Welsh Language, Technology and Digital Media Seminar
Llywodraeth Cymru
Yr Adran Addysg a Sgiliau
Seminar y Gymraeg, Technoleg a’r Cyfryngau Digidol
Stadiwm Dinas Caerdydd (stadiwm pêl-droed Caerdydd, Lecwydd)
To those less au fait with the Welsh language (I’m a learner myself which may also explain any inaccuracies in the information I present below!):
Welsh Government
The Department of Education and Skills
Welsh Language, Technology and Digital Media Seminar
Cardiff City Stadium
This seminar was run by the Welsh Government (Department of Education and Skills) in Cardiff City Stadium with the topic being Welsh, Technology and Digital Media. More specifically the stated focus was harnessing technology to promote the Welsh language and how more digital content can be made available in the language. The seminar was held on 21/06/12 so it’s only take me a month to get round to tidying up these notes!
I’ll summarise a small part of the content presented and add my own comment or two along the way.
The actual content is here:
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/welshlanguage/ourevents/welshtechevent/?lang=en
Prif Araith gan y Gweinidog Addysg a Sgiliau (Leighton Andrews)
(Keynote speech from the minister for education and skills)
The keynote speech from the minister for education and skills, Leighton Andrews, highlighted the following areas:
Welsh language measure (part of a five year strategy fo rthe Welsh langauge)
http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-legislation/bus-leg-measures/business-legislation-measures-wl.htm
‘The Proposed Welsh Language (Wales) Measure is intended to modernise the existing legal framework largely governed by the Welsh Language Act 1993 regarding the use of the Welsh language in the delivery of public services.’
The idea being that the Welsh language provisions should be as good as alternative languages. Obviously this is not the case for digital media – hence in part presumably this seminar. Some examples of postive work included:
Key fact: only 1% of the time Welsh speakers spend on the Internet is spent on Welsh (language) websites. This is a figure the Welsh Government want to address as a mechanism to ‘promote the Welsh language’. It is a startling figure.
Subsequent speakers then continued to explore the 4 themes of the day:
Thema 1: darbwlio busnesau cwmnioedd i ddarparu’r Gymraeg ar-lein
Getting businesses and companies to provide Welsh Online
Marc Webber, Ymgynghorydd Annibynol (Independent Consultant)
Mr Webber highlighted the following areas:
Is the problem as much that no-one knows about the content that is available?
Is marketing as much the issue? I am reminded of a recent Welsh Government tender which included a database of welsh language resources. Begs the question, why isn’t this in place already? Or a Welsh language content centric search engine perhaps? Or do you know of one already? Perhaps by one of the main search providers?
As an aside I am happy to report that my ‘Canolradd’ Welsh language ‘skills’ were largely able to cope with this presentation without the need for the translating headset/ service. This was not the case for some of the others however!
Thema 2: annog y defnydd o’r Gymraeg yn a cyfryngau cymdeithasol – Apps, cynnwys gan defnyddwyr a rhwydweithio cymdeithasol
(Enouraging the use of Wlesh within soical media – Apps, user generated content and social networking)
Rhodri ap Dyfrig, Myfyriwr PhD (PhD Student) http://www.apdyfrig.com/
Research survey conclusions
Rhodri suggested that we need celebrities to draw attention to Welsh content.
http://cy.umap.eu/ - though didn’t seem to be working when I visited.
Umap twitter processing following on from efforts around the Basque langauge
Thema 3: datblygu technoloeg ochr wrth a deunydd Addysgu Cymraeg
Developing technology side by side with Welsh educational material
Sioned Roberts Comisiynydd Cynnwys S4C (Content Commisioner)
S4C is planning more educational content
Plan to digitise more content and make available for download with an emphasis on educational resources and resources that support mainstream broadcast content.
Funding has been reduced significantly and less funding implies less TV content and more other forms of content that is cheaper to produce, e.g. online content.
An example would be the planned ‘History Detectives’ which is to present the history of Wales in a fun way, with ties into the curriculum and the supporting content to be part of the main programme budget.
The point was made that new technologies, e.g. smartphones, have changed the way people, particularly younger people interact with media. For example, teenagers may be more likely to be watching media via their tablet or phone than live TV, and when they do they are more likely to be multi-tasking.
Thema 4: annog y sector cyhoeddus i hybu arfer dda ac i ddylanwadu ar ddarparwyr meddalwedd
Encouraging the public sector to promote best practice and influence software providers
Huw Onllwyn Jones
I didn’t make notes on this presentation – see http://wales.gov.uk/docs/dcells/publications/120629huwonllwynjonescyen.pdf. The focus was on (out of date) related standards published by WAG and tools that currently exist in the arena.
