me and it is a bit frustrating on my part. I was able to log onto Google's blog but it comes up in Japanese. It took me awhile to figure out the "katakana" but once I got in, a message popped up saying that I needed to turn-on my "cookies". Having very little technical skills in working with computers, I'm just so afraid to touch my laptop and make my own adjustments because I wouldn't know how to correct myself. In this area, I'll admit, I need face-to-face assistance.
Clarice 1/22/08 Japan

The American economy is having a terrible effect on the dollar to yen exchange rate. The value of the dollar has fallen so fast that I still have uncashed Travelers Checks. You can get a slightly better exchange rate if you had American dollars. CNN Asia is all about business and it doesn't look good right now. While working on my OTL courses, I have to think about how to stretch my yen...the cost of living in Tokyo is one of the highest in the world. Other Americans living in another part of Tokyo told me that some of them are paying $20,000 USD per month for an apartment! I guess it more tofu and less meat. Today was the first time I made a baked tofu...haven't tasted it yet.
Clarice 1/22/08 Japan

Nobody in my house wants to try my tofu steak...well it was worth a try. It wasn't bad, but Japanese food just doesn't have that California-Mexican kick to it! I was able to download all of the readings except for one article. I'll start reading today.
Clarice 1/23/08 Japan

My sister sent me an email. My aunty passed away last night. I have a good mother, but she was just too busy trying to raise 5 kids back then, so I landed up at my aunty's house quite a bit. You could say that she was my holiday and weekend mother. I learned how to cook by watching her in the kitchen. I read two of my required articles for class and then I decided to make banana bread. I was planning to make it tomorrow but I just felt today was the day to do it. The sun was shining, the sky was blue with some puffly clouds. I opened up my kitchen blinds which I normally don't do, since my neighbors apartments are so close...but it didn't matter to me today. I baked banana bread...I even made a batch of baked Italian chicken, and it's only 2:30 in the afternoon. My aunty believed in education. She saw this as a way out of poverty and a means by which to secure a good job. She wouldn't want me to mess up on my school work right now...she'd be upset.
Clarice 1/24/08 Japan

It looks like my group is just moving along quite well with Susan and Marsha's input. We've come to an agreement on our topic. Now I'm just waiting for more input as to how we will divide up the research. I hope I'm on the right track. My mind is a bit far away at the moment, but I know I'll be better tomorrow.
Clarice 1/24/08 Japan
Bb is quite slow right now so I decided to post my thoughts here so I don't forget. "I agree with Susan that a wiki would be very helpful in creating an outline for this paper. As a foreigner living in Japan, I am personally interested in best practices for building community and encouraging interactivity among students who live and work within a collective culture like Japan." DVD I want to watch, ?Downside or ?Sideline - foreign movie about Iranian girl who wants to watch her country's male soccer team compete for title against Japanese team. Issue here: Women are not allowed to watch men play, yet Japanese women are allowed into the soccer stadium to watch the championship. Here in Tokyo, the Iranian Embassy is not far from my apartment. All female employees, no matter what nationality, wear a "burka" at all times. The only uncovered portion of their body is their face...no ears, no neck, partial forehead, etc. Life is different in Tokyo.
Clarice 1/25/08 Japan
Curtis and Susan both posed some very good and interesting question on the group DB. I spent some time looking up information in order to answer their questions. What I have learned from this research (past two days) is that our cultural anthropologist and sociologist have a lot to offer educators in the way of providing some very important insights in how to best educate those from outside our own culture. At the Tokyo American Club library, I found a book that I hope to read before this course ends, "Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program" by David McConnell, published in 2000 by the University of California Press. After reading the introduction, it touches on both Susan and David's question.
Clarice (1/25/08) Japan
Summary of what I learned this week:
I never considered culture and it's effect online learning until I took this course. Now that I have had a chance to read some very good references on this subject given to us by our instructor, I am beginning to see the importance of understanding culture and it's impact on learning and more specifically learning in the online environment. I've started to look into Japanese education which is a new for me and quite interesting.
I'm a foreigner living in Japan, and though I notice the differences between the U.S. and Japan, I'm in survival mode about 80% of the time - read a menu, tell my hair stylist how short to cut my hair, directions to an English-speaking medical clinic, read "katakana" or "hiragana" so I get off at the right subway station, finding grocer items, explain to my apartment management company that the heater doesn't work, my cat has a medical problem and needs attention, etc.




