465: Dinosaurs, Pirates, Spaceships
Transcript from 465: Dinosaurs, Pirates, Spaceships with Yanina Bellini Saibene, Christopher White, and Elecia White.
EW (00:00:06):
Welcome to Embedded. I am Elecia White, alongside Christopher White. This week we are going to talk about how to teach technology. Our guest is Yanina Bellini Saibene.
CW (00:00:20):
Hi Yanina. Thank you for joining us.
YBS (00:00:22):
Thank you so much for inviting me.
EW (00:00:24):
Could you tell us about yourself, as if we met at a SciPy conference?
YBS (00:00:32):
Oh my God, yes! My name is Yani. I am from Argentina. I live in Argentina, in South America. For the last 24 years, I was a researcher in the agricultural sector. First as a research software engineer, and then as a data scientist.
(00:00:52):
Until I got to know community of practice related with technology, because of R-Ladies. That was the first one that I met. I fell in love in this way of learn and teach and organize people around technology. I became the rOpenSci community manager. That is my current job. It is my dream job, because brings science, software development and community building all together.
EW (00:01:25):
We are going to do lightning round, where we ask you short questions and we want short answers. If we are behaving ourselves, we will not ask for long explanations.
CW (00:01:35):
I am warning you, some of these came from an Argentinian friend of ours.
EW (00:01:39):
You are going to warn her about that?
CW (00:01:41):
Well, I do not know what any of these mean.
EW (00:01:42):
<laugh>
YBS (00:01:42):
<laugh>
CW (00:01:45):
What? You want me to un-warn her?
EW (00:01:48):
No, go ahead.
CW (00:01:48):
Okay. Favorite famous turtle?
YBS (00:01:53):
Turtle? I do not have idea.
CW (00:01:58):
Okay, good.
YBS (00:01:59):
Oh! My God, yes, I know. Manuelita. Of course! Yes. That is my favorite turtle.
CW (00:02:04):
<laugh>
YBS (00:02:04):
Yes, there is a song! A song from María Elena Walsh. It is about a turtle who lives in Pehuajó, which is very close where I was born. But yeah, you kind of lost me a little bit with that one. It is a very good one. <laugh>
EW (00:02:21):
Messi or Maradona?
YBS (00:02:24):
Oh, both of them. Both of them. Yes.
CW (00:02:28):
Favorite 1980s computer?
YBS (00:02:30):
1980s computer? The Talent? Do you know that one?
CW (00:02:37):
No.
YBS (00:02:37):
Oh yeah. It was kind of the first one that I used. That was a big keyboard with the CPU and everything there. You put some kind of cassette there to load the program, the software. And we code in Logo, with a turtle. We go back to the beginning. <laugh>
EW (00:03:04):
Maté? With or without sugar?
YBS (00:03:07):
Without.
CW (00:03:09):
Sorry. I was looking up the Talent computer. I got lost. Do you like to complete one project or start a dozen?
YBS (00:03:17):
I need to finish, complete projects. If I have a lot of projects on the go, it is a lot of process in my brain, and the only way to release that is to finish the project. But I usually have a lot of projects going on.
EW (00:03:34):
Favorite fictional robot?
YBS (00:03:36):
Oh, I have two small kids and we watch a lot of movies with robots. Ron. You know the last one, that was a robot with no rules about how he should behave. "Ron is wrong." "Ron is broken," or something like that. I do not know the name in English of the title.
CW (00:03:57):
I think it is "Ron's Gone Wrong" or something like that.
YBS (00:04:00):
Yeah! That one. It is an amazing robot. Yes, that one.
EW (00:04:03):
Wait a minute. We have not seen that one.
CW (00:04:06):
If you could teach a college course, what would you like to teach?
YBS (00:04:09):
Ohh.
EW (00:04:11):
You have been a professor, you have taught courses before.
YBS (00:04:14):
Yes. I teach a lot. I think that I enjoy the intro to programming, to code. It is amazing to help people to realize that they can program a computer.
CW (00:04:27):
I am going to follow up. What is the best language for teaching these days, to start, for intro with students?
