Welsh versions of Office and Windows – helping support “immersive” education

If you’re interested in the use of IT in education, have a look at this new case study from the Microsoft Local Language Program about how localized software helps Welsh students use technology in their own language.

Here’s a snippet from the article that illustrates why this makes a difference:

While students could create documents in Welsh, and look up Welsh websites, the interface of the applications students used was in English. “The tool bar and menus were in English. I found myself having to use English words to talk about the technology,” says Thomas. “This was interrupting our practice of immersive learning, and giving the impression that Welsh is not a language used within modern technology.”

Read the full story here.

And, if you want to know what you actually call “sign in”, or “recycle bin” or “link” in Welsh, check out the online search Microsoft Language Portal which contains the Welsh translations of Windows 7 and Office 2007 terms.