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Monday, January 21, 2008 - Week 2 - Thoughts
Small successes: 1. I was able to change the template from "Hello Kitty" to something I am more comfortable with...plain simple colors. Questions: 1. I'm still not sure how to adjust privacy on this blog. I just switched the privacy command from "everyone" to "friends". To my OTL classmates, pease let me know if you have a problem viewing my blog. 2. Still haven't figured out how to add a single space between my paragraphs.
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Monday, January 21, 2008 - My thoughts for the week
Posted by Clarice
I'm not very comfortable with technology and being that this assignment required me to create my own blog, it was a bit stressful for me.
Still unsure about the privacy of my blog despite changing settings. I can't tell if it is working or not. Because of this, I feel that I have to be very careful about what I write on my blog.
I didn't have a problem with group formation. I am looking forward to working with this group. It looks like we have similar interests with some overlap so I am pretty confident about having to select a group topic.
I figued out how to create a paragraph; Yeah!!!...happy : ).
It's not difficult to bounce back-and-forth between blogs to read what my teammates have in mind for a project, but it does take time. I'm not sure if this is the best way to go about negotiating a team project.Edited by Clarice on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 5:37 AM
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Saturday, January 26, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by dutchboy
Your entry Week 3 - thoughts is invisible to me, and also to the rest of the world. If you want your classmates to read it, you'll have to get them to sign up with JournalHome (they're certainly not obliged to blog in any way) and you should add them as friends. For that everyone should go to this page within their accounts:http://www.journalhome.com/manager/view_friends.phpThere's an Add Friends button on that page, and the easiest thing to do would be for all of them to add 'Clarice' as a friend. After that you only have to go to that page yourself and each of them. It's all pretty self-explanatory. Don't add me unless you want me to read your stuff. There's little else to be gained by it. Or you could make your blog public again, or select with each entry which ones you would like to be private, public, members only or friends only.Edited by dutchboy on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 11:13 AM
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - Thank You Dutch Boy and Admin Staff
Posted by Clarice
I changed my setting to allow "everyone" in since I am not sure about "adding friends". When you add a friend, does this mean that you just type in their name?Clarice
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - Adding friends
Posted by dutchboy
If you want to add a friend you have to type in his or her username, which in your case is Clarice. If you like someone else's blog enough to add the author, and you're not sure about the username, you click on "View my profile". Look at the URL, and whatever follows journalhome.com/profiles/ is the name you want.



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Sunday, January 20, 2008 - Unit 2 Assignment - Possbile Group Topic
Hi Everyone, Here's my thoughts on a possible group project for your consideration. My healthcare program was not prepared to move their F2F curriculum online. They did so without formal training, additional resources or faculty time. The continued development and improvement of an efficient online program continues to evolve, but at a very slow and uneven pace. Upgrades to each course has been done by individual faculty members and there is no consensus on cohesive development of the online curriculum. The program has not ruled-out online learning, but much of the courses are now offered in a hybrid format. The reasoning and justification from my program director is that the current student population prefers the F2F environment over the online environment. I suspect the faculty is more comfortable with the F2F format as well. The current student population is generally female, adult-learner, single parent, second career, low-income, working part-time and seeking a career track program that will land them a full-time job when they complete their certificate degree in the shortest amount of time. Faculty issues and personal views in regard to online learning is an important area to address, but for this course, I would like to do more research to answer the following question, “what are the most important features that need to be considered when designing an online environment (not a hybrid) that will increase time-on-task, student satisfaction and improve academic achievement given the student population mentioned above. A possible title could be ‘designing the online environment for the at-risk adult student population.’ Your thoughts on this would be appreciated even if this topic is not chosen. Clarice
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - Sounds good...
Posted by Mark
Clarice,Sounds like a good idea. Like you said, we have similar issues, addressing at-risk student needs. I don't know if you have looked at Herb's blog but he also addresses a similar question for his project idea.Great job.Mark



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Friday, January 18, 2008 - My First Personal Blog for CSUOTL 6707
My instructor asked us to create a personal blog and this is one of the recommended sites that was given to the class.
This is my first personal blog since all others were created within our Blackboard system.
- I don't know how my instructor or classmates are supposed to log into this site?
- I'm not sure if this blog automatically dates my entries.
- Does this have a spell-check feature?'
- How do I change my template design? Hello Kitty...must have clicked this my mistake
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Saturday, January 19, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by dutchboy
Welcome to JournalHome. Here are a few answers to your questions. It does automatically date all entries, while the spell-check feature exists in theory only. It doesn't work. In order to change your template, you must go tohttp://journalhome.com/manager/choose_template.phpGood luck on JournalHome. Little did you know when signing up that we, the regulars here, view JH as a community rather than a bloghost, and we act accordingly, freely posting comments at each others blogs. Another good thing about JournalHome, is that upon having your account upgraded you have absolute freedom over all the technical features you want to have. Something which in most other bloghosts is too much to ask for. And I don't get paid to say this. Edited by dutchboy on 1/19/2008 at 10:41 AM
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Saturday, January 19, 2008 - Thank you
Posted by Clarice
Dutchboy,Thank you for your help. I was finally able to upload an image to my webpage! Small success.Clarice
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Sunday, January 20, 2008 - Dutchboy - Can you help with this question
Posted by Clarice
Hi Dutchboy,I wrote my proposal as a Word document. Then I did a copy and paste. I notice that my spacing does not show-up in the blog. I can see only one large paragraph.Does this mean that I cannot do a copy and paste command?Clarice
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Monday, January 21, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by dutchboy
Spacing is a bit of a problem here. One way of solving it, is clicking on the HTML icon, and making sure that every paragraph is followed by . (Hopefully these tags show up in comments)Another way is to use shift+enter to create spacing between paragraphs.The only way you can be absolutely sure, is by writing your entries within JournalHome, in the basic editor. On the page where you write entries you can choose between either the 'basic'' or the 'advanced' editor. When the latter is true you're there. In the former case you click on 'switch to basic editor' or something similar.edit tags: br and br, inside <> and <>Edited by dutchboy on Monday, January 21, 2008 at 12:50 PM
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I signed-up for this course because it was required for graduation. Now that I have a few weeks of course experience to look back on, I have found this course to be quite interesting. Participating in this course has opened up a window to the worlds cultures and social life that I had closed a long time ago...like dusty textbooks that you keep in cardboard boxes in your closet for years but don't want to toss out.

While reading through my required documents and conducting research for my mid-term and team project, I am fascinated by what I am reading. It felt like being back in college and having that unique sense of excitement and it's not only about eLearning. It's learning about people.

I wanted to be an archaeologist or anthropologist when I was in college. But growing up in an Asian family, this type of profession was frowned upon and I settled for something culturally appropriate - like teaching. It brought status, security and a feeling of community contribution that was highly prized by my parents. Being the eldest child comes with responsibilities...it was the way I was brought up...very pre-WWII in philosophy and living in the year 2008.

Clarice 1/30/08 Tokyo

Monday, January 28, 2008

Links to Journal Home for Week 1 through 4

I am attempting to use the "link" feature on Google tools that will link you to my "old" pages created on Journal Home.  If all goes well, this should work for all of you.

Journal Home - My First Personal Blog

Week 4 Thoughts

Summary of Week 4

While researching my topic for the mid-term as well as the group project on Asia and eLearning I ran across online proposals and data on how eLearning other peoples in Asia and the Pacific view eLearning.

Some of these proposals were very touching and you could just feel the urgency of the need, it was hard to ignore. A request for funds to develop and implement eLearning for:
1. Women caught in the sex trade business
2. The disabled and handicapped who have no skills
3. Literacy and health
4. Food, water, nutrition and agriculture education needs
What the Web has brought into my life is an awareness of need. The need for education as a means of improving all peoples lives, the funds required to take these ideas and put them into action, and qualified instructors willing and open to work with these peoples.

How does this change my future plans?
I would like to become a good online educator. In my retirement years, I would like to use my skills to help these types of organizations achieve their goal. These humanitarian proposals has shown me the potential power of online learning.

Also, I fount by using the terms "culturally responsive teaching" that I came up with many more applicable resources for this group project. I was also searching "eLearning Asia" which provided less information.
Clarice 1/3/08

There is one individual who is very good with techno-gadgets and I just enjoy reading his posts. Though he trully makes me feel my age, I have learned some new lingo, the latest in gaming and communication devices. His posts are serious and yet entertaining as the same time. I think this is why I would like to be in an online course with all kinds of people from all ages.
Clarice 1/3/08

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Datta Kaur and Members of my Team:

After two weeks of working with "Journal Home" I decided that I needed to experiment with another blog site. I spent a few minutes just looking at the Google home page written in "katakan", "hiragana" and "kanji" trying to figure out how to change the wording from Japanese to English. I was finally successful in switching the language :)

Herb, many thanks for explaining to me in English to look for some type of toggle switch. I kept pressing everywhere.



After two weeks of struggling with "Journal Home" I am looking forward to a less stressful experience in creating and working with a blog site.


What I like about Google is that it contains spell-check as well as a more complete list of help features. Somehow it just seems much easier to work with.


I apologize for the switch, but I just couldn't see myself struggling with a blog for another four weeks.


Clarice


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I joined a women's group in Tokyo. What I found interesting about the group was that every woman knew her place among the group. A few women graduated from an elite all women's college or university...they had a title or rank given to each of them, though they joked about it, I think they were quite serious. The "senpai" is the most senior member. This woman would not stand up to get her own drink or put away her dishes in the sink. The young women in her group would automatically offer to cater to her (that's how I see it).

Then you've got the Japanese women who are educated but not from the same group as above. All of them are very polite to each other but I notice that there is some very quiet "tension" which is not the right word to use...but I can't put my finger on it.

Of course, there are the foreigners like me. Well, the Japanese women do try to disperse us among themeselves when deciding our seating arrangement for coffee. That way, we get to converse with each other. Well being a foreigner, all I can say is that I've got a lot to learn about women and women's status within the "in" and "outside" groupings...I thought it was just about men here...but I was wrong.

What I find interesting as I attempt to learn Japanese are all the forms of politeness that you have to learn when speaking to someone "above", "below" or "same leve" as yourself. These honorific forms are just mind boggling to me at times. It seems that Japanese language is closely assoicated with a person's status and rank. I feel it is a direct reflection on their culture and how they also view education and instructors.

Clarice (1/31/08)

While doing research my the group paper, I was wondering if there are similarities of "best practices" or "lessons learned" in eLearning in Asian cultures when compared to at-risk-student population. Are the interventions the same? Where are they different? Will post my thoughts to the group DB for feedback or reaction.
Clarice (1/31/08)

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I enjoyed doing research work for my mid-term topic which I posted to the DB.

Title:
Learning to Bow on the Internet: A Foreigner’s Perspective on eLearning in Japan

Focus:
Japanese Etiquette and the Possible Implications for Online Course Design

Content:
Structure of Japanese Society
Harmony as the Philosophy
Language as Etiquette
Names and Titles
Personal Introductions
The Meishi
Offering of Criticism
The Role of Apology

Clarice 2/1/08
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I completed the class survey. I am not surprised about the questions concerning an unhappy student or team after receiving email from a male student looking for a new team just a few days ago. It makes me very sad to see this because I am enjoying my group very much and I am concerned that this may still happen in my group since we still have many weeks to go before this course ends.
Clarice 2/3/08 Tokyo
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