YBS (00:04:33):
Oh, well that is a biased answer that I am going to give, because I am in love with the R language programming, so I will say that one.
CW (00:04:41):
Really? Okay. That is the statistics one, right?
YBS (00:04:44):
Yes, exactly.
EW (00:04:46):
Do you have a tip everyone should know?
YBS (00:04:52):
Yes. Related with projects. I would say that when you have to prioritize task, try always to finish first the tasks that will allow other people in your team to continue, start or finish their work.
EW (00:05:08):
That is very nice. Yes, people should do that.
(00:05:15):
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(00:06:21):
So back to- Actually back to R, before we go on. R is usually- I usually think of it as a statistical programming language, more than just an intro programming language. What makes it a good intro in your mind?
YBS (00:06:39):
Yeah, well I am teaching now on careers that has to do with data science, and was the the last things that I did as a researcher. I am still do some analysis and some process of data and information, and building some models or try to give a sense of the data.
(00:07:05):
R is a very friendly language for people who do not come from a computer science background. The language is built for doing the statistics and analysis and visualization. So it is very powerful in that sense, for the people who are learning to be data scientists.
(00:07:27):
Then I always say this and some people think that I am joking, but I am actually very serious. I think that the best feature of R as a language, is the community around the language. So you are going to get a lot of help and support from a lot of people who is very generous with what they know.
EW (00:07:48):
Is R a compiled language like C, or an interpreted language like Python?
YBS (00:07:54):
It is an interpreted language.
EW (00:07:56):
How do you compare it to Python?
YBS (00:07:59):
Well, Python is a more general language. You can do a lot of other things. I think that the tidyverse, which is one of the universe package around analysis, processing and modeling, is they create a universe of functions and a way of things, that brings a lot of scaffolding for people who [are] entering this discipline.
(00:08:32):
So when you are learning a programming language, but the goal or your objective is not coding software but doing another task, and you need the programming language for doing this, you always find yourself learning the concept of for example, statistics, and learning how to code.
(00:08:57):
Those are very complex, two different things to learn at the same time. So if the programming language is prepare and help you to do the tasks you need to do, it is going to lower the cognitive load that you need to put, the effort you need to put, to learn this.
(00:09:20):
R has a lot of development in that sense, that Python it also has, I mean there is Pandas, there is SciPy, there is a lot of other libraries, but I think that in R is more friendly for beginners to learn. I would try to learn both. If I am going to be a data scientist, I actually use both. But for beginners, R is giving me better results with my students.
EW (00:09:54):
If I understand you right, it is because R helps you learn statistics, and does not make you learn programming and statistics.
YBS (00:10:03):
I will say that the programming language is built in a way that implement the process of data analysis, data wrangling, data modeling. It is more easy. Even if you have to code. Because of the way that packages and libraries and functions and pipelines are built.
EW (00:10:27):
Briefly met R many, many years ago, trying to do statistics. But because I was already a programmer, it was easier for me to just learn the statistics, and put them in languages I already knew.
YBS (00:10:38):
Mm-hmm.
EW (00:10:39):
Makes me want to try it again though.
CW (00:10:41):
Yeah, I think we tend to dismiss- As programmers, sometimes we dismiss special purpose languages, that actually are better at their jobs, that are more specific, than general purpose languages.
(00:10:50):
Thinking about MATLAB too, I used to enjoy doing stuff in MATLAB when I was doing signal processing and things, because it was easier than- Python was very early at that time, so there were not as many packages for stuff. But it was special purpose for doing math kind of things. And Mathematica is out there.
(00:11:11):
I do feel like sometimes programmers look down their nose at some of those other languages, and I do not think that that is a good attitude probably <laugh>. We probably should be looking at using those for some of our other tasks. But then we are programmers, so we always reach for the programming language we are used to. Right?
YBS (00:11:29):
Yeah, this also it depends on to who you are teaching. I would say that for example, for more younger, I mean adolescents or students in elementary school or high school, probably you will start with a Scratch, some kind of block language. And when they have the concept of what a while is, for loop, condition, variable, then you can go to a text programming language.
