Context: We just returned (9/2009) from Mexico City where we delivered a keynote presentation at the “Congreso Educativo Hay Talento 2009" Conference. The Televsia Foundation organized it and brought in 900 of the top teachers from all over Mexico for this 2 day conference. These 900 teachers are all participating in online professional development courses organized by Bécalos and Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Elliot: We have presented before where there was simultaneous translation, but this is the first time our voices were muted and the audience heard only the translator’s voice.
Cathie: Yes, and I worked with the translator before the talk. She didn’t understand the metaphor “to leapfrog” – where we talk about moving to wireless directly and skipping the wired Ethernet stage. The translator said that “frog jumping” didn’t have the same meaning as “leapfrogging.”
Elliot: That’s very funny!
Cathie: A lot of the teachers came up after the talk but my Spanish wasn’t good enough to understand everything. But teachers are the same the world over; their smiles and their good feelings were palpable. They definitely appreciated us. How much did you understand?
Elliot: Spanish is so close to Yiddish that I understood almost everything! Ok, so I’m just kidding, but the teachers definitely resonated to our message that mobile computing would be the only way that a financially challenged country like Mexico was ever going to get enough computers in the classroom to make a difference.
Cathie: The teachers in Mexico are in the “1 computer per classroom” situation. At best.
Elliot: But the teachers say the students all have cellphones!
Cathie: Yes, Mexico is definitely going to have to do some serious frog jumping if they are going to prepare their children for the 21st century, global marketplace.
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