| SignWriting List Archive 1 October 1997 - May 1998 |
November 19, 1997
MESSAGE TO THE SIGNWRITING EMAIL LIST
SUBJECT: Las Vegas Seminar Report 1
From: James Womack, Krakadoom@aol.com
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 1997 20:53:19 -0500 (EST)
To: DAC@signwriting.org
Subject: Re: Seminar Report :-)
On November 8th, we had the privilege of having the creator
of SignWriting as
a guestspeaker and to conduct a seminar on SignWriting at the
Community
College of Southern Nevada (CCSN) located in North las Vegas.
The audience was mostly Deaf Studies students numbering approximately
27
people. There was a few people respresenting various fields of
deafness such
as interpreters middle school. We missed out on about 20 additional
interested parties from both in and out of state who wished to
come but
received information too late to plan a Vegas trip.
Valerie did an excellent job in providing a thorough background
on
SignWriting and ended the session with hands on experience. We
had the
pleasure of Stephen Benoit and Lawrence Roney who toiled at setting
up
computers, cameras, VCRs, TV, projectors and other media to facilitate
presentations. My students were wonderful in lending a hand in
taping the
event and acting as cashiers to attendants.
We had a number of people who had to leave as the day wore
on due to
committments elsewhere such as work and family, but they made
me promise to
make the tape available to them so they'd miss anything. We are
copying those
tapes now. Those attending left amazed at SignWriting's potential
impact on
Deaf education and ASL instruction as well as teaching written
ASL/English
translation skills to Deaf children and college students. The
attendees want
more. Additionally, people who could not come continue to call
and ask about
the seminar and the prospect of a future seminar. We definitely
will have a
follow up later on. Valerie's impact is felt at the local school
level as
well. As word got out what happened at the seminar, school personnel
are
asking for more information. They will get it at the next seminar
which we
want to devote exclusively to teaching the skill of SignWriting.
I've submitted a request for ordering materials from DAC partly
because
students are eager to review and learn more about this communication
tool.
Some stduents have expressed an interest in ordering their own
material. In
essence, I believe that this seminar and Valerie's presentation
has provoked
a heightened interest in exploring SignWriting as a viable instruction
instrument. I am personally so impressed I hope to be sent to
California to
learn SignWriting thoroughly enough to teach it as a course at
CCSN.
I think one of the most exciting things is that students who
did not go to
the seminar are still talking to those that did about what happened.
There is
simply a degree of excitement in the air since the seminar. The
question is,
will it translate into large scale action? This remains to be
seen and I hope
to push it along in that direction.
James Womack - N2C
ASL Instructor
Department of International Languages
Community College of Southern Nevada
3200 East Cheyenne Avenue
North Las Vegas, Nevada 89030-4296
702-651-4301 TTY
702-643-6427 Fax
Womack@CCSN.Nevada.Edu
or
Krakadoom@Aol.Com
or
jrwomack1@juno.com
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