Rosetta Stone

[Keola Donaghy]

Aloha e Mia, and mahalo to all who have contributed thoughts on this  
topic. We had been approached by the Rosetta Stone folks to develop a  
Hawaiian version of RS, and nearly every concern I had about doing it  
has been echoed by someone in this thread. The commitment required in  
terms of not only dollars but the hours of our most valuable staff is  
difficult to justify. The inability to make significant changes to  
the structure of the lessons would make the product of dubious value  
in many of our programs. We're still looking at it and talking with  
other organizations that may be interested in collaborating on this,  
however, I would not characterize it as a high priority project at  
the moment.

Regarding the use of technology overall in language instruction, it  
has been invaluable to us, but as been pointed out previously, it has  
worked because our needs are driving out technology use, not the  
technology driving our approach to language instruction,  
documentation and perpetuation. When we find a need that technology  
can help address we will find the appropriate technology and adopt it  
to our needs. Also important is our ability to do the work ourselves  
and not depend heavily on outside contractors and consultants to do  
the work for us.

In the online Hawaiian classes we have taught, we have made it clear  
to our students that online learning is not the most effective way to  
teach the language, but for most of the students, it is either online  
learning or nothing. They live in areas where they do not people that  
they can learn the language from, or their work and personal  
commitments preclude their enrolling in formal classes. We do what we  
can to provide them the opportunity, and it certainly requires more  
of a commitment from then than simply buying a CD and hoping that it  
actually gets used. I've spoken to many students who have taken our  
online classes who related to me that they would never have gotten  
through the class if there had not been a real human being online to  
provide not only instruction but encouragement and even solace in  
difficult times. The online environment was not just a technology  
solution, but a community of language learners whose bonds to us and  
each other strengthen through their shared experience.

I was saddened by the story of your colleague. I myself have been  
slow to adopt to mobile technology, however, have been warming up to  
its value only in life and death situations such as the one that you  
have shared, but in our work to keep the Hawaiian language moving  
forward. In some cases it may be for language instruction or  
documentation, and others simply a way of allowing us to do our work  
more effectively.

Keola


========================================================================
Keola Donaghy
Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies
Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani             keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu
University of Hawai'i at Hilo           http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/

"Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam."  (Irish Gaelic saying)
A country without its language is a country without its soul.
========================================================================


On 12 Kek. 2007, at 3:21 PM, Mia Kalish wrote:

