Alexandra Giroux

“C’est naturel donc c’est bon” vous disait encore ce matin madame Martin à la boulangerie. Mais ma bonne dame « qu’entend-on par “bon” ? » auriez-vous pu répliquer. Moral ? Bénéfique ? Inoffensif ? C’est pourtant parfois tout l’inverse… La preuve par cinq (ou comment faire la nique à madame Martin).

1. Les cosmétiques

Après-shampoing au beurre de karité, déodorant à la pierre d’alun, crème enrichie à l’huile essentielle de lavande… Des produits qui, comme on dirait dans “Capital”, jouent avec tous les clichés “nature”. Tout y passe,du packaging au parfum, en passant par la texture. Mais gare au shampoing au henné contenant parfois du paraben, qui serait selon certaines études cancérigène (on nous aura pourtant prévenus qu’on va tous crever). De la même manière, attention au Bigen, ce colorant sans ammoniaque, qui contient du ppd (Para-phenylenediamine pour les intimes), potentiellement allergène. Un coup d’oeil aux étiquettes des produits, qu’ils proviennent de chez Yves Rocher, ou de chez Body Shop, permet à la FAF* (*Femme Au Foyer) avertie de comprendre que ces produits sont loin d’être “naturels”.

2. L’alimentation

Entre les jus de fruits à emporter et les bars à soupe, il semble que le naturel réinvestisse notre alimentation. Chouette les copines, à nous le fooding trop kawaï. Mais trop riches en sucre ou en sel, tous ces produits ne sont hélas pas forcément l’ami de notre santé. Qu’en est-il des produits bio ? Il ne sont pas forcément écolos… Et le “label” est payant, tout comme celui du commerce équitable. D’ailleurs… le petit apiculteur cro meugnon du marché produit peut-être du miel bio sans que vous ne le sachiez.

La fourrure, c’est naturel non ? Eh bien allez l’expliquer à PETA. On vous répondre gentiment “I’d rather go naked”. Et la prochaine fois que vous discutez avec un végétalien convaincu, évitez de lui dire que vous aussi vous adorez la nature et que d’ailleurs vous ne portez que du cuir et de la laine.

5. La drogue

Vous êtes du genre à ne pas prendre de cocaïne ou de LSD car c’est chimique ? C’est bien, ça fera plaisir à votre maman mais pas la peine de vous tourner vers des choses plus “naturelles” comme les champignons hallucinogènes qui comportent bien évidemment aussi des risques. En version plus light, il y a aussi le cabanis coupé aux délicieux morceaux de verre pilé miam miam.

Alors d’accord, on l’a bien compris : l’amanite phalloïde est naturelle et ce n’est pas pour cela qu’elle est bonne. Un peu d’éducation nous évitera d’assaisonner les chipos du barbec’ avec du laurier rose, extrêmement toxique (à cause de la méchante présence d’hétérosides cardiotoniques). Mais juste parce qu’on est des vrais rebelles, nous allons être un peu nuancer dans nos propos : le contre nature peut aussi être bon (euh… oui… vous aussi vous pensiez au chewing gum ?)

An important aspect of an e-learning project it the rollout. Once your learning material is produced, you have to make it available to the learners. The question to be asked is the following: how to display your resource online? To answer this question, you will have to assess your needs of course administration, resource sharing, communication and collaboration. This will help you to choose what system is right for you: VLE, CMS, LMS or LCMS. But what is the difference between these strange acronyms?

VLE

(Virtual Learning Environments)

A VLE is a software system designed to help tutors or teachers in the management of educational courses for their students. It is used by universities and colleges to help lecturers to create a course website with a minimum of technical skills. It facilitates communication, assessments and document sharing (e.g. textbooks). People can also share and build together a learning resource helped by some tools such as wiki, blogs, RSS, etc. VLE is a good choice if you are an enthusiastic lecturer who wants to post a terrific video relevant to your last class about “risk management in oil and gas project development”.

Examples: Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle,…

CMS

(Content Management System)

A CMS is a system used to manage the content of a website. It allows the creation and administration of online content by several people: pages are composed when requested by a user’s browser. A CMS handles modification, and removal of information resources which are stored in a database. CMS is a good choice if you are working with some people on a webzine and if you want to check what your friend Dany wrote in his last article about “the impact of presidential bioethics commissions” before publishing it online.

