Dear WinkWorld readers,
As you know, WinkWorld tends to be whatever has my attention at the moment, and I have been thinking a lot about human connections.
Human Connections
I so remember the first time I read Jim Cummins’s sentence: Human relations are at the heart of schooling (Cummins, 1996, p. 1) in his Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society, published by California Association of Bilingual Education. That sentence stopped me in my tracks, as it was so true based on my own experience. Today, it is more true than ever, and I was reminded of this last week when I was invited to share with teacher education students in a class at State University New York (SUNY), Oswego. Hopefully, I will have a WinkWorld ready on that experience within a couple of weeks.
In addition, I am thinking of some sharing I can do based on the work of Denny Taylor, et al and Beginning to Read and the Spin Doctors of Science. If you still have your own copy of that body of work, please reach out to me at joan@joanwink.com
While I am thinking on these two fairly large topics, life continues out here on the prairies of South Dakota, and I have a couple of unrelated events to share.
First, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) Virtual Graduation
One of the joys of being on the South Dakota Board of Regents (BOR) is that each year we are assigned to one of our six universities to represent the BOR at their graduation. This semester, of course, each university had a virtual graduation, and I was happy to take part at SDSMT. In the following video, my sharing begins about 7 minutes plus and lasts until about 10 minutes. I have never seen an avatar of me, but I loved her. One of our grandkids said that I made it to a retro 8 bit coin-op game. Finally, a little street cred with the grands: Thank you, President Rankin and MINES.
Hope you enjoy this video and the various avatars.
Second, More Making with Ms. Dobras
If like Ms. Dobras’s making videos, as much as I do, you will need to sign up at her YouTube videos, however here are a three more, which Amy just created. Amy is on a roll, and I wish the same for you.
May 1, Better World Day, 10:50 min.
May, 3, Radial Symmetry (origami) Design, 14:51 min.
May 10, Mothers’ Day Origami Flowers, Día de las Madres, 12:41 minutes
at 6:56 pm
I’m happy to see that my brotherhood and sisterhood of educators and education continues in the face of this pandemic. Our students need us more than ever. Today I was in on a Skype Round Table meeting organized by the NJ Dept. of Education ELL/ESL Title III Division with about 200 educators from around the state. Atlantic City Public School was one of two keynote presenters for our award winning ESL instructional programs for teaching and learning, and modifying our instruction plan & strategies regarding distance learning. I personally like the Brainpop family of programs for ELL’s; Listening,
Speaking, Reading and Writing components.
Thank you Joan and all of the outstanding TCNJ Majorca Professors and Adjuncts who made me who I am as an Lead ESL World Class Educator.
at 1:04 am
Tony, so happy to hear of all of the good work you are doing. Thank you. Please stay in touch, as I didn’t know where you were, nor what you were doing.
Joan