Guest post - How to Prepare Your International Staff Training Materials for Future Translation

How to Prepare Your International Staff Training Materials for Future Translation

The global economy produces new opportunities to expand and grow markets. For businesses, the challenge is creating a staff training strategy that supports their goals and provides a consistent message across varied markets. eLearning offers a cost-effective solution to training for world-wide staff with a uniform approach that also takes into consideration local concerns and cultures.

As businesses develop their global strategies, they should incorporate staff training as part of their overall approach. While English remains the major language for international commerce, staff members learn best in their own first languages. Training, therefore, needs to plan for eLearning translation of materials into a variety of languages while taking into account the demands of local markets and cost management of training programs.

Plan Global Content

Since training materials will need to be translated, companies should focus on creating great content that translates smoothly into multiple languages. Media should be as culturally neutral as possible by avoiding colloquialisms that do not translate well, overly complex sentences that take longer to translate, or word-choices that have too much nuance in one language.

Design Smart Materials

Material design should take into account formats that will accommodate the differences in language without the need to resize or change layouts for each market. Visual materials should be culturally neutral so as not to need creating new imagery every time. The approach should be used for all media, from text to images to video.

Use Cost-Effective Translation

Once training content is created, the next step is choosing the best method for translating it into local languages. Machine translation is software that produces literal translations from one language to another. The advantage of this method is that it is highly cost-effective. However, the downside is weak translations that need to be further refined since they do not take context and nuance into consideration.

Human translations, on the other hand, produces highly-accurate interpretations that take into account local culture and sensitivities. The cost can be higher, but if businesses have kept their original language materials straightforward, these can be reduced.

Reduce Costs Through Smart Planning

From choosing local markets, designing materials,and creating content, businesses can develop eLearning training materials that satisfy their needs while keeping down costs. For best approaches, they should keep the eventuality of translation in mind when creating content. Key points to consider include:

• Culture-neutral content will keep the material universal
• Visual material without identifiable culture signifiers reduces image costs
• Minimize audio speech in video to reduce hiring multiple language speakers
• Avoid text in imagery that might entail recreating images for every market
• Assess cost differences between machine and human translation
• Investigate learning management systems for easy roll-out across multiple markets

For execution of best learning plans and strategy practices, a language service provider (LSP) can be an enormous benefit. LSPs employ staff with expertise in major foreign business markets, advise on training implementation, and help manage costs.

As experts in the translation field, they also maintain software systems that archive translated materials for future use. These reduce translation costs for standard materials throughout the life of training programs.

Through smart planning and expert consultations, businesses can prepare their staff training programs with minimized costs while maintaining quality content. In strategizing ahead of time for translation, these companies can save themselves valuable resources in the long run, while creating the most effective training program for their global employees.

Rachel Wheeler

Competition for kids

As you may be aware Christchurch has been hit by a series of devasting earthquakes over the last two years (we had a 3.9 one on Monday this week). The Central city and East Christchurch were badly hit. Many of the schools in these areas suffered and have now got smaller rolls. The Minister of Education announced, late last year, a lot of changes for some of the Christchurch schools. This has been very unsettling for all concerned as many teachers are losing the jobs. What changes go ahead will be announced soon.

It is great to see a great competition for Christchurch School children.

Hey kids! We need your help to make Christchurch the coolest little city in the world. We’re running a competition this year to get you thinking – and creating. There are fantastic prizes up for grabs for you and your school. Plus you’ll have bragging rights forever that you helped make the new central city an amazing place.

It is really apposite as many of our schools are rebuilding their grounds and while they are designing the city playground (older children have other projects to work on).

How wonderful to include the children of our city in our city rebuild.

Kizoa

Kizoa is a great Web 2 tool to use in the classroom. The students can create slideshows, collage and edit graphics. This is a free tool to use. Once completed the students can save the collage for example to their hard drive (this is not part of the free membership, you need to pay a fee) or share it online through their blog (free). With the slideshows you can put in text, music, animation and other special effects, there are all sorts of possibilities to customize your slideshow! Be careful to only use the free tools and effects if you plan to share your creations.

Christchurch earthquake 22 Feb 2011 - slideshow with musichttp://www.kizoa.com

Knowmia

Knowmia is a web site for teachers where they can upload their videos so that the students are able to access them.

Ariel Braunstein and Scott Kabat developed this web site so that teachers could share experiences and resources with each other.

There are some great case studies with interviews with teachers who are successfully using these videos in their classrooms.

There is a large database of videos that teachers can access and use with their students.

For those using a flipped classroom approach with their students Knowmia has, coming soon, a simple home assignment tool. For each assignment you will be able to include a series of lessons that you create or find in their ever growing lesson database. Homework may include three types of assessments: multiple choice questions, open-ended questions, and textbook questions (questions from textbooks that your students already use). Once you send out an assignment, you will be able to keep track of your students' actions and performance: When did they open the assignment? How did they answer each question? Which concepts require additional help and/or practice? Although the actions of your students are completely private and secure (visible only to you), the homework itself is shared instantly with other teachers so they can learn from you and borrow any portions of it for their own students. You may opt to do likewise with their assignments and lessons.

