Tokyo Times, p.25, Tuesday, 2 October 2001

On 1 October 2001, Tsukuba College of Technology for the deaf and the blind (Tsukuba-city, President Kazushi Nishijo) initiated an International Video Conferencing System to improve the quality of education for deaf and hard of hearing in cooperation with other institutions serving the postsecondary educational needs of deaf and hard of hearing students, in the United States, Russia and other countries.

There are common problems in deaf education in every country, for example, the need to identify technical or computing terms in sign language for the post secondary education of deaf and hard of hearing students. In June 2001, PEN-International (The Postsecondary Education Network International) was established with a grant from the Nippon Foundation of Japan. It was established to address challenges in deaf education through exchanges and cooperation between the two lead institutions, Tsukuba College of Technology (TCT) and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), and the partner institutions, Bauman Moscow State Technical University (BMSTU) and Tianjin University of Technology (TUT).

On 1 October 2001, Tsukuba College of Technology held an opening ceremony in conjunction with NTID via an international videoconference system. Students from both NTID and TCT, who were Haiku Contest Winners in their respective countries, performed their Haiku poetry creations in sign language and mime. Following the performance by the students from both institutions, one of the students from NTID asked a question regarding the Haiku poetry composed by a TCT student. The students from both institutions initiated a cultural interchange through videoconferencing. With the success of the newly opened Multimedia Lab and its videoconference system, students will be able to participate in classes and learn together at each institution, even though an ocean separates them.