Parking on a Hill

[GS-Media]

Dear Valerie 

Thanks a lot for your quick answer about diagonally orientated
handshapes - it has helped us a lot. 

We are doing great here in Zürich in GS-Media. We will try to keep you
and the others in the SignWriting list updated what happen in Zürich.
Below is a short update, for anyone who might be interested:

In fall, we finished our first attempts to notate signed stories with
the publication of 'Noahand the Ark' and 'David and Goliath' both as
videotapes (with the original signed story) and as illustrated books
with the SignWriting notation. Both Valerie and Stefan Woehrmann were
invaluable helps in these books!!! We are in the process of getting
information in English about these books up on our internet homepage, so
those of you who are interested can  - soon  - have look there.  We'll
let the List know when this English language information is posted at www.gs-media.ch

Last fall we began working on another project to make teaching materials
for our first two SignWriting workshops. There were 17 participants,
half deaf sign language teachers and half hearing interpreters. Everyone
was amazed about SignWriting and its unique possibilities to write down
signs. So we have a first positive reaction from the deaf community, and
some deaf people have already asked me when the next workshop comes. For
this workshop, we used a German translation of Valerie's book, plus a
small CD we made to practice the SW symbols for basic handshapes. 
Several of the participants in this workshop were so eager for more,
that they have volunteered to work with me once a month to discuss the
spelling of Swiss German signs.  

All of these SW notations will be added to our larger FileMaker lexical
database of over 6000 Swiss German signs.

Now we are also working on a project for developing materials for a CD
for the students taking the first level sign language course given by
the Swiss German Deaf Association.  The Deaf Association decided that
SignWriting will be put in the CD, along with sign illustrations and
movies. So all persons taking sign language courses will soon be
learning about SignWriting. 

Unfortunately, I just work one day a week with SignWriting, so it takes
some time to make all these SignWriting materials for all these
projects. 

Next fall, we hope to integrate SignBank into our existing lexical
databank. We are looking forward to doing it and trying out this
fascinating program which will finally give us a real possibility to
compare different sign languages.   

Again, many many thanks for the your help, Valerie.

Greetings to all from Siv, Penny and the whole GS-Media team