Now You Know Blog

Attend a hockey game here in the Great White North, and you may well hear O Canada sung in a mix of French and English. It's a boisterous exercise in bilingualism and a gentle reminder that we don't always speak the same language. It seems fitting that as we roll out the new Language Module for the dominKnow Learning Content Management System (LCMS), one of the first available languages is French-Canadian.The challenge of providing multilingual e-learning certainly isn't limited to Canadians trying to provide training in both this country's official languages. Practically any local student base anywhere shows some degree of language diversity. Start targeting material for use in another country and you've practically assured some translation will be required. Even adapting courses for different organizations can require some same-language substitutions -- replacing references to "customers" with "clients" for example. Beyond course content, your audience needs to be able to navigate the presentation software too. dominKnow's new Language Module accomplishes a couple of things. First, with a click of the mouse, it allows administrators to present the entire dominKnow LCMS student interface in a student's preferred language. Initially those languages will include English, French-Canadian, French-European, German, Italian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. The Language Module also makes it easier to implement other languages beyond this initial group, to meet almost any target learner group. Secondly, the Language Module boasts a Translation Tool that enables the courseware designer to extract the text assets of a course for translation into any other language they choose. Or do those same-language substitutions. Making e-learning available in myriad languages is an integral part of this business. And it's getting easier. Which should have e-learning providers singing a happier tune. Whatever their national anthem. Tom Handforth is Product Manager at dominKnow.