(00:11:59):
So it always depends on the context. But yes, I also use R a lot in my work, so I can also give better insight and advice for my student, when they have issues or problem or questions. Because I know how to do things in R now, better than in Python or C or other languages.
EW (00:12:21):
You and I were introduced by Greg Wilson, who we had on the show a few weeks ago- A few months ago. Some time ago. But when we talked to him, we did not talk much about Teaching Tech Together. But that is a project you work on. Could you describe it?
YBS (00:12:37):
Yes, sure. "Teaching Tech Together" is a book that Greg wrote a time ago. It is also a workshop, a training, that is based on that book. The inception of the book is all the work that Greg did on creating teaching material for scientists, and computing skills for scientists.
(00:13:07):
Then he create Software Carpentry, which today is The Carpentries, one of this community of practice that I am part of too. I am part of the board of directors of The Carpentries.
(00:13:22):
In all these path that Greg did of creating the material, teaching the workshop, he realized that the way you teach can do a very big difference on how people learn. And that we as humanity knows a lot about how people learn, how [to] teach in an efficient way. So he also create a training on how to teach technology, and that is the seed of the book.
(00:13:54):
I met Greg because I did a certification when he was part of RStudio, now is Posit, a company. There, I get to know some of this strategy to teach, and I read the book and I say, "This is so good, that cannot be only in English." <laugh> And I ask for permission to translate to Spanish, so more people were able to access to this knowledge in my language.
(00:14:27):
So yeah, Teaching Tech Together, it is a book, it is a workshop, and it is essentially very pragmatic and practical tools and strategy to teach well, that all these strategy too are based in scientific evidence. So it is not what we think that is good, or what we think that is okay to do in a classroom. It is actually is based on research and papers, and that you can apply in the classroom almost immediately.
EW (00:15:07):
This is about teaching, not about the computer science material. I mean the computer science material, kind of like you were talking with R, statistics is what you are doing, but you are also learning programming. But for this Teaching Tech Together, programming is what you are doing, but what-
YBS (00:15:28):
Yeah, Teaching Tech Together has a lot of pedagogical advice and strategies. We focus on how you can use that to teach, for example, programming. Or how to use a software, or how to use a piece of technology.
(00:15:47):
So all these, for example, concept about how your brain works, how you have a long-term memory and a short-term memory, how that works. How that can you use those concepts to become a developer, and to become a better developer. And how you can use it to teach someone to learn to code, to program. So we are using general concept of pedagogy, but apply it to teach technology.
EW (00:16:26):
How much higher is the barrier to entry for tech, for non-English speakers?
YBS (00:16:32):
<sigh><laugh>
EW (00:16:32):
And that is the rest of the show. <laugh>
YBS (00:16:40):
<laugh> Okay. Listen. Are you ready? <laugh>
EW (00:16:43):
I am ready.
YBS (00:16:45):
Well, you know English is the lingua franca for science, for open source software, and for software development in general. For giving you some ideas that do not come only for my experience as a not native English speaker, I will mention a really recent study by Amano et al. They quantify different barriers that scientists, researchers that do not speak English as a first language face.
(00:17:28):
For example, they found that up to 91% more time these people need to read English paper. So we are going to take 91% more time than you. I am going to need that time more to read a paper.
(00:17:45):
We need 51% more time to write a paper in English. And our paper will be rejected 2.6 more time often, than a people who is a native English speaker. If our paper are accepted, we are going to have to revise 12.5 more times.
(00:18:14):
If we have to do a presentation of a talk in English, we are going to need 94% more time than an English native speaker. We are going to avoid to give talks, or to be in a podcast, or to chat, if the language is English, because the way we feel -- not so secure with the language.
(00:18:42):
If we take this not only in science, we move this barrier to software development, the Linux Foundation did also a research. In their recent report of 2021, they say that one of the environment barriers for people to contribute to open source is language. That is one of the barriers.
(00:19:09):
It is not only because in content, material, comments, contribution, programming language is English, is the one who is present in and mostly with not other option as a language. But English proficiency is a metric by which performance and personality are going to be judged. So people will think how good you are as a developer, [is] related [to] how well you write or speak English.
