Letting go; a practical look at adapting open courses in low resource settings with a particular focus on non-Latin script
1. Teacher Education
through School-based
Support in India
Letting go; a practical look at
adapting open courses in low
resource settings with a particular
focus on non-Latin script
Tim Seal
OE Global Conference
15th – 17th March 2017
1
7. Process
7MOOC 3 (Hindi)
MOOC 2 (English)
Hindi facilitator and student guide created in MP
Weekly translation of the MOOC in Bihar
MOOC Platform tested with Hindi script
Survey platform tested with Hindi script
MOOC refinement workshop
Government approval
UK back translation
Delivery
Weekly meetings
9. Process
9MOOC 3 (Hindi)
MOOC 2 (English)
Hindi facilitator and student guide created in MP
Weekly translation of the MOOC in Bihar
MOOC Platform tested with Hindi script
Survey platform tested with Hindi script
MOOC refinement workshop
Government approval
UK back translation
Delivery
Weekly meetings
11. Process
11MOOC 3 (Hindi)
MOOC 2 (English)
Hindi facilitator and student guide created in MP
Weekly translation of the MOOC in Bihar
MOOC Platform tested with Hindi script
Survey platform tested with Hindi script
MOOC refinement workshop
Government approval
UK back translation
Production / Delivery
Weekly meetings
19. Conclusion / Lessons learnt
• Collaborative approach to translation
• List of terms
• Using a mixture of Hindi and English
• Log of changes
• Checking platform works in language and put
in place support where needed
• Use note pad not word
• Use of Unicode
19
21. Conclusion / Lessons learnt
• Collaborative approach to translation within the
refinement workshop worked very well
• List of terms (standard in translation projects)
• Using a mixture of Hindi and English as appropriate
where it is common parlance
• Table of changes
• Checking platform works in language and put in place
support where needed
• Use note pad not word
• Use what sort of fonts Unicode
• Language packs and the sort of support needed to
21
22. Process detail
• What we can change in edX and what we couldn’t
change
– Didn’t have language packs so buttons and
support all were in English and other standard text
ie:subscribe to mailing list and registration
– Approvals process
– Just noticed the notice on this is an archived
course is in English.
– Use note pad not word
– Use what sort of fonts Unicode
• Translation process 22
23. TESS-India
Aims to support trajectories of professional competence which bring
specified policy aims and curriculum into the enacted and experienced
curriculum in classrooms and lecture halls (sites of learning).
• OER are means to enable participation in the practices of teaching
and learning.
• Engage teachers in a dialogue within practice involving :
– planning learning activities
– carrying out learning activities
– draw on evidence from the outcomes of these activities
• to develop a discourse about pedagogy and learning in and beyond
curriculum topics exemplified in the OER.
TESS-India Shaala Siddhi workshop MP
October 2016
23
Hello I am Tim Seal I from the Open University UK working in the International development office focussing mainly on the TESS-India project.
I have spoken about our work at previous OE Global conferences and this time I am going to be talking about some work we were involved in at the end of last year to adapt a MOOC primarily into Hindi providing an insight into our processes, challenges and successes of adapting English language originated content in non-Latin script (Hindi).
And if we have time I will talk a little bit about social media use in the project as well as what this means for learners
What is TESS-India?
TESS-India, (Teacher Education through School based Support), it is UKAid funded and led by Open University, starting in November 2012 in support of professional development for teacher educators & teachers in understanding of different pedagogic approaches to teaching and learning.
working in India across 7 states mainly focussed in the north east where there is greatest need. With limited funds from April 2016, TESS-India continues a relationship with all 7 states and continues to support state governments, but has reduced the full-time in-state representation to 3 states. These are Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. Although there is no longer full-time in-state presence in the remaining 4, the TESS-India project has been carried forward in an agreed format with each state.
From November 2016 TESS-India has been managed in partnership with Save the Children India
Why partnership in first place
enable the project to receive funding from Indian donors and organisations
to establish a sustainable model for TESS India post dfid funding
Why save the children –
* strategic and programmatic fit
operational feasibility
fundraising ability
The project has been engaged in working teacher educators and central and state governments local teacher education centres and universities on the ground but has also produced
Produced 125 units of text and image based OER content that have been contextualised across the 7 states in India as well as a Pan India and Pan English sets in total 1125 OER in addition to this we have produced 55 videos that support these materials as a set of key resources or effective practices
In 2014 we developed a MOOC to expand the understanding of OER and in particular the TESS-India OER called ‘Enhancing teacher education through OER: TESS-India’ We released this on edX thanks to the support of the Open Education Consortium and run as a pilot but was available globally,
We did usability testing with the target audience in order to support an understanding of localisation of support and technical needs of the audience / cohort / potential student population
The model open boundary with contact classes
As we had already been working extensively with Indian academics and the state governments on the OER Materials had already been localised to certain extent as in the nature of using the TESS-India OER and working with Indian academics
This pilot was quite intensive in terms of the monitoring and all of this fed into second version in English that was adapted further.
Issues:
Comprehension of how system worked check boxes submitting, submitting surveys (as had to allow on multiple machines due to workshop setting but if particpants went back they would see the survey again)
Instruction on how to use
Registration
Order of activities
More direct facilitation less input from UK academic team in terms of direct interaction with facilitators.
Then did Hindi version (why?) why not? Requested in first version where there was a guide written by one of our facilitators
first version where there was a guide written by one of our facilitators
looking at sustainable model going forward in Hindi would be appropriate.
What did the Hindi guide contain?
What fonts? Unicode And using txt not word
You can see where there is English still which could not be translated
Who were the participants from the refinement workshop? government representatives from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.
This was not about localizing or specifically contextualizing the content but refining the translation
To ensure that the spirit, essence and purpose of the English MOOC is reflected in the Hindi version
To ensure consistency of common terms in Hindi across the Hindi version
To advise on ways of ensuring maximum usability for teacher educators end users of the Hindi version
List of key terms, standard in large scale translation projects
By the end of the three day workshop all materials had been refined and agreed by the group
The course documents were not included in this process but was agreed this was a key activity in order to support the learner, so this could happen now with more traditional translation methodologies now that we had the list of agreed terms and the style of the materials
Government approval this was then sent to NCERT (national council of educational research and Training)
Thanks to professor Raj Rani who worked with us on this, she reviewed the final translations and amended where appropriate to ensure these were up to standard.
Production team inc Dr Farrukh Salim Khan
UK Back translation
Use notepad not word
Interactives and course documents signed of by academic team in India
Log of changes and issues was kept and referenced in weekly meetings
It was difficult for participants to understand Hindi, as the language is not used in the state
The participants from districts in western part of Odisha found Hindi easier than English however participants from other district found it difficult in comprehension.
However, after making available of Odia translated materials, it was easy for all.
Instruction of classes in Odia
Members of SRG did translation which was distributed to classes as well as put on government website
Translation checked by Assistant Director of teacher education at SCERT who was also member of the course team.
More to come on that work being done by academic director on this and I am speaking a little at mobile learning week
the extent to which this has increased the engagement of learners
This is not final data
the extent to which this has increased the engagement of learners both within the ‘official’ learning environment