Week 7 Thoughts

For my contribution to the group final paper, my responsibility is to prepare the first draft by this coming Friday, Feb. 22nd. I am nervous because I want to produce a good first draft. I am also the first to write a conclusion to the paper.

Regarding my continuing experience in Japan - Weekend Event:

My husband told me in very brief details about a bank employee to took 1.5 million dollars from his bank over a period of years. He confessed and explained exactly how he did this to his superiors. The bank officials did not call the police nor did they file any paperwork. They released the employee to the custory of the parents and they just waited. Within a few days they received word that the employee coimmitted suicide. This employee did the honorable thing. No need to follow-up, case closed.

How would this cultural behavior impact online learning when so many of us are consious about our grade and performance within a group setting? How would you handle cheating? How would you deter fear of failure in the online environment? How do you explain that ostrasizing one's peer for poor performan is not acceptable?

Clarice 2/20/Tokyo

I was able to finish my group's first draft and I posted it to group wiki. I wanted to finish this early so my team could provide input as to where we might need more research data, etc. I offered to work on this until I hand it off to Mark on Friday. Also, I had a difficult time writing the conclusion. Marsha is a good team leader. She already sent me an email that she will review my draft sometime today.

Still need to work on my mid-term report. I've been talking to my husband and watching the Japanese as I drink coffee every morning, trying to pull my thoughts together for a re-write.

Clarice 2/21/08 Tokyo

I'm glad that I submitted by draft early. Marsha had many suggestions which I think is great. I was just struggling with the conclusion. Since the outline for the paper was created by Mark and three of us on the team didn't know that we were slightly off-task in our research until just a few short days ago, I think we did well. We're all working hard to keep-up with the established time frame.

My research work was not wasted. I gave me a foundation for my mid-term report since there is very little research done on Japanese and the online learning environment. Many research titles say, Asia (except Japan) which I thought was quite odd but interesting.

Clarice 2/22/08 Tokyo

I continue to work on my report despite my wanting to post to the DB for Week 7 because I have a lot of ideas jumping around in my head right now. This was one of the best topics, on the DB and I can't wait to go through the DB.

Regaridng my mid-term, it's not so much that I don't know what I want to write, so much as how I write it, and that it is accurate as possible from a "Japanese" perspective. I've drank coffee and talked to my husband everyday this week, just to get it right....then he says his secretary should review it...I would need a whole semester for this!

I finally turned in my re-written paper. This re-write is very different from my earlier submission and I think it is better organized. The conclusion was a bit weak and not as strong of an ending that I would like. Thank goodness bad weather prevailed today and I was able to stay at home and spend more time on the conclusion.

I'm actually looking forward to submitting my mid-term report for posting when it is approved.

In hindsight, I think if I stuck to a subject that I was much more familiar with, I wouldn't have struggled so much. The learning curve and preparation required in order to write this mid-term report was much more than I had anticipated.

Clarice 2/23/08 Tokyo

* * * * * * Summary Week 7

This week as a long but rewarding week. I spent much of my time on the re-write and I am glad that my group project is going well. Everyone in my group is very on-time or ahead of time with our project paper. With this type of shared commitment, this group process has work-out very well. Maybe the Japanese, with their group mentality, has something going for them in their favor.

My former department chair has been emailing me off an on asking for my opinion about program matters. Though I am far away, I try to keep up with what's going on in the health care industry in the US. I have also found being in Japan offers so much more worldly information. I learn about education and health care in other countries here-and-there and it's wonderful. I'm starting to save these articles for a future online library. I find much of what the Japanese write stays in Japan. Not everything is put online for outside viewing which was a surprise to me.

I have also enjoyed this weeks DB quite a bit, though I have yet to do much catching-up to do. This is a good group of students.

Clarice 2/27/08 Tokyo