(00:19:48):
I do not know if we have sensed I have believing that, like "Come on, what this Yani person should know, behind this choppy English when she speaks?" It is actually something that happens, and can be detrimental of the community. Can impact on how you feel welcome or not, or able to participate or not in different space.
(00:20:16):
So the barrier, if you do not speak English, it is high. Learning a second language is a lot of work. And it is expensive. It is not easy to pay for learning a second language. And when you are new and you start learning the language and you try to communicate and express your ideas, if people are not kind and patient, you can be discouraged to continue being part of that movement. Which is a pity.
(00:20:53):
We are losing a lot if we drop people because of the way they express in a second or third language.
CW (00:21:03):
English is especially difficult because it is garbage.
EW (00:21:07):
<laugh> It is a garbage language. I mean our spelling is awful. Compared to Spanish spelling, oh my goodness.
CW (00:21:15):
And there are many rules, and then there are all the rules that cancel the rules.
EW (00:21:18):
Right. All of the exceptions. And our grammar is derived from multiple other grammars that are not consistent. Irregular verbs, irregular words, it is all just- Yeah, it is a garbage language. Why did we choose this one? Latin makes a lot more sense.
CW (00:21:36):
Well, it is surprising too, because there has got to be way more non-English as a first language developers in the world, than there are English as a first language developers. I do not know what other language would have been better, but it is just history at this point.
YBS (00:21:52):
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
CW (00:21:52):
But it is unfortunate, and I think it is difficult for people to think about that as a native English speaker. The things you said about the biases, and things may take a little longer, or people are not kind about things taking longer or misunderstandings. I think people need to be more mindful of that.
YBS (00:22:13):
Yeah, for giving you an example as a research, I should write more in English than I did at the time. I get some rejection, and in the comment was, "You should go back to elementary school," because my English was so bad. That kind of comment it really sticks with you, because you already know that you do not handle the language in the way should do, because it is not your first language.
(00:22:45):
You also understand the rule of the games. I also think that we can change those rules if we work together.
(00:22:51):
But I also have very kind and nice people helping me. In 2017 when I met R-Ladies, I did not speak in English. And now I am here with you chatting, and I know that I am making a lot of mistake when I express myself. Some of my ideas I need more go working around to say the same that perhaps I use three or four words in Spanish, because I had to think about a little more.
(00:23:25):
But you are really kind and we are enjoying this conversation. There is a lot of people that, one, they are aware of this barrier of how we feel. They are going to do the extra work so we can communicate and enjoy. A lot of them help me to improve my pronunciation, how I speak, my vocabulary. So I think that is a work in the community between people, and there is a lot of people that are willing to do that work.
(00:24:02):
I do not think we can solve this only with individual effort. We cannot expect that people who are not native English speakers are the one who learn the second language, the ones to do the translation, the ones to have the heavy lifting of everything.
(00:24:18):
We need to do this as community. As the science community, the developers community, the technical community. Work on that as a goal to try to lower the barrier in different ways, so we can actually be part.
EW (00:24:36):
Why bother? Why not enjoy a Spanish speaking community for R and statistics and computer science? Like we said, English is not that great.
YBS (00:24:56):
<laugh> No, I think that I understand your question. The thing is we have our community. I mean I am one of the co-founder of LatinR, which is the Latin American conference about the language, in industry and research. Our conference is three-in-one. We have workshops and talks and papers in English, Portuguese and Spanish.
(00:25:26):
Latin America speak Spanish and Portuguese mostly. And English is because we cannot be isolated of the rest of the world. Why not be isolated? Because we like it or not, the global north or the countries in the north of the world, are the one who have the power and the money.
(00:25:53):
So for some of the developments, we need to do it together. We cannot do it alone, we cannot do it in isolation. We need also the different point of view. We already know also by science, that diverse group of people, we develop a better solution.
