Hosei University Symposium
March 2006

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

I got up early on Monday morning, and went to Starbuck’s Coffee next to the hotel. I reviewed my presentation leisurely, enjoying coffee as I look out the street filled with office workers walking hurriedly. I came here for today’s workshop. I was looking forward to see this workshop so much, because fifteen people who attended the workshop at SF have organized it and they will share what they have learned from SFSU workshop.

My presentation is about how I use LSM in my class, and mostly I am here to encourage FD staff and faculty members. Before I came here, I added half dozen Japanese colleagues to ITEC 800 ilearn. At SFSU, we talk about internationalizing our courses; I think this is an inexpensive way to do it. My Japanese’s colleagues really appreciate to see how my class is conducted by joining us online, and my students at SFSU really enjoy meeting professors in Japan, so this is a win-win situation. I hope to add Korean professors to the itec 800 learning community.

About 9:30, a staff from FD came and got me. We walked about a block from the Hotel to get to Hosei campus. It is really different set up than any other campus I visited. It is a tall building; it is more like a business center than a university campus. Again, everything is clean and orderly. A doorman who bowed to everyone who entered to the building.

The room we had our workshop was well equipped with large screens, laptop computers and cameras. I was so proud of our team (I now call "our team"). Each person gave a presentation, we started at excatly at 10 as we planned, and each person took exactly 20 minutes as it was planned. I was so impressed by the quality of the presentations as well as the organization of the workshop. It reminded me the parable of talent. They multiplied talent by working very smart and hard. When they were in SF, we showed little of this and that, and they used that as a starting point, and they were running with it. I wish all faculty development workshops would bear fruits like this. At any rate, I am so energized by "our team", they gave me confidence for my work and meaning for my work. I wish you were all here to see their presentations.