It seems like a millisecond but the past two or three decades have done to humanity what even centuries could not manage. Suddenly and irreversibly many aspects of human life are now being run, governed, fueled and controlled by technology. So much has changed in a matter of few years and one does get boggled when one recalls how things, work, and life used to function just a few years back.
Everything was so different and so incredibly untouched by technology. Today, automation and speed virtually define every task and dimension of a daily life. Not only has technology penetrated deeply on usual activities of mankind but it has also started touching on many other complex and strategic levels.
One could never think of a virtual classroom in the age of our grandparents. The very idea was too bizarre given certain notions of education and learning that have been deeply entrenched in our sensitivities and mindsets. To think of teachers as non-physical beings was impossible and to conceive the model of a classroom where anyone can have access anytime was also too staggering.
Yet today we see how so many fields and categories of knowledge are being driven through technology. From Science to Arts, from vocational skills to abstract courses, from school-level curriculum to post-graduate degrees, from conceptual crash-courses to corporate skilling programs, from specific training to overall development; almost every area of education has tasted the flavor of technology and liked it.
Massive online courses, training software, tools and virtual academies have sprung up everywhere and brought in the power of knowledge on to every aspiring student’s doorstep, or rather click of the finger. The E-Learning revolution has started.
This makes the task of translation for technology-driven education all the more interesting and yet challenging. These courses may enable a big chunk of students to reap the advancements of technology by learning from anywhere, from anyone, and anytime; but it also means that the burden of the outcomes rests more on the shoulders of technology this time. Or to be precise, on the shoulders of translators: Because if small anomalies or discrepancies happen to pass right under a translator’s nose, the long-term outcome is far-reaching and almost irreversible in nature.
It becomes very crucial for translators to, first of all, understand the gist, the inclination, the core of a course, and the skeletal fundamentals before adding in the muscle of language there for spreading a given course across multiple language-speakers. A certain culture’s or a given region’s student may not just bring peculiar linguistic differences but may also call upon the significance of special learning curve, ways of imbibing information, conditioning of brain and assimilation processes.
This is where e-Learning translation services have to be tapped very wisely so as to ensure that courses retain the consistency and the essence that was originally intended.
This also necessitates that e-Learning translation is not done as a footnote for a given material or training project but is being tackled with a lifecycle approach and with a deep orientation for the learner and the language alike.
Professional e-Learning translation service providers have the experience to take many such factors into cognizance and make certain that technology propels learning in the right way and towards the future. They inject a different level of strategic approach, standards, tools, exercises, feedback mechanisms and educational nuances into a translation here as they are well aware that this genre of translation is not the same as a marketing document project.