Tagxedo

Wordle is a commonly used word cloud (it was one of the first around) but I wonder how many use Tagxedo. I know I have written about this one before but I think that many still don't know about this one.

With this cloud you can have the words shaped (for example I have used an angel) and also you can save it as a jpg file onto your hard drive which is not possible with other word clouds. All of this is free.  You can customise the colour, the theme and the shape to suit what you are doing.  I know that children will love using this one.

Hardy Leung has done a presentation to show you how to use Tagxedo in 101 ways! Each way gives you an illustration to show an example.  Very useful for classroom teachers for ideas to use in their classrooms.

Web 2 tools

A great new book by Professor Dr Mohamed Amin which he has made available is this 40 Must Know Web 2 tools. This book explains what the tool is,  benefits of using this tool, ways of using the tool in teaching and learning.

40 Must-know Web 2.0 Edutools

Ginger

A useful tool for the classroom is Ginger.

Ginger corrects spelling and grammar mistakes based on the context of your complete sentences by comparing each sentence to billions of similar sentences from the web.

Ginger is integrated with MS Office and most web browsers which ensures that your work is correct. It will scan a whole document for you. This programme is free.

There is an educational package which is not free (you pay a license fee per pupil per year).

I have not used this package but they say:

    Ginger is the only tool that tracks students’ errors across writing assignments providing ongoing assessment of the students’ work. Ginger’s Personalized Learning Tutor identifies common patterns of mistakes in the students’ writing and automatically creates a personalized learning program with tailored lessons and quizzes for each student and/or class. Ginger provides an unprecedented level of differentiated instruction customized to the student/class’ needs.

Ginger gives students a tool to become stronger writers:
•Correct grammar, spelling, and usage errors
•Correct whole sentences in a single click
•View sample expressions to accompany alternatives
 •Text-to-Speech – hear your texts read out loud
 •Tools to help you learn from your mistakes
 •Lessons and quizzes based on your progress

Educators are provided with:
 •Reports quantifying users’ most frequent errors
•Categorized analysis of users’ error types
 •Individualized instruction tool customized to student/class level
•An invaluable tool for monitoring students’ needs and progress
•The ability to evaluate instruction methods

Free tools to use in the classroom

David Andrade has put up a very useful slideshow which features 25 tools you can use in the classroom to enhance the thinking and learning. These are free resources from Discovery Education.

There are many resources here which although are aimed at science can be used for other curriculum areas as well.

The flipped classroom

I have just been reading Terry Freedman's thoughts on the Flipped Classroom. I have also written about this idea before and while reading Terry's article I found I still think that we also need to think about the student.

Taking the idea of the flipped classroom whereby the student is able to watch videos of the teacher lecturing or explaining things thereby freeing up class time so that the teacher then becomes the facilitator of the learning environment, has some discussing this concept as though it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. However my own thoughts are do we want well rounded people or not. The amount of time these students are being asked to carry out school tasks out of school hours becomes greater and greater. How about a life???

I prefer Terry's concepts where he talks about the things we, as teachers, have always done to help students prepare for upcoming classes.

Learn Stuff

Learn Stuff is a web site which is useful for everyone not just students.

There are areas for education, health, science technology and infographics.  In addition there are helpful tips for students about how to study.

Technology has quickly become an integral part of our lives. On the web site is this graphic showing the use of technology at this time. Very interesting and makes you wonder what is going to happen in the future. Will books and paper become things of the past and only seen in museums. What will happen to libraries?  It is certainly an ever changing world particularly if you think that it was only around 50 years ago that television was first introduced into New Zealand. Computers did not make their entrance into schools until about 30 years ago and that was only in a few high schools. Certainly something like an iPad was not envisoned then but nor was it thought that people would want computers in the home (ask Bill Gates)!!






The purpose of education

After the earthquakes, here in Christchurch, the minister is looking at restructuring education - see some of my earlier blog posts about this. Teachers are not happy about the proposals at the present time. Teachers, parents and children are all upset about having another change in our city. We actually all need some stability and a chance to get some normality back into our lives before more changes are forced on us. Unfortunately parts of our city were largely untouched by the earthquakes while other parts are still like a third world country. It is those parts where all the changes are proposed and the people in these parts are finding it hard enough just living from day to day without these hassles.

Schools have ten weeks to survey their parents and put forward to the Ministry their own proposals.

It might be good if the Minister looked at Steve Wheeler's slide share about the purpose of education before she makes any final decisions.

The Purpose of Education from Steve Wheeler

Learning 3.0 and the Smart eXtended Web

Steve Wheeler gave a keynote presentation at the ICL conference in Villach, Austria on 28 September, 2012. This is the slideshow that accompanied his presentation. In this presentation he is looking at the future of education and how ICT is a part of that.