I may return to related topics in a subsequent blog entry but briefly it was argued during the presentations that the issue was as much about welsh speakers using/ finding welsh language content as opposed to there being a dearth of content. It was also argued to an extent that simply content and UIs being available in Welsh is actually less important than users being able to contribute/ discuss/ share their own content in Welsh. I think I would go along with this – we should be facilitating the use of the language not simply replicating English language UIs in Welsh.
On the Welsh content front, even though I’ve argued that it perhaps matters less, to test out the availability of I checked out the website(s) of the venue of the event. A very small sample size I know but none of the Cardiff City related sites were available in Welsh:
Cardiff city stadium, cardiff city, cardiff blues, Cardiff City Events, ddim yn Gymraeg,
http://www.cardiffcitystadium.co.uk/
http://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk
http://www.cardiffblues.com/ (though back to the Arms park for next season!)
http://www.cardiffcityevents.co.uk/
Which I thought mildly interesting but as already stated perhaps less important than encouraging Welsh speakers to interact more in Welsh with social media and other Internet based applications.
Yr Adran Addysg a Sgiliau
Seminar y Gymraeg, Technoleg a’r Cyfryngau Digidol
Stadiwm Dinas Caerdydd (stadiwm pêl-droed Caerdydd, Lecwydd)
To those less au fait with the Welsh language (I’m a learner myself which may also explain any inaccuracies in the information I present below!):
Welsh Government
The Department of Education and Skills
Welsh Language, Technology and Digital Media Seminar
Cardiff City Stadium
This seminar was run by the Welsh Government (Department of Education and Skills) in Cardiff City Stadium with the topic being Welsh, Technology and Digital Media. More specifically the stated focus was harnessing technology to promote the Welsh language and how more digital content can be made available in the language. The seminar was held on 21/06/12 so it’s only take me a month to get round to tidying up these notes!
I’ll summarise a small part of the content presented and add my own comment or two along the way.
The actual content is here:
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/welshlanguage/ourevents/welshtechevent/?lang=en
Prif Araith gan y Gweinidog Addysg a Sgiliau (Leighton Andrews)
(Keynote speech from the minister for education and skills)
The keynote speech from the minister for education and skills, Leighton Andrews, highlighted the following areas:
Welsh language measure (part of a five year strategy fo rthe Welsh langauge)
http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-legislation/bus-leg-measures/business-legislation-measures-wl.htm
‘The Proposed Welsh Language (Wales) Measure is intended to modernise the existing legal framework largely governed by the Welsh Language Act 1993 regarding the use of the Welsh language in the delivery of public services.’
The idea being that the Welsh language provisions should be as good as alternative languages. Obviously this is not the case for digital media – hence in part presumably this seminar. Some examples of postive work included:
- Google, with Gmail to offer a Welsh langauage interface (but a later presenter questioned this focus on interfaces over content).
- Provision of media (e.g. live videos of performers for other performers) at the Urdd Eisteddfod. On this note while visiting the Eisteddfod I felt that technology support for the general public in such a regard left much to be desired.
- Canolfan Bedwyr (Bangor University) – new smartphone app, though I could find no evidence of this on their site: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/canolfanbedwyr/technolegau_iaith.php.en?menu=10&catid=9435&subid=0. I plan to follow this up with them.
Key fact: only 1% of the time Welsh speakers spend on the Internet is spent on Welsh (language) websites. This is a figure the Welsh Government want to address as a mechanism to ‘promote the Welsh language’. It is a startling figure.
Subsequent speakers then continued to explore the 4 themes of the day:
Thema 1: darbwlio busnesau cwmnioedd i ddarparu’r Gymraeg ar-lein
Getting businesses and companies to provide Welsh Online
Marc Webber, Ymgynghorydd Annibynol (Independent Consultant)
Mr Webber highlighted the following areas:
Is the problem as much that no-one knows about the content that is available?
- 1 million tweets in Welsh; 800 using twitter in welsh; a petition exists to facilitate the use of twitter in Welsh (UI elements again presumably)
- Do we want to see Go Compare (and the like in Welsh)?
- Smartphones are increasingly important
- Lots there already
- 1 Million Facebook users from Wales
- FB sites: Y Lolfa, Cwrw Llŷn (but usage isn’t great?)
