[Localization] Spanish wiki page to lang-xx

[Edward Cherlin]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 4:02 PM, Yama Ploskonka <yama at netoso.com> wrote:
> There is one major barrier, and it's cultural.
>
>  "politeness and obedience are the main qualities ... there is high
> importance placed  on the established hierarchy of authority ... and
> subordination ... there is a reluctance to say or do anything more than what
> is asked of them, not necessarily due to ignorance or lack of interest but
> out of respect and politeness ... "
>  Quoting the Eduvision report on OLPC in Ethiopia, referring to students  My
> personal experience is that the same is true of teachers in the places I
> have known.

If we invite them to participate, is that sufficient for them? Or do
they expect to be told in detail how to participate? Or is it even
possible for them to think about saying something themselves without
someone to give permission each time?

>  I think it will be totally powerful, and will do wonders to prove the model
> is indeed right when we get teachers to participate.  I believe success in
> that area should be the something to prioritize effort on.

What does Constructivism say about changing one's mental model of
society after it has formed?

>  From a practical point of view they need to experience in having the wiki
> be of importance, so we need to get across that basic point.  And obviously
> they will need to learn how to participate, as soon as we convince them it's
> the right thing to do.
>
>  How?  Personally I believe that we ought to eat our own catfood.  When
> contents in the XO can motivate and train to use wikis, then we have our job
> done.  Other means (talks, conferences, books, cattle prods)  do not prove
> our model is viable in making change happen.

You may be right, but I have grave doubts that it will be so easy. I
have had great difficulty getting Americans to use Wikis even after
they saw the advantages.

>  The medium is the message and all that.
>
>  Anybody knows an "intro to wiki use" page we can point our teachers to?

There are lots of tutorials, but few "Why Wikis?" pages.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Student_tutorial
http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Tutorial_1

Ironically, two commercially-published books, The Wiki Way and
Wikinomics, seem to be the standards of the field.

>  Yama
>
>
>
>  >> If there is anyone else out there that thinks the idea of end-users
> (testers
>  >> at schools) being able to post to the wiki in their own language and get
>  >> useful info back to developers (mostly lang-en) with minimal language
>  >> barriers, please step up and chip in.
>  >
>  > Anything to get the global community to post, I say. In fact, why
>  > don't we create Spanish and French mailing lists, and take requests
>  > for others?

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay