I was at a creative industries conference in Cardiff yesterday titled ‘The Future of Digital Education’, and one of the sessions included Sioned Wyn Roberts of S4C, who is responsible for education at the channel.
Disclaimer:Sioned was speaking in Welsh and, as I stubbornly refused to use a translation headset, I can’t be 100% certain that what follows is totally correct!
Anyway, she was talking about the plans S4C have for intermediate-level learners starting in the autumn, and one of the things that she mentioned was an app for Y Gwyll that will include things like transcripts of dialogue and interactive voice-recognition activities, which I thought sounded very interesting and useful for any fans of Y Gwyll here.
She was also talking about ways of making S4C programmes more accessible to learners in general - releasing scripts, clips, creating related info/activities on the web, that kind of thing. Apologies if I’ve got this all wrong and you’re left disappointed and cursing me in the autumn! We’re really at the limits of my Welsh, here!
She was also talking about ways of making S4C programmes more accessible to learners in general
All good stuff, but maybe one simple thing they might consider doing would be to extend the range of programmes that have Welsh (as well as English) subtitles. Fortunately, most of what I watch (via Clic) already has them, but from random looks at other programmes, I get the impression that the majority of programmes only have English subtitles.
Jon Thomas (cwmgoch): Anyway, she was talking about the plans S4C have for intermediate-level learners starting in the autumn, and one of the things that she mentioned was an app for Y Gwyll that will include things like transcripts of dialogue and interactive voice-recognition activities, which I thought sounded very interesting and useful for any fans of Y Gwyll here.
Thanks for the update, Jon. Ever since we’ve known that Hwb is ending, I’ve been keeping an eye on S4C’s tenders page to see if they were asking for proposals for a new series for learners. They haven’t, and given the channel’s money woes, I’m not surprised that they are focusing instead on ‘learner-izing’ their existing content. They’ve provided this kind of online expanded activity for learners before, often very well – but, sadly, all the video content has historically been limited to UK users.
Diane Owen (Tahl):but, sadly, all the video content has historically been limited to UK users.
An increasing amount of the non-advertising-revenue funding S4C gets comes now via the BBC apparently, which probably also means the BBC has an increasing say in the way that S4C runs its business. Now BBC video has always been strictly limited to the UK, and I suppose there is some justification in that. English is now a universal language and the demand for English-language output is virtually infinite. Given that the BBC is also under funding pressure, that could lead to problems with servers not being able to keep up, not to mention the ever-politically senstive issue of BBC funding in general.
The demand for Welsh language material is (sadly) never going to be so great, and I think a good case could be made for all Welsh-language output on S4C or BBC to be completely unrestricted.
While the majority of S4C’s income comes through the BBC from the TV licence fee, S4C is an independent public service broadcaster, separate to the BBC. The reasons for restricting output to UK only are complex, but it usually comes down to music, artist or distribution rights.
@SJ: Yes, one of the things that was mentioned at the conference in response to being asked why the BBC and S4C don’t release more of their archive online was the fact that, especially when programmes have been externally produced, it is almost impossible to obtain clearance for bits of music etc based on contracts that, in some cases, are over 30 years old.