[Planning-en] Media Release: Multi Cultural Technology

[Cat Scratch]

Attention:
Chief of Staff
cos at sbs.com.au 

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Free and Open Source Software for Multi-Lingual Learning.

The Dutch class at the Victorian School of Languages is celebrating
Software Freedom Day on Saturday 16th September after embracing Free
Software for language education.

What is Software Freedom Day?

Saturday 16 September 2006
http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/

Software Freedom Day is a global, grassroots effort to tell people about
the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software. Pia
Waugh, president of Software Freedom International said "SFD is an
international day, born three years ago, to help the average person to
understand how software transparency is important in our lives." She
explained that with the increasing importance of technology in our
voting systems, leisure activities and workplaces, basic human freedoms
can only be as free as the technology they rely on.

Free and Open Source Software is widely available from the internet, or
on CDs and DVDs. It can be installed on as many computers as necessary
without having to pay a licence fee for each one. Anyone can share it
with friends, make copies and even change it to help make it better. For
example, Ubuntu and Fedora Linux are fully fledged operating systems. It
is available for PC or Macintosh hardware and includes the
OpenOffice.org wordprocessor, spreadsheet, and graphics computer
programs. OpenOffice.org is available in over 50 different languages.
http://www.openoffice.org/

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is developed and supported by a
worldwide community of people. Some of these people get paid to work on
free software and others do it in their spare time. Groups of FOSS users
from all over the world are involved in organising events to celebrate
Software Freedom Day. When asked to help translate the first 3 lines of
this article, the community responded in the following languages:
Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German,
Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Nepali, Russian, Spanish, Slovak, Turkish,
Ukrainian and Vietnamese.  To see the translations go to
http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/MultiLingualSFD

The Dutch class at the Box Hill centre of the Victorian School of
Languages will also be celebrating Software Freedom Day on Saturday
September 16. Students will use an Open Source audio editing program
called Audacity to record, listen to, and edit the sound of themselves
speaking and interviewing each other in preparation for their final VCE
oral exams. Ilja Doulis, teacher of the VSL's Dutch class said "This
year's students have been studying the experiences of Dutch post-war
emigrants now living in Melbourne, and recently went to the Princess
Beatrix village in Montrose to conduct interviews. We'll use Audacity to
record and edit questions and answers about this topic to help prepare
for the final exam". http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

The Victorian School of Languages (VSL http://www.vsl.vic.edu.au/) is a
government school focused on providing language education programs to
students in Years 1 to 12 who do not have access to the study of those
languages at their day-to-day schools.  The VSL delivers the language
program through face-to-face teaching in language centres across the
state and also through a distance education program.

The VSL runs courses for school students in the following languages:
Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Auslan (Australian sign language), Bengali,
Bosnian, Bulgarian, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Croatian, Dutch,
Filipino (Tagalog), French, German, Greek (Modern and Classical),
Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean,
Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Maltese, Persian, Polish,
Portuguese, Punjabi, Pushto, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovenian,
Somali, Spanish, Tamil, Tigrinya, Turkish, Urdu and Vietnamese.

Whilst the Dutch class activities at the VSL are NOT open to the public
there is a Software Freedom Day Bazaar being held at the Melbourne Town
Hall in the City. Doors are open from 11am until 5pm. Free and Open
Source Software professionals and enthusiasts will be there to explain,
demonstrate and distribute CDs of Free and Open Source Software.
Admission is of course, Free.

For more details see the website http://www.sfd06.org/melb/
or contact Donna Benjamin - donna at cc.com.au 0418 310 414
or Ilja Doulis ilja at dutchclass.net

-- 
Donna Benjamin
Conference Director linux.conf.au 2008 http://www.mel8ourne.org
Board Member Open Source Industry Australia http://www.osia.net.au
Executive Director Creative Contingencies http://www.cc.com.au