(00:26:14):
When I complain that sometimes in technical solutions, this industry or this company, they are not taking into account my voice, I am not going to do the same with the rest of the world. I [am] not going to [leave] people out because at some point they left me out. No, we need to build something better. That means that all the voices should be in the table of decisions. We should listen to each other.
(00:26:45):
I say this also not only as a Latin-American person who does not speak English, but I say this also as a woman. We know that some products, technological products do not take into account some facts that women's needs in the design of this.
(00:27:04):
Or elderly people. How you can make some cell phone app with so small fonts? Come on people, we are all going to be elder. We are going all to need glasses and we are not going to see those tiny fonts.
(00:27:21):
So there is a lot of things that if we do in a diverse group of people, we for sure are going to have a better outcome, a better product, a better software, a better application. And that is why we should try to do things together.
EW (00:27:39):
What about using technology as a way to do it? I mean, why do we not just Google Translate everything?
YBS (00:27:47):
<laugh>
CW (00:27:47):
<laugh>
EW (00:27:47):
You guys are laughing. ChatGPT and Google Translate together.
CW (00:27:53):
<laugh> Oh great.
YBS (00:27:54):
Oh my goodness. <laugh> It is a very good question.
CW (00:27:57):
<laugh> No, it is not!
YBS (00:27:57):
I would say-
CW (00:27:57):
It is a terrible question.
YBS (00:28:01):
No, no, it is a very good one, because right now this technology on translation, automatic translation, are still in development and they are not still so good. So I use it, the automatic- Or we use it in several of our translation project, as a first draft of the translation of a text. But then we review by human beings.
(00:28:29):
We try to have always two reviewers, because first it is the grammar or some of the language. So for example, if you take a phrase in English that have adjectives and you translate to Spanish, the translation will use the words in the same order. And in Spanish we use the adjective the other way around. So you are going to have the words in a different position in the phrase. The software still does not know how to do that.
(00:29:01):
The other thing that they cannot do is to- They usually assume masculine gender mark for everything as the default. And we try to avoid to use. We call that sexist language, which is to think that the masculine is the default. So we try to avoid for example, gender mark. That means that sometimes you need to rewrite the text.
(00:29:29):
The other thing is something that we call "localization," which is not a literal translation, but you are going to adapt the text to be faithful to the original, but in a way that is closer or understandable for the people who is your audience.
(00:29:52):
For example in programming, when in some texts they use some songs or poems or analogies, probably are not meaningful if they are writing in Europe or in the US, or they are not meaningful for us. So we try to find something that means the same, but it have sense for people in Latin America or Argentina. That is something that still the technology cannot do in an automatic way.
EW (00:30:25):
For example we often, when we are using examples, use the functions "foo" and "bar," which come from F U B A R, which is "fouled up beyond all recall," which is-
CW (00:30:40):
It is an army term.
EW (00:30:41):
It is an army term. But in the end we end up using these functions "foo" and "bar," and some people remember where they come from. Do you have functions that are like that? That are just "here is function" names?
YBS (00:30:52):
Yeah well, I never understand I have sense of those, so it is a very good example. First as a teaching principle, I will say that we should try to avoid things that have not much relationship of what we are teaching. So we should try to use, for example, for the functions or for the variables, names that are meaningful of what we are trying to teach.
EW (00:31:28):
<laugh> That sounds like so shocking! <laugh> Maybe we should-
YBS (00:31:29):
So "foo" and "bar," yeah, that is not a good idea. <laugh> Because it has to do with the cognitive load. If you are using the name of a variable that, I do not know, you are working with weather for example. If you call "temperature," people already know what that is. So you do not have to explain. And that load, the cognitive load, they have to use to learn what you are teaching.
(00:31:58):
But if you use "foo", "What is that? What is this functions going to do?" I have to start guessing. I have to start guessing, is this meaningful or this just a random name? <laugh> That is the first thought.
(00:32:14):
Then because we do not speak English, and the programming languages are usually in English, we tend to use the variable names and the function names that we create in Spanish. And then the programming languages is in English. So I [am] probably going to create a function and the name is going to be in Spanish.