Examples: Joomla, Dotclear, or WordPress (that is used to publish what you are reading!)

LMS

(Learning Management System)

A LMS automates the administration of learning programs within an organization. It allows you to deliver, to track and to manage training. LMS is a good choice if you are a bit of a stalker and if you want to track the progress of your learners and to automatically send them an email if they did not complete the course.

Examples: Elearning manager, Moodle, or Dokeos,…

LCMS

(Learning Content Management System)

This software application (or set of applications) is a multi-user environment where learning developers can author, approve, publish, and manage a learning content. It has in the same time the characteristics of a LMS (administrative and management) and a CMS (content creation and personalized assembly). LCMS is a good choice if you wrote a course in French that will be translated in Dutch and republished for another audience.

Examples: Claroline, e-doceo solutions, Ganesha,…

To sum up, it can be said that VLE can be a good complement to on-site training, within a blended-learning context. A CMS is more content orientated and will allow you to easily update and change your resources. A LMS is good to manage the activity of the learners since it has a real pedagogical capital gain. A LCMS will be perfect to manage content (a LMS cannot create and manipulate courses).

Several open-source, public and commercial platforms can help you in your project. Now, it is up to you to decide what system matches your need. But be careful: open-source solutions are not necessarily free since you might have to pay for experts, servers, management, etc.

You are about to create an e-learning resource targeting a multilingual audience. Good point! But did you check the ten following points? Let’s find out…

1) Cultural references

Avoid ethnocentrism! Culture, symbolism or even taboos are not universal. That is a masterful statement of the obvious! Let’s take an example: if you want to represent security services, do not display the picture of a policeman in a Polish uniform if your target audience is not only polish. The same goes with colors: white is traditionally linked to purity in most of western countries, while it might be linked to the idea of death in eastern countries.

2) Scenario

Different cultures have different ways of thinking and this will influence your pedagogical approach. Some people are more used to the inductive method, while some others are more familiar with the deductive one. So what pedagogical approach should you choose? Try to analyze your target audience upstream of writing your scenario.

3) Wordplays

Your e-learning production is full of puns, spoonerisms and clever rhetorical excursions? Good for you! But not so good for the person who will be in charge of translating all these messages whose incongruity has the power to evoke laughter.

4) Expressions, pronunciation

Sometimes, even writing in a unique language can be an issue. If your audience is both French and Belgian for instance, watch out: the pronunciation and some expressions may vary. Did you know that these two countries use different words to say 70 and 90?

5) Appropriate layout

Keep in mind that traditionally, people tend to read from the left to the right because it is the way Romanian writing goes. But what about Arabic or Chinese writing? Since their text goes from the right to the left, or from the top to the bottom, the global perception of space will not be the same.

6) Optimal space for your text

Some languages use more words than others in order to express the same idea. That is why you need to think about what space will take each language in your page. Avoid creating text areas that are too small to save you some precious time when you will work on the translated version of your e-learning production.

7) No text in your pictures

If you work with a graphic designer, explain to him the context of your production. Do not put any text in your pictures if it is not the same word in the languages you are using. For instance, the picture of a letter with the text “invoice” will probably not make sense to you Portuguese audience. Also, keep in mind that simple pictograms in your template will be more efficient than buttons with a text written inside.

8) Navigation

All the people do not have the same practice of multimedia, depending of the place they live. For instance, North American countries have more experience with the Internet than South American countries. As a result, the generation gap is less visible in North American countries and most of the people are familiar with surfing on the Internet, even if sometimes the navigation is a bit different than what we are usually used to see. Depending on your target, adapt ergonomics so all the people will be able to use correctly your e-learning resource.

9) Optimal tools

I will talk about the tools that I know the best because I use them for my job: elearning maker and elearning gallery. I think it is useful to work with these tools when doing a multilingual e-learning production because you can export, translate, and import your texts very easily, directly from a simple excel file. You don’t need to create page by page a new resource in the translated language.

10) Technology

Keep in mind that different countries might have different levels of technologies. Even on a national scale, there are some differences if you compare the speed of the computers, the bandwidth, and so on. Imagine what it can be on an international level!

And of course the last tip that goes without saying would be: test, test and test! Good luck with your multilingual e-learning production.