> I have a story to share. But first, let me build a little context.
>
> For as long as I have been doing this, there has been lots of to- 
> ing and fro-ing about technology, and in our case, language  
> revitalization. And there has been also some to-ing and fro-ing on  
> revitalization pedagogies. And of course, dollars, where they come  
> from, who gets them, how they are used. Arguments rage on; in some  
> cases, very little happens as they rage.
>
>
>
> Now that everyone has the context, let me tell you what happened,  
> and of course, how I saw it . . . J maybe it will bring some ideas  
> into focus.
>
>
>
> On Monday, one of our professors went to the neighboring town, 25.5  
> miles away, to give the final exam for his class. It was a dark and  
> snowy-rainy-wintry night. He gave his final, and 2 people saw him  
> leave for home. On Tuesday, he hadn’t made it, and people were  
> worried; they were spreading the word, looking for him. Last year,  
> one of his friends, also a friend of mine, was helping him with a  
> car incident. I said, Why don’t you call him? My friend said, He  
> doesn’t have a cell.
>
>
>
> So into the dark and stormy night – and I can tell you it was  
> truly miserable: rain, sleet; snow; and, unrelenting cold – this  
> man drove. There is a turn several – but not many – miles out of  
> town, where one either goes up the mountain to Tsaile, and the  
> warmth of the home fire – kuhgą – or follows the south rim of  
> Canyon de Chelly. The two terrains are vastly different, one  
> leading up the mountain, on paved road, with a few lights and  
> homes, the other leading down, past the Inn, into the canyon.
>
>
>
> His car was found almost 8 miles along the rim highway, at the  
> place where the paved road turns to dirt. His body was found a  
> short ways from his car. The police think he died of exposure. This  
> man had made a personal decision, not to have a cell phone. Can we  
> challenge his right to make a personal decision not to adopt a  
> technology that could have saved his life?  I wonder if he would  
> make a different decision today than he had a week ago, and the  
> year before that, and the decade before that. Would his family  
> encourage him to make a different decision today?
>
>
>
> Part of the problem with the passage of life is that sometimes, you  
> can’t go back and do it over. Sometimes, it seems to me, the risks  
> of being wrong outweigh individual feelings and perspectives. It  
> seems to me.
>
>
>
> I chose Rosalyn’s email, of all the possible choices, to share  
> this little story over, because I absolutely agree with her  
> premise. I think that the bulk of the money Should go into the  
> community, to develop people who can make more materials For the  
> Community. In Ndn communities, “workforce development,” even in  
> the world of burgeoning technology, still means pipefitters and  
> dental hygienists. Do we need people with these skills? Absolutely.  
> Should “workforce development” be limited to this options?  
> Absolutely not.
>
>
>
> Developing technology takes time, skill, and money in dynamic  
> relationship. But if Tribes hire outside companies, no matter who  
> they are, and abrogate their right and their responsibility to  
> participate in their own advancement, or in this case, cultural and  
> linguistic revitalization, where will they be when the money is  
> gone and they need more materials? How will they pass the skills  
> along? What about the pedagogical issues that Phil and Andre and  
> others have brought up? Technology is not “easy” . . .  but  
> then, the people who lived here before Columbus arrived mastered  
> pretty amazing technology (Petroglyph Calendars, mounds square to  
> fractions of a degree; nautical navigation; sophisticated animal  
> husbandry and plant genetics; sun daggers; and, my personal  
> favorite, Chaco Canyon) so there isn’t any reason why their  
> descendants can’t master a little simple computer technology.  
> After all, graphics, sounds, language, and sophisticated knowledge  
> representations are all in the blood.
>
>
>
> So I would like to end with Kaddish for my colleague, an ancient  
> prayer. It will not save him, but merely send good wishes for his  
> path. Would technology have saved him? I don’t know. But the  
> “Maybe it would have” haunts me, because here, we are sharing  
> the tears of loss, of a pain too unexplained for words. When we  
> lost Emmanuel, we lost his language, and the complex web of  
> knowledge that made his language – his ideolect – his own. Is it  
> really so different from what we fight for every day?
>
>
>
> Mia
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology  
> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU] On Behalf Of Rrlapier at AOL.COM
> Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 2:30 PM
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Rosetta Stone
>
>
>
> I have read ANA language grants for several years. In the last  
> couple of years I have noticed more and more efforts to document  
> language using technologies from outside of the community.  
> Oftentimes the community does not articulate how they will  
> incorporate these technologies into their whole language  
> revitalization strategy or how it will build their community capcity.
>
>
>
> Rosetta Stone is one of those companies. In most cases the  
> community knew very very little about the company (they would  
> attach a brochure to their application) and so their grant would  
> basically be asking for 90% to cover the cost of RS and 10% for at  
> home. The question I always asked to the applicant is to show how  
> this is "community capacity building" -- if all the dollars leave  
> the community?
>
>
>
> I think tribes need to be proactive and require companies like RS  
> to put most of the dollars back into the community, by training  
> technicians, language specialists, etc. Tribes need to make this  
> relationship a partnership.
>
>
>
> Rosalyn LaPier
>
> Piegan Institute
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> In a message dated 12/12/2007 12:14:46 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,  
> andrekar at NCIDC.ORG writes:
>
> The arguments against Rosetta stone remind me of the complaints I
> have heard about the Phrasealator.  Why do we need to pay so much
> money, people are just trying to get rich.
>
> I agree in a perfect world the items to help tribes recover and
> preserve their languages would be free to them (either through
> generosity, grants or other subsidy), but alas we are in less than a
> perfect world.  The next best thing is to find out what works best
> (program, sytem, software, etc) regardless of costs and then work
> like the devil to get the costs covered.  The paramount objective is
> preservation of my language.  Profiteers have to face their music
> when creator chooses.
>
> On Dec 10, 2007, at 5:19 PM, Mia Kalish wrote:
>
> What a lovely response, Don. I enjoyed the multiple perspectives  
> and the
> thoughts that they engendered. And most of us have seen all of this,
> yes?
> By the way, a very nice lady from Rosetta Stone is on this list -  
> or she
> used to be. Their technology is a lot like the technology we put
> together
> and researched. It is not exact; I don't want anyone to infer that  
> I am
> implying any misbehavior on anyone's part. The point I want to make
> is that
