Rollout and community building ideas
Rollout and Community Building Ideas
> Other topics where we could use some ideas is in regard to rollout and community building.
The eutotokens of learning
Some years ago I tried writing some science fiction, science fiction in the tradition of putting forward ideas for the future in a story setting which could potentially work.
Most of what I produced is on the web.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/euto0000.htm
The items on the web are from 1997 and 1998 and time has passed since then. Some of the basic ideas in the stories are quite possibly entirely different from what is intended for this laptop project: for example, learning packages funded by advertising revenue, though the problems that that mode of working produces in the story might be of interest. So, I am mentioning the story here not as the definitive way to produce community building yet in the hope that maybe some of the ideas might be helpful in devising an opportunity creating infrastructure.
William Overington
15 March 2006
Common Rooms idea
Note that there are several common mechanisms for "supporting" internationalization and localization; the most common being gettext, which makes use of template files. We are looking into the use of an emerging standard, xliff, that supports more than just translation of strings and is generally both more robust and extensible. Of course, all of this presumes that there is someone to do the trsanslation or localization of images, etc. --Walter
When you refer to the localization of images, what does that mean please?
For example, if someone authors some learning material in English, and the laptop project wants copies in, say, Spanish and Portuguese, does localization of images refer to all images or only those where there is some text in the image?
Would use of the full stop lock and key technique in the following article help, with an initial master diagram, with no text upon it, being prepared and then the English version as a layout example.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/pai04100.htm
The Spanish and Portuguese versions of the text could be supplied in text files and someone skilled in preparing images, though not necessarily a linguist, could use the master diagram and the text from a text file, and, guided by the layout example, produce a localized image.
If someone wanted that done, the request could be made in the Artwork Common Room.
However, I am wondering whether I am missing something here and wonder whether localization of images implies more, even perhaps far more, than what the above suggestion would provide.
In relation to the localization of images, could someone possibly supply an example image and such other information as is necessary (for example, some text in two or more languages) for someone who is learning the system to try localizing please? That could perhaps be a valuable learning experience in trying to build an infrastructure of how learning material authors, people doing translations and people who can produce images can interact so as to produce learning material localized into a number of languages.
The following article could perhaps help with some characters, such as those from Unicode code points of U+0100 and greater.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/pai04200.htm
William Overington
28 March 2006
Localization Common Room idea
Suppose that someone, whose native language is English, is interested in producing learning material which could be used on the laptop in various countries once that learning material is localized into the local language, yet that person knows only a little of languages. There are many languages into which content would need to be localized.
In that one needs to start somewhere I have thought that an approach which might be worth trying, in the context of rollout and community building, would be to have such pages in this wiki as a "Common Room" type environment where people who can write in at least one of English, Spanish and Portuguese and people who can write in two or more of those languages, can interact and observe what happens.
For example, there are various language translation packages, both as programs for PCs and as web utilities. Yet what is the quality of translation? Can a system evolve whereby someone can, say, prepare something in English and then it be machine translated into, say, Spanish, then both the original and the clearly designated machine translated version placed in the Localization Common Room and then maybe someone who knows Spanish can read it through and correct it as necessary and comment?
This may or may not be workable in practice. If it is workable, then maybe it could be part of the community building infrastructure.
William Overington
24 March 2006
English, Portuguese and Spanish Localization Common Room
Here is a link to such a Localization Common Room and we can observe what, if anything, happens with it.
http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/English_Portuguese_and_Spanish_Localization_Common_Room
Artwork Common Room idea
How about a place where a learning material author who needs an illustration file to include in a document which he or she is authoring can go and request that such an illustration be produced.
People interested in the laptop project who are not learning material authors yet who are interested in producing illustrations to support learning material authored by others could also go there and find a project.
Artwork Common Room
Here is a link to such an Artwork Common Room and we can observe what, if anything, happens with it.
http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/Artwork_Common_Room
Company Sponsored Software/Other Creative Projects Writing Scheme
small entries, the best of which win small monetary prizes, after all that is what the majority of people work for, its not for the love. This would have two effects it would get company's interested in the project and the students who are learning to use these laptops. It would show these students and their families the direct relation between them learning IT and other skills and the outside world.