The Wales-Wide Web

I have been doing a bit of work helping coordinate the translation of the different strings to allow language localized version of the ELGG learning landscapes software. This has led to some discussion over the localization should be carried out and in particular, over the problem of translating strings which have a connotative meaning ion one language but not in another.

George Bekiaridis has reminded me of a text he wrote for a series of seminars on the use of ICT for learning in SMEs. All the papers can be found here (curiously they are also available on a University of Stirling web site claiming copyright which they most certainly do not have). Rereading it, it seemed of some value - especially in the context that many more 'non techies' are increasingly involved in localization efforts for open source software. Nice one, George!

What is Localization?
 
Localization is the process of adapting a product or service to a particular language, culture, and desired local "look-and-feel." Ideally, a product or service is developed so that localization is relatively easy to achieve - for example, by creating technical illustrations for manuals in which the text can easily be changed to another language and allowing some expansion room for this purpose. This enabling process is termed internationalisation. An internationalised product or service is therefore easier to localize. The process of first enabling a product or service to be localized and then localizing it for different national audiences is sometimes known as globalisation.
In localizing a product, in addition to idiomatic language translation, such details as time zones, money, national holidays, local colour sensitivities, product or service names, gender roles, and geographic examples must all be considered. A successfully localized service or product is one that appears to have been developed within the local culture.      
 
e-Learning Content and Software localization for a specific Country and a specific target group
 
Before stating localization of e-learning content and software we must exactly specify the following:
 
•           Target country and market (ex. Greek Vocational Training Institutes)
•           Target audience (ex. Trainees and trainers)
•           Use of content and software (ex. Informal continues training, supportive training etc)
 
Localized content and software has to meet the specifications and objectives of context within will be deployed.

Technorati Tags: open source, localization

Well here we go - its the start of the autumn conference season. Sunday I am off to Valencia for a meeting of the ICT and SME project. Then late Tuesday night on to Dublin for the European Conference on Educational Research.

I'll try to make some quick posts on the move - after all blogs are supposed to be good for that aren't they? And I will get my presentations and papers on line somehow.

Anyway, if any of you are in Dublin for the conference do drop me a line and we can have a pint of the black stuff.

I had intended blogging through last week - from the ICT and SME project meeting in Valencia and the European Conference on Educational Research in Dublin. But it did not prove so easy.

first the usual technical struggle. True both venues had wireless networks. Took me a few days to sort out the proxy server settings and I could get to the web. But that was it. No way would they let Ecto through their firewalls - or let me use my email client for that matter.

Web interfaces are fine for sending a quick email or a short blog entry. But they are still not good enough for proper work.

EducationGuardian.co.uk | News crumb | UK failing to keep students on after 16, report shows:

From the Education Guardian. "More pupils leave school at 16 in the United Kingdom than in most other industrialised countries, a decision for which they are economically disadvantaged for life, an international study reported today." the report they are citing is by the OECD.

This was a big topic of discussion at the ECER VETNET conference last week. What is surprising is that despite years of policy initiatives and constant tinkering with the system, the proportion staying on is falling.

For those readers unfamiliar with ECER, the European Conference on Educational research is the largest - I think - European conference on education. Last week the annual conference met in Dublin.

The conference is divided into strands, each convened by a network. The network of which I am a member of VETNET, focused on vocational education and training. There were some 1500 delegate registered at the conference, of whom perhaps 130 were part of VETNET.

Here, as promised, are a few quick impressions.

Technorati Tags: education and training research

I'm off to Stockholm for a seminar and meeting of the SIGOSSEE project. A bit sad this - for Werder Bremen are playing home to Barcelona in the champions League tonight and I have a ticket. Tried everything to find a flight after the game. But it could not be done.

Still Lars posted a query on the Werder web site for anyone knowing where the game would be shown on TV in Stockholm. We tracked down the Stockholm Werder fan. He wasn't confident writing in German. So he translated his reply through Google from Swedish to English and then from English to German. Came up with a list of interesting words. Big problem is the word fan turns out as ventilator.

But a few queries and we got there. I will be in O'Leary's at 8 tonight (map here) if anyone would care to join me.

Technorati Tags: werder bremen

The SIGOSSEE seminar in Sweden last week was brilliant.

Entitled Content for education in Europe: processes, platforms and standards, the seminar was organised by Peter Becker form the Interactive Institute and held at the impressive water side headquarters of the Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting (Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions who sponsored the event.

The aim of the meeting was to discuss open content, platforms and standards for Education in order to formulate a set of focus points for a continued national and European development work.

Technorati Tags: Open content, Open source

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Tesco stocks up on inside knowledge of shoppers' lives:

Strange - only last Friday we were sitting at a lunch-bar in Stockholm discussing the 'big brother' use of ICT. Peter Becker was concerned at the increasing threat to personal freedom and privacy by the us of databases and data mining. I was sceptical. Ray told us how he and his friends used to swap loyalty cards to mess them around.

Looks like Peter was right. But big brother is not the government in this instance but a bleeding supermarket company.

Read the full Guardian article - its scary.

"Tesco is quietly building a profile of you, along with every individual in the country - a map of personality, travel habits, shopping preferences and even how charitable and eco-friendly you are. A subsidiary of the supermarket chain has set up a database, called Crucible, that is collating detailed information on every household in the UK, whether they choose to shop at the retailer or not.