> presenting the visual, the sound and the text simultaneously in what
> we did
> was 78% effective Across populations - that was, people who had heard
> Apache
> but were either not fluent or not literate, and people who had never
> been
> exposed to Apache ever. "Across populations" is a statistical
> characteristic
> that says that the populations are so alike they can be analyzed as a
> single
> group. This is rare in pedagogies.
> As for the publicity . . . Rosetta Stone advertises on television.
> They have
> lots of languages. I've lost track of how many. Publicity tells people
> what's happening. It tells People what Other People think is  
> important.
> Right now, in New Mexico, there is a huge "DWI Blitz" (You drink; you
> drive;
> you lose.) This is telling people who drive that people are taking
> driving
> sober very seriously. And there are lots of billboards talking about
> DWI;
> it's in the papers, on the news. Now, is this a current issue in a
> lot of
> state? No-o-o-o-o-o. But, my point here is that Publicity is how  
> you let
> people know what others are thinking. I saw another sign today, "Ron
> Paul
> for President . . . A new view" and I thought, Who is Ron Paul? There
> was
> just one sign, and I couldn't connect it to anything else I had  
> seen or
> heard. One sign won't get me to vote for Ron Paul for president, but
> many,
> many signs will get a lot of drunk drivers off the road, and will  
> change
> attitudes.
> So maybe all the publicity for Rosetta Stone will start to change
> attitudes
> about what is important about People. For a long time, there has been
> the
> "white ruling class" and everyone else. Like Don pointed out, there
> hasn't
> been much real knowledge about "everyone else." I am so happy to see
> even
> the little bits of beginnings where we start to know about Everyone
> Else,
> even the Everyone Elses of us :-)
>
> Thanks Don,
> Really, really good piece - I think,
> Mia
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Indigenous Languages and Technology
> [mailto:ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU]
> On Behalf Of Don Osborn
> Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 5:53 PM
> To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
> Subject: Re: [ILAT] Rosetta Stone
>
> As I look at this thread several thoughts occur. One is Robert  
> Chambers'
> discussion of "positive practitioners" and "negative academics" in
> international development. The former try to do something, whatever  
> the
> agenda, and sometimes ineptly. The latter critique, sometimes
> insightfully
> and incisively and sometimes less so. That is not to say that one is
> right
> and the other wrong, but that in some ways they are like two different
> cultures.
>
> Jess Tauber is right to point out the ironies in the historical
> sweep. The
> same dominant culture that via education and technology tried to wipe
> out
> languages or systematically marginalize them (not just in the
> Americas), now
> is in part (at least the parts you see) trying to save them. It is
> natural
> to ask why.
>
> Part of it is the dynamic of power. I've noted - again in  
> international
> development - that the people in positions to do so end up  
> occupying or
> pre-empting both sides (or all positions) in many debates. Even about
> the
> nature of a people themselves. This was particularly striking in  
> several
> decades of debates on pastoralism in Africa - an evolution of two
> opposing
> views on the rationality or not of transhumant (semi-nomadic)
> herding. An
> evolving debate entirely outside of the cultures discussed, with
> indirect
> and imperfect references to the herders' knowledge systems, and in  
> terms
> totally outside pastoralists' languages, and totally immersed in  
> Western
> terms of reference.
>
> I see a little of this in discussions on languages and on languages &
> technology.
>
> In part, this dynamic of power is just that way, like the wind just
> blows.
> It shifts too, and you can find a way to explain it, but in the end
> how do
> you protect yourself from it and better yet use its force to some
> advantage?
>
> So, on one level, Jess's generalizing about "they" responds to a real
> set of
> issues. However on another level it seems to blur some realities.
>
> When looking at the specific case of companies like Rosetta Stone (or
> for
> that matter bigger technology companies) part of what one must
> appreciate is
> the nature of the beast and the environment it is working in. The  
> bottom
> line and survival in that environment is money. How to get it can  
> raise
> issues, but without it, *poof*. James's suspicion is natural, but  
> with a
> company, what else is new?
>
> But even that is more complex. I resist reifying the notion of
> corporation
> too far to the point of overlooking the agency of people in
> organizations
> like Rosetta Stone, who may be very sincerely devoted to somehow
> changing
> the world for better. The latter may end up being the "positive
> practitioners" per Chambers' dichotomy, with their more or less
> imperfect
> human (and culturally bound) understanding of what they are dealing
> with -
> and their own environment to survive in.
>
> From what little I know of Rosetta Stone I see it as a business that
> is at
> least trying to do something. It's making good money, apparently, in
> general
> language learning with a product that has positive reviews. It's
> stepping
> outside of that market in an interesting way. Of course they are
> milking it
> for publicity too, but again, that is the nature of companies. I
> don't know
> enough about the program, its approach or results to judge it, but I'm
> absolutely not surprised if there are limits in terms of what they
> spend on
> it (anything has limits).
>
> Let me finish with another technology example. A company named Lancor
> just
> sued the One Laptop Per Child project for alleged use of codes in a
> patented
> keyboard. The object of both keyboards is to facilitate input of
> "extended
> Latin characters" and diacritics for West African languages. I don't
> know
> the technical or patent issues well enough, but whatever the merits
> of the
> case may or may not be, the ultimate victims will be people who might
> have
> been able to use the technology sooner for their languages.
>
> The collateral damage to common aims from disputes over methods can be
> considerable, and avoidable to the extent one accepts that everyone  
> has
> honorable intent. (Maybe a key question is how to establish the
> latter and a
> sense of trust.)
>
> I'd agree with Mia's bottom line conclusion that someone has to do
> it. If
> you start subtracting potential partners from the equation, are you
> better
> off?
>
> Don Osborn
>
>
>
>
> See AOL's top rated recipes and easy ways to stay in shape for winter.
>



========================================================================
Keola Donaghy
Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Studies
Ka Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani             keola at leoki.uhh.hawaii.edu
University of Hawai'i at Hilo           http://www2.hawaii.edu/~donaghy/

"Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam."  (Irish Gaelic saying)
A country without its language is a country without its soul.
========================================================================



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