Showing posts with label Edu4hazards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Edu4hazards. Show all posts
Friday, September 19, 2008
Edu4hazards.org now available in Chinese
Following the success of translating the entire site into Spanish and in an effort to cover the major written languages of the world, www.edu4hazards.org is now also available in Chinese (simplified). While you may also notice that this site has had a redesign, so has http://edu4drr.ning.com which I have done in an effort to get members to do the same! I want member sto use the site more and I thought that if I 'pimped' the site, they might do the same thing!
Monday, September 01, 2008
www.edu4hazards.org in Spanish
My edu4hazards site is now completely translated into Spanish. It took me about ten hours to change all the graphics in photoshop and edit and upload all of the html files. I have even changed the META tags so that someone searching on google in a Spanish speaking country will be able to find it! Pretty tiring but I am PLEASED with the results. Next I plan to translate into simplified Chinese using google translate! And talking of translating websites, I now have a clever little series of flags on the edu4drr.ning.com site which when pressed translates the entire site using google translate! I have to say having used google translate it is pretty good. However you really have to read through careully as any 'untranslatable' words stay in English. The trick the is to rephrase it slightly and then cross-check by translating back from Spanish to English (in this instance)
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Edu4hazards.org available in Norwegian - More translation needed.
Over a year ago I designed and built a website aimed at enabling
children and youth to know what appropriate measures to take before
during and after a hazard event. The initial idea came about because
the students I teach often travel abroad on holiday or visiting
family in areas where there are high risks of earthquakes, tornadoes
and hurricanes. Consequently the design of the site reflects this and
the front page of the site is a suitcase with eight labels that say
'earthquake', 'hurricane' etc. Once clicked on the main information
about how to react to the hazard appears. It i purposely not too
wordy and the advice is simple and widely accepted. The site has been
very successful and without marketing generates 50,000 hits monthly
and growing. I have used the site to deliver DRR messages in schools
in London very successfully; using the site as a stimulus and then
carrying out some of the advice with children such as 'duck, cover
and hold' for earthquakes, practising the 'lightning crouch' and
deciding what other action may be taken in the event of a thunder and
lightning storm. Students have made their own films in a wide variety
of languages - Mandarin Chinese, Turkish, Russian, Urdu, Punjabi,
French, German and English in order to show what action to take for a
wide variety of these hazards. These are available through youtube
teacher tube and as video podcasts through the itunes store (type in
'edu4hazards').
The site and the multimedia techniques that I have been pioneering
have been accepted well in the international community of those
involved in DRR and was included as an example of good practice in
the UNISDR publication earlier this year. This is all well and good
and I am glad to receive recognition, but this was never the reason
for me carrying out this project. I wanted to make a difference and
highlight what I thought was lacking in education for DRR in
mainstream education - experiential learning techniques that make a
real impact on children and youth, allowing them to be prepared and
not scared. I have come to the attention of the UK Government, the
Council of Europe and many emergency managers in many local
authorities, where I have given presentations about this project.
However when I have asked for help for site translation their has
been an initial buzz followed by a hiatus, followed by a negative
response at a later date. But following my presentation at the
Council of Europe Meeting on Disaster Reduction at school, a
Norwegian colleague, offered to translate the site into Norwegian.
The main information on each one of the hazard pages has now been
translated, although the further information parts have not been. The
site will automatically come up in Norwegian if you are in Norway,
whereas the rest of the world currently gets the English site, but it
does not have to be like that! I am attaching a word document with
this principal information on and would appreciate any help that
colleagues could give in translation. I would add a link on the site
as I have done from the Norwegian version of the site to that
person's organisation! The Norwegian site can be viewed at: http://
www.edu4hazards.org/index_no.html
There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about education and
how to motivate children and youth to become agents for change for
DRR and I have seen this site coupled with the activities alongside
it do just that. Children show me there Emergency go-bags for
instance and I have even had parents talk to me about what to include
in them (there are photograph's on the site). There is now a
teacher's page on the site where teachers can explore how to use the
site with lesson plans and resources as well as a link to the new
social network for teachers wanting to make a difference in disaster
prevention at: http://edu4drr.ning.com
Please contact me if YOU can help make a difference, as doing this by
myself is not easy!
children and youth to know what appropriate measures to take before
during and after a hazard event. The initial idea came about because
the students I teach often travel abroad on holiday or visiting
family in areas where there are high risks of earthquakes, tornadoes
and hurricanes. Consequently the design of the site reflects this and
the front page of the site is a suitcase with eight labels that say
'earthquake', 'hurricane' etc. Once clicked on the main information
about how to react to the hazard appears. It i purposely not too
wordy and the advice is simple and widely accepted. The site has been
very successful and without marketing generates 50,000 hits monthly
and growing. I have used the site to deliver DRR messages in schools
in London very successfully; using the site as a stimulus and then
carrying out some of the advice with children such as 'duck, cover
and hold' for earthquakes, practising the 'lightning crouch' and
deciding what other action may be taken in the event of a thunder and
lightning storm. Students have made their own films in a wide variety
of languages - Mandarin Chinese, Turkish, Russian, Urdu, Punjabi,
French, German and English in order to show what action to take for a
wide variety of these hazards. These are available through youtube
teacher tube and as video podcasts through the itunes store (type in
'edu4hazards').
The site and the multimedia techniques that I have been pioneering
have been accepted well in the international community of those
involved in DRR and was included as an example of good practice in
the UNISDR publication earlier this year. This is all well and good
and I am glad to receive recognition, but this was never the reason
for me carrying out this project. I wanted to make a difference and
highlight what I thought was lacking in education for DRR in
mainstream education - experiential learning techniques that make a
real impact on children and youth, allowing them to be prepared and
not scared. I have come to the attention of the UK Government, the
Council of Europe and many emergency managers in many local
authorities, where I have given presentations about this project.
However when I have asked for help for site translation their has
been an initial buzz followed by a hiatus, followed by a negative
response at a later date. But following my presentation at the
Council of Europe Meeting on Disaster Reduction at school, a
Norwegian colleague, offered to translate the site into Norwegian.
The main information on each one of the hazard pages has now been
translated, although the further information parts have not been. The
site will automatically come up in Norwegian if you are in Norway,
whereas the rest of the world currently gets the English site, but it
does not have to be like that! I am attaching a word document with
this principal information on and would appreciate any help that
colleagues could give in translation. I would add a link on the site
as I have done from the Norwegian version of the site to that
person's organisation! The Norwegian site can be viewed at: http://
www.edu4hazards.org/index_no.html
There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about education and
how to motivate children and youth to become agents for change for
DRR and I have seen this site coupled with the activities alongside
it do just that. Children show me there Emergency go-bags for
instance and I have even had parents talk to me about what to include
in them (there are photograph's on the site). There is now a
teacher's page on the site where teachers can explore how to use the
site with lesson plans and resources as well as a link to the new
social network for teachers wanting to make a difference in disaster
prevention at: http://edu4drr.ning.com
Please contact me if YOU can help make a difference, as doing this by
myself is not easy!
Monday, June 23, 2008
Edu4Hazards site in Norwegian!
The Edu4Hazards site has now been translated into Norwegian, or at least the pages with the most relevant information about how to prepare for and react to all eight of the hazards is! This graphic tells you how to react to an earthquake for instance!
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