The company refuses to reveal the information it holds, yet Tesco is selling access to this database to other big consumer groups, such as Sky, Orange and Gillette. "It contains details of every consumer in the UK at their home address across a range of demographic, socio-economic and lifestyle characteristics," says the marketing blurb of dunnhumby, the Tesco subsidiary in question."

Technorati Tags: big brother

I am presenting a paper entitled 'Recognising Learning: Educational and pedagogic issues in e-Portfolios' at the ePortfolio conference 2005 in Cambridge at the end of October. Looking forward to the conference - feel a bit isolated in terms of developing and discussing ideas. And it is a chance to meet people face to face in stead of just hanging around in cyberspace.

Most of the paper is based on the series of blog entries i have written on e-Portfolios over the spring and summer. The diagramme here show my latest thinking on the vexed problem of ownership - on what is owned by the learner, what is owned by 'the system' and what is co-owned. My feeling is that ownership is linked to sharing and that it should be a negotiated process. e-Portfolio software should support the process of negotiation.

Anyway - if you are interested - here is a pdf copy of the paper. Comments would be very welcome - public or by email:

Technorati Tags: eportfolio

Today is European Car Free Traffic day. It is a subject dear to my heart. I do not own a car - neither do I have any intention of owning a car.

To add my own little celebration to this day, here is a photo of an public bicycle tire pump (not really sure what these things should be called) which I took in Stockholm last week. And below the picture I reprint an article I wrote some time last year for the Welsh monthly paper, Seren.

Technorati Tags: ecology

BBC NEWS | Education | Universities' student visa lobby:

Health warning - this blog entry is a rant.

from the BBC "Universities UK says overseas students are now a "major export industry".

"It is worth more than food and drink, tobacco, insurance, ships and aircraft," says Drummond Bone, president of Universities UK."

Dear, oh, dear - its not just the grey hair, I really am getting old. I though universities were something to do with education. How stupid I am. No wonder I am not rich. I work in an export industry. Good to know...splutter, splutter - ni more I promise.

Technorati Tags: polictics of education

A second appeal for help in one day.

I am working on a project developing portfolios for socially disadvantaged young people (in this sense socially disadavataged covers a multitude of sins but tends to imply unqualified / unemployed). I am using the Elgg Learning landscapes system - which I think is an ideal overall pedagogic approach.

Need some help in:

a) developing pedagogy in terms of what do learners have to be able to do to develop a portfolio -e.g.

• Forming an opinion
• Expressing an opinion
• Articulating an opinion
• Justifying an opinion
• Defending an opinion
• Supporting the opinions of others
• Challenging others opinions
• Questioning others opinions
• Seeking clarification of others opinions
• Representing other opinions
• Building on others opinions
• Sorting fact from fiction.
• How do we sequence these activities?
• What learning activities / materials are there to help learners.

I have tried obvious places like the Becta web site but disadvantaged here refers to either the digital divide or to what the British call Special educational Needs (SEN). neither are appropriate.

Any comments / advice or help would be greatly valued (and used).

Technorati Tags: e-portfolios

Puzzling over several questions.

I have sort of tracked the repositories debate over the last couple of years but have lost sense of where it is going.

Now i need to sort out a couple of questions in my head. It seems to me one of the problems is that repositories have always been envisaged as institution wide or cross institution things. In the field I work in - vocational education and training research - there are many researchers but they are dispersed. Typically they work on projects - funded at institutional, national or European level. They are generally required to make the products of their projects available on a project web site. Professional practice requires the production and publication of at least occasional papers in journals or books - which are usually published in some form or other somewhere on the web.

Repository software is too 'heavy' for these sort of documents. Yet we want them to be discoverable and reusable (or I do anyway). The answer would seem to be to use a Content Management System and enhance the metadata - Dublin Core plus what? and to use some form of tagging. Then there is the question of what tagging service to use. Del.ici.us is widely used but is really for on-line citations. Connotea looks good but is a little limited. I can sort of see how to use these services as part of the workflow in a project but still cannot work out where the future lies in sharing information and knowledge through tagging and metadata in a lightweight applications.

Any advice would be welcome.

Technorati Tags: social software

The idea that the filtering is after the publishing is incredibly foreign:

Sebastion Fiedler quotes Clay Shirky as saying

"There's an analogy here with every journalist who has ever looked at the Web and said "Well, it needs an editor." The Web has an editor, it's everybody. In a world where publishing is expensive, the act of publishing is also a statement of quality -- the filter comes before the publication. In a world where publishing is cheap, putting something out there says nothing about its quality. It's what happens after it gets published that matters. If people don't point to it, other people won't read it. But the idea that the filtering is after the publishing is incredibly foreign to journalists..."

Seb goes on to say "Not to speak about academics!"

Thats a bit of a long winded introduction to this post. Most of my time is spent working in the interface between educational technology and users - mostly in education and training - both research and practice.

Technorati Tags: social software

I am going to post something much longer on this. But this will get me started on the theme.

For some time I have been bothered about a contradiction between the nature of learning - which I believe is inherently a social process - and the individual and anonymous nature of e-learning.

Last year I hammered out a series of (unpublished and unfinished) notes on the need to develop what I termed 'presence' on the net.

I am increasingly convinced that web 2 and social software overcomes this contradiction. Web 2 and social software remove the anonymity of web based contributions and encourage the use of the internet not for interaction with computers - as in programmed learning - but interaction between people.

Web 2 and social software allow people to develop and participate in communities of practice or communities of interest.

This is a massive change and should herald a paradigm change in pedagogic approaches to e-learning.

Technorati Tags: education and training research, social software