Learning 3.0 and the Smart eXtended Web from Steve Wheeler

Uproar

Children, teachers, Boards of Trustees and parents are all up in arms over the recent announcement regarding Christchurch's schools. There was a big rally on Saturday where children and adults protested loudly about the changes. Intermediate schools are very uptight as so many of them have been marked for closure. There were placards, slogans chanted as well as speeches by a variety of people including some by children.

At this point the Minister is still saying that they are 'consulting with the community'. It will be interesting to see if they backtrack on any of the closures or mergers or if this is just an exercise in lip service.

Major changes for Christchurch schools

Two years ago Christchurch started being rocked by earthquakes. Since that time we have had over a thousand of them, several doing a lot of damage and one where there was a signficant loss of life. Most of the problems have occurred on the East side of the city. Life is still far from normal for the people who live in these areas. Many are not able to live in their homes and for many it is not known when their lives will return to normal. A lot of people have left as many homes are on land that has been deemed too difficult to use to build on for a long time. At the end of last year many of the schools in these areas found that their staffing for this year was down from the previous year due to the loss of population in the area. It must be remembered that many of these children were very traumatised due to the earthquakes. This year many schools kept their staffing levels up by directly paying a teacher from their school funds.

Last Thursday the Minister of Education announced new plans for education in Christchurch. There was shock and disbelief throughout Christchurch schools over the plans. 13 schools are due to be closed, 18 schools to merge with other schools or relocate and 5 schools will close and merge as one.

The 5 schools that are to merge as one Learning Centre include 3 primary schools, 1 intermediate and 1 secondary school. This will be over 1300 pupils in the 5 to 13 year range and then several hundred in the 13 to 18 year range!!  This is what they are looking at in the long term. All schools will be part of Learning Clusters.

 As you can imagine many schools, parents and children are very upset with the announcement.  At this time there is supposed to be ongoing discussion but it will be interesting to see if there are any changes to the proposals!!

I wonder what people think our schools will be like in 10 or 20 years.

Watch this space...

19 Pencils

19 pencils is a great web site for teachers. I have been playing round with it for quite a while now. It is free to join and has tools and resources for the classroom in one site.

A parent volunteering in his child's class saw that a site like this would be very useful for teachers (after seeing teachers with URLs written on scraps of paper for example - how many times have I done that only to lose it).

The Team at 19 pencils says this about themselves:

We are not just parents who want to provide tools for teachers but we're also seasoned Silicon Valley technology veterans with more than 15 years experience and we want to help you in the classroom.
 
We've built award-winning products with Fortune 500 companies. We believe that teachers and classrooms deserve more and we want to help.

 

On this site you can find educational resources, creat online quizzes, and bookmark sites for students for your students.  Teachers create student accounts for access.



Power My Learning

Power My Learning is a portal to games, activities, videos etc for children. The site is free and sorts the content by American grades as well as by subject matter; math, language arts, science, art & music, computer programming, using technology and your life.

The Power My Learning web site details (below) what a free account gives you access to.

A free account grants access to a world of smart and engaging resources…

• 1,000+ thoroughly vetted academic games, interactive simulations, and videos

• Easy-to-find activities tagged by subject, grade, and Common Core Standards

• “Playlist” feature to sequence activities and individualize learning by student or class

• Lesson plans to incorporate activities into instruction

• Detailed reports for teachers, parents, and students

• Badges and Playpoints to reward student usage

• Flexible platform that can be used in school, after-school, at home, or anywhere in between

There are many 'How to' guides available in the Educators section including such things as creating a class, assigning a playlist (check them out).

Before being able to use the site, children must register; and if they are under 13, they must provide an email from their parent or guardian. A parent can also sign up; then the site is able to provide usage reports so parents can see what kind of things their children are exploring. 

Children earn points by exploring the learning games, simulations and videos. They can also say how good something is by voting on the material that they just played. If they like an activity, the site offers up suggestions for others activities that are similar.

A great site to use in the classroom 

Spreadsheets

Just after I said about spreadsheets being used to track Olympic medals I find that Google has been updating Google Doc spreadsheets.

 It has added ‘protected ranges’ to the documents, allowing designated sections of spreadsheets to be locked down to prevent other users editing the content held there.
This is actually a very useful and necessary feature for Docs users, as it can be a real pain going back over things when small edits or erroneous changes are made and need fixing.
From: The Next Web


You can also find A Step Guide to Protected Ranges in Google Spreadsheets which is a slide show which clearly shows you what to do.

Olympic games

We are so pleased with the way our team has performed in London. From a small country we are doing very well - 3 golds.

This is where the Internet comes into its own in the classroom - instant news, videos, graphics all there ready for the children to find and report about. The news links are outstanding and having the videos as well for the class to see is just so wonderful.

Children can also use a spreadsheet (dare I say it) to keep a medal tally and then make graphs to depict the data.

3 D printers

I find these fascinating; it is like the TV shows (animated) about the future.

I wonder how long before some of these become more available and what we will be able to do with them.

181 Google tricks

181 Google tricks to save you time in school is an article that has been written by some staff writers on the Online Colleges web site. These are quick and simple to go through and there are probably ones there that you were unaware of - have a look and see...