Re: Arabic applications for education

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

--- Abdulaziz Al-Arfaj <aalarfaj at gmail dot com> wrote:
> On 5/14/05, Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com> wrote:
> > --- Maja van der Velden <maja at xs4all dot nl> wrote:
> > >
> > > http://www.skolelinux.org/portal/
> > 
> > Thanks Maja.  We were made aware of this project approx a year ago and
> > Abdulaziz (per the thread noted [1]) was supposed to look into the project
> > to see how we it can be "Arabized".  Seems like that effort has fallen
> > through the cracks.
> > 
> > Abdulaziz, any of this ring a bell ?  Thoughts ?
> [...]
> 
> Yeah it rings a bell. This project might be worthwhile any effort we
> put into it. I think we all agree education sectors are our main
> audience we do Arabization work. The project contains many educational
> apps, but they're not specific to Skolelinux. Examples are Gcompris
> and Ktouch. I think Gcompris is already in our GNOME translation repo.
> Translation will be the easiest part of all when it comes to
> Skolelinux.

Agreed and as such I think we should seriously move towards making
something like this a reality.

> The hard part is cultural localization. Skolelinux is targeting mostly
> young schoolchildren. If we don't want it to be at the recieving end
> of uberzealous censorship in Arabic countries, there are certain
> cultural elements which need to be removed/replaced. We don't have the
> resources (and not by a long shot) to hack each and every program that
> will need cultural modification.
> 
> It would be nice if Skolelinux became a culturally modular
> distribution. Insert the cultural module of your choice, and the
> programs and apps will behave accordingly.

Abdulaziz, could you seriously take this on to make this a reality and/or
to get the SkoleLinux folk talking about these issues ?  As you noted
we can help in the process but in all honesty I don't think we are the
ones that should be defining the future direction of SkoleLinux.

In short, do please contact (and CC Arabeyes) about the ideas and notes
outlined above to get them thinking about all these issues and to hopefully
get us all inching towards a more encompassing solution.  Raising awareness
about all these issues is a key component to future action.

Salam.

 - Nadim


		
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