- Microsoft support (though there was interestingly no mention of SharePoint where Wlehs language support was noticeable lacking in the latest product version after being there previosuly)
- Samsung/ Orange offer a ‘Welsh’ phone. Hmmm.
- Ap Golwg
- 10s of Android and iPhone apps and I would imagine it be 100s in reality know of others on other platforms, e.g. Windows Phone
- http://tarianonline.co.uk/
- http://www.eviivo.com/
- http://lleol.net/
- http://www.safleswyddi.com/ – complete with companion iphone app
- Sain, Gomer, gwales, y lolfa
Is marketing as much the issue? I am reminded of a recent Welsh Government tender which included a database of welsh language resources. Begs the question, why isn’t this in place already? Or a Welsh language content centric search engine perhaps? Or do you know of one already? Perhaps by one of the main search providers?
As an aside I am happy to report that my ‘Canolradd’ Welsh language ‘skills’ were largely able to cope with this presentation without the need for the translating headset/ service. This was not the case for some of the others however!
Thema 2: annog y defnydd o’r Gymraeg yn a cyfryngau cymdeithasol – Apps, cynnwys gan defnyddwyr a rhwydweithio cymdeithasol
(Enouraging the use of Wlesh within soical media – Apps, user generated content and social networking)
Rhodri ap Dyfrig, Myfyriwr PhD (PhD Student) http://www.apdyfrig.com/
- million use social networking sites
- 200,000 upload content
- Using Welsh ... no firm stats but 40,000 estimated
Research survey conclusions
- Lack of welsh language content
- Welsh language sites are of poorer quality
- Schools in SE Wales didn’t even bother searching in Welsh
Rhodri suggested that we need celebrities to draw attention to Welsh content.
http://cy.umap.eu/ - though didn’t seem to be working when I visited.
Umap twitter processing following on from efforts around the Basque langauge
- Too much focus on UI elements; it is content which is more important
- ‘link economy’ - tweets should link to Welsh content but this is rarely the case
- Does twitter contribute to the health of the language?
- The 1% stat was re-emphsized
- Trends on twitter are concerned with the Welsh langauge itself rather than international stories (in Welsh) – such specificity indicating use is not widespread
- We need to be better supporting the content feedback loop: content is shared via links causing it to be discussed, generating more content
Thema 3: datblygu technoloeg ochr wrth a deunydd Addysgu Cymraeg
Developing technology side by side with Welsh educational material
Sioned Roberts Comisiynydd Cynnwys S4C (Content Commisioner)
S4C is planning more educational content
Plan to digitise more content and make available for download with an emphasis on educational resources and resources that support mainstream broadcast content.
Funding has been reduced significantly and less funding implies less TV content and more other forms of content that is cheaper to produce, e.g. online content.
An example would be the planned ‘History Detectives’ which is to present the history of Wales in a fun way, with ties into the curriculum and the supporting content to be part of the main programme budget.
The point was made that new technologies, e.g. smartphones, have changed the way people, particularly younger people interact with media. For example, teenagers may be more likely to be watching media via their tablet or phone than live TV, and when they do they are more likely to be multi-tasking.
Thema 4: annog y sector cyhoeddus i hybu arfer dda ac i ddylanwadu ar ddarparwyr meddalwedd
Encouraging the public sector to promote best practice and influence software providers
Huw Onllwyn Jones
I didn’t make notes on this presentation – see http://wales.gov.uk/docs/dcells/publications/120629huwonllwynjonescyen.pdf. The focus was on (out of date) related standards published by WAG and tools that currently exist in the arena.
I may return to related topics in a subsequent blog entry but briefly it was argued during the presentations that the issue was as much about welsh speakers using/ finding welsh language content as opposed to there being a dearth of content. It was also argued to an extent that simply content and UIs being available in Welsh is actually less important than users being able to contribute/ discuss/ share their own content in Welsh. I think I would go along with this – we should be facilitating the use of the language not simply replicating English language UIs in Welsh.
On the Welsh content front, even though I’ve argued that it perhaps matters less, to test out the availability of I checked out the website(s) of the venue of the event. A very small sample size I know but none of the Cardiff City related sites were available in Welsh:
Cardiff city stadium, cardiff city, cardiff blues, Cardiff City Events, ddim yn Gymraeg,
http://www.cardiffcitystadium.co.uk/
http://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk
http://www.cardiffblues.com/ (though back to the Arms park for next season!)
http://www.cardiffcityevents.co.uk/
Which I thought mildly interesting but as already stated perhaps less important than encouraging Welsh speakers to interact more in Welsh with social media and other Internet based applications.
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