Resources and Ideas for Sunflare.com and its Academy

Uploading PowerPoint Presentations to WebCT

The general rule is that you first use ファイル管理, make a new subdirectory with フォルダオプションand then upload files to MyFiles. When you save a .ppt file as html it becomes a large set of files, so you are supposed to zip them and upload them into the subdirectory you made. I had to download the Winzip program, a trial version available at http://www.winzip.com

After the .zip file is uploaded to MyFiles, WebCT can unzip them. Select Unzip from the pull-down menu at the right side of フォルダオプション. Each time you need to select the subdirectory, so I selected the same subdirectory with the zipped file.

Now that a file is available in MyFiles (the other type are WebCT-Files that are provided by WebCT and can’t be changed), it can be linked elsewhere, such as to コンテンツモジュール or　スタディツール. Using ページ/ツールの追加 you can select シングルページ, then ブラウズ to browse for your unzipped file in MyFiles. Choose the .html file. Also select 同じブラウザウィンドウ to have the presentation open within the WebCT top and left frames. You select boxes to make the tile and icon show, then you can customize the icon by browsing WebCT-Files (カスタムアイコンを使用).

Another general rule is to update Student View (you can also hide contents from students’ view. Sometimes showing things is automatic and sometimes you are prompted and can choose to update all recent additions that are not yet shown to Learners. You can also check what learners see by logging in with s_ right before your usual User ID.

From Tokuda-sensei (September 5, 2001)

Chen-san, and Steve McCarty-sensei

Sasai shacho asked me to build a knowledge management system

for assisting translators of Sunflare for use in the Intranet.

1 Trados-type translation memory system from Sunflare databases

of translators and localization including Japanese and English.

2 Databases collected from Internet sources.

3 From where and how best can we collect the English-Japanese Translation Corpus

4 If we restrict to vocabularies, what are the best sources of Internet corpus are available?

SunFlare Academy Online Curriculum

by Steve McCarty

There is a paradigm shift today from education for elite leaders to lifelong continuous education for everyone, necessary in an Age of Information. Other countries in Asia already recognize this and have big open universities utilizing distance education, which are starting to change over to Web-based education.

Japanese people need to learn to make choices, for example forced by 401(k) and the threat of inflation to learn how to invest their money. The unemployed generalist salarymen also need retraining in IT. Only adult and continuing education can meet the need for Japanese people to become decision-makers in a society with increasing choices.　

There are opportunities for the SunFlare Academy in many of the current social trends, despite the weak economy. Education is a rapidly expanding industry worldwide, but moving too slowly in Japan’s bureaucratic society and conservative educational sector. By moving quickly to Web-based education, the potential customers for the SunFlare Academy would be universities and companies (mostly medium-sized for outsourcing their in-service training), the Japanese government (to provide IT training to Asians with ODA funds, by being willing to receive trainees and take care of them, or to provide IT training to unemployed Japanese with government support to retrain them for jobs using new technology), or the general public, by offering a curriculum of various courses. These would be mostly through the Internet (online distance education), but like correspondence education, it would be good to offer in-person, hands-on orientation at the beginning and tests for certification at the end. Teachers nationwide at all levels would be another client group for the Academy. In other Asian countries a large proportion of the distance education students are teachers who need in-service training for better qualifications. The best Web-based platform, WebCT, is also very difficult for teachers to learn to use, so a course online in teaching online will be needed for many university teachers or staff.

SunFlare executives would provide the content of courses and only one instructional designer is necessary to place the courses online and make the courses interesting and interactive. To take one example, Japanese people desperately need to learn how to invest their savings, not just in banks or postal savings, because there will probably be inflation sooner or later. To go to financial advisors in person is the easiest but the most expensive way, while on the other hand they can learn passively from books. In between those two extremes, an online course can have a textbook and in-person meetings for those who are able to travel to the Academy. Online classes can still assign textbooks, but people also learn better when they can interact with their instructor and classmates. The more students, the more lively it becomes, and students can be grouped into e-mail circles for projects that they will enjoy.

Continuing the above example, not one course but a curriculum of modules on investing could be offered at the Academy. Mr. Takeshita could provide the content and I could provide the instructional design. There could be courses in 1) Introduction to Investing – the pros and cons of various ways of investing money, 2) Stocks, 3) 401k, and 4) Financial Engineering. People should take one or two courses from 1)-3) before taking 4). After taking 4) they can probably pass an examination to be a Financial Advisor themselves.

One idea is to have a course on learning to learn online that everyone who registers for an online Academy course can also join for free. That would be the place for socializing with the largest group and questions and answers. Everyone would then see the answers to questions they may also have, so it is most efficient for all the instructors. This would be one of the courses taught by the instructional designer.　

The Academy itself should be as qualified as possible, especially to get government support and recognition, for example for students to get back as much as 80% of their tuition, as Nova advertises. Having former Professors leading the Academy would help get the Academy qualified and recognized in the field.

August 16, 2001