No room for Irish language in e-learning
Thursday, October 21 2004
by Ciaran Buckley

Riverdeep's chief executive says that the Irish government needs to plan its e-learning strategy and warned that Irish Gaelic may be left out in the cold.

Barry O'Callaghan made his comments while addressing the TIF Telecommunications for Education conference in University College Dublin's O'Reilly Hall. The conference was focused on the implications of broadband for Ireland's 4,100 schools.


Riverdeep, which was set up in Dublin in 1995 to develop e-learning for schools, is the biggest seller of e-learning software in the United States. However, the company sells very little in the Irish market, where the government has yet to formulate an e-learning policy. When outlining the potential difficulty in rolling out e-learning in the Irish market O'Callaghan said that any requirement to localise e-learning courseware into Irish-Gaelic could be prohibitively expensive.


"Ireland will need to make some hard decisions in regard to Irish language e-learning," he said, pointing out that his responsibility, as the chief executive of a private company, was to make money for the shareholders.


O'Callaghan said that most of his experience of e-learning in schools came from Riverdeep's experience in the enormous US market. He said that the demand for e-learning software in the US was driven by huge expenditure on academic IT infrastructure, as well as the record numbers of students attending American schools. He also noted that the fact that one-third of the US's teachers are expected to retire within the next five years means that the remaining teachers will need additional resources in order to teach effectively.

The US has taken a variety of approaches to e-learning in terms of curricula and budgets and O'Callaghan was reluctant to prescribe an e-learning structure for Irish schools. He did say that effective planning was needed to ensure that e-learning was effectively implemented in Irish schools.


"Nobody knows ten to 15 year plan, but the better the plan the better the products," he said. "We need expert groups, who will debate the issues and agree upon a solution."

I dont mean to be rude but why do you keep posting these exceptionally negative articles? Odviously everyone on this site is pro Gaeilge so what do u hope to achieve by continually taunting us with these anti-Irish contributions?

Well, I'm sure it's meant well. It stimulates discussion, though for the most part this is a forum for the advancement of Irish not a political/ linguistic forum.

While I hope the same as Evermind that this person has the best of intentions, it is clear upon review of the articles that they are all negative in nature and engender a " why bother in the face of all this" attitude. Perhaps it is hoped that the reaction will be... lets show them how wrong they are. But since this person does not respond that would be speculation on my part.

I agree with Evermind as well. The articles show a different view from our own, obviously. We need to see what we're up against. It gives the means for a discussion, discussions that are often brought up, about what we can do to better what the world thinks of the language. Unfortunately, one of the downsides is that there are a lot of these articles when I come onto the site and I don't have the time to read them all. But in the same breath, there's is a better approach to this then attacking him after every article. We have to learn to play nice. I know when I get yelled at, I also get more aggravated and prone to do what I want.

I dunno...these are articles are in the newspapers all the time. We read them and have opinions on them....they're something we have to deal with and maybe this is a good a place as any to discuss them, and, in some cases, give the other (correct) version of the story!

A chairde,
Mar eolas daoibh, here in Scotland we see e-learning as a crucial element of educational support for Gaelic.
We have recently launched an online course for parents of children in Gaelic medium education to support family learning and inter-generational translation of the language. (See attached link).
http://news.scotsman.com/education.cfm?id=1194972004
Slán beo!
Chris

is there a link to the actual course - i cant find it in the article or google

As Natalie said, one should play nice. Though new I have been browsing the forum and (i think) one would not want a repeat of the bloodshed that took place here before...

(Long time members will know what I am referring to).

Riverdeep is just another software firm trying to hawk its wares in a new market. Their interest is solely in their bottom line, not the promotion of the Irish language. O' Callaghan makes that quite clear.

Consequently, their objectives are contrary to those of the government of Ireland. I trust the policy-makers are intelligent enough to recognise this conflict of interest.

Broadband communications, i.e., television transmitted over fiber optic cables, offers great opportunity to advance the Irish language. It enables excellent teachers, fluent in Irish, from the Gaeltacht, or wherever, to teach everywhere in the country at the same time.

Government decision makers should look at the experience of North Carolina's remote learning system. As I recall, some of the state's best teacher's had their classes broadcast to remote areas where good teachers were in short supply. Ireland could do the reverse. Gaeilgeoirí could broadcast lessons from the Gaeltacht to the cities. TG4 could add polish and excitment to teaching the language as well.

Broadband-enabled remote education would not just benefit Ireland. I would sign up for courses over the internet if they were given by native speakers and broadcast across the pond to my home in the USA. Ná bígí ag eisteacht leis an phlacaire sin O'Callaghan.

Cormac, a chara,
I can't provide a link to the Scots Gaelic for Parents course at the moment.
I'm looking into the possibility of posting a link to some demo material from the course and will post on this thread in the next week or so if I am able to do so.
Slán beo!
Chris

go raibh maith agat, a dhiocháin

Ach féach mar shampla an nasc seo:
http://www.gaeltalk.net

agus gan amhras an nasc úd chuig easy reader

http://www.irishforlife.com

An ceart agat arís a Aonghuis. Rith an dream céanna liom féin agus murach deifir amach orm aréir bheadh nasc le Gaeltalk luaite agam abhus. Grma.
Dála an scéil, ní fhaca mé ach aon tagairt amháin ag na meáin dóibh in imeacht bliana, measaim.
Ba cheart dúinn cuidiú lena gcuid stocaireachta, mar a rinne tú anseo.