(00:32:43):
I do not know, if I have to calculate temperature's anomaly, I will use the name "anomalía de temperatura." That is going to be the name of the function. It is also going to be really different for the students to realize that that is something that they can create. And then the things that are in English are the language per se, and they have to use it and they can not change those keywords, for example. That is if you want to, one advantage for us when we teach, because we do not have to mix language.
CW (00:33:18):
Huh.
EW (00:33:21):
Thinking, having the keywords be opaque like that, they were not part of your own spoken language, would that make it better or worse? Probably harder.
CW (00:33:32):
Like what?
YBS (00:33:35):
Yeah, because when you write a "for loop," you understand what is a for loop. Those words has a meaning for you in English, the same as a "while" or an "until."
CW (00:33:47):
Yeah.
YBS (00:33:47):
But if I do not know English, it does not have any meaning for me. So I need to learn what that means. We have to learn a programming language, as we learn a spoken language. Of course the programming language is so more- It has really fewer words or keywords.
(00:34:17):
Actually my first approach to English, it has to do with learning to code. I has to learn C. That was my first more professional programming languages. The first one was Logo for playing when I was a kid. Then BASIC. Then C.
(00:34:37):
I get to know that those words come from English, because I did not know that my parent do not speak English, I do not have English in the school. So how I should know that that keywords come from a spoken language? <laugh> I did not know that.
(00:34:54):
So for me, when I have the first time that I have an English class, that was in high school actually, I was, "Oh that word- I know that word, because I know how to code this." But it was the other way around. It was kind of funny.
CW (00:35:10):
That is fascinating.
YBS (00:35:11):
Yes. I always dream with a future that we have the- For example, if we speak about Python, we have the English Python, the Spanish Python, the Chinese Python. And in some way we can write in our language more close to a native language, and compilers will solve <laugh> the rest of the things in between.
(00:35:38):
So the programming language is most close to our spoken language. I think that technologically we can do it, but I do not know if that is going to happen as I want. But why not dream?
CW (00:35:54):
That seems a lot easier than generic translation, because if it is just keywords-
EW (00:35:59):
There are not that many keywords.
CW (00:36:00):
There are not that many keywords. It should not be that hard to do. But I wonder if it is just a lack of-
EW (00:36:04):
But then you get into libraries, and then the problem explodes into-
CW (00:36:09):
<Sigh> Yeah, okay. Function names.
EW (00:36:10):
Function names, and it just- I mean "printf" is not an English word either, but it at least is made up of an English word.
CW (00:36:18):
<laugh> It is for "file"? Print a file?
YBS (00:36:20):
Yeah, but "print" is kind of- We call "imprimir." Yeah, we can, yeah. "File" is not a word that you will in some way realize that is something that it means in the Spanish. Yeah.
EW (00:36:38):
When you think about other functions like "fread," F R E A D. Free add? F read?
CW (00:36:47):
I think it is "f read." Yes.
EW (00:36:49):
Yes. It is "f read."
CW (00:36:49):
Yeah, abbreviations make everything worse. I O C T L, what is that?
EW (00:36:55):
<laugh>
YBS (00:36:57):
Oh yes. It is interesting, but I guess that what happened with the thing, until you do not chat with someone like me that is facing this kind of challenge, if you wants to. When you learn to code, when you teach to code, when you have to write or read about programming, is "Oh yeah, you are right."
(00:37:18):
Sometimes I use an example of a code writing in, I do not know if it is Russian or Chinese or Japanese or something like that and say, "Well that is how it looks for me, even if it is in English. You do not understand anything." <laugh>
EW (00:37:37):
I do translate some Chinese data sheets, or some Japanese origami instructions, and-
CW (00:37:45):
Using a computer.
EW (00:37:47):
Oh yes, Google Translate these, not me translate these.
CW (00:37:52):
I just wanted to know if you had suddenly learned a bunch of languages. <laugh>
EW (00:37:57):
No. And the results are usually barely comprehensible.
YBS (00:38:02):
Okay. No, I mean the technology has doing a huge advance, and it is useful. My dad can put their phone in a piece of news in English, and it is going to have a translation that will allow him to understand what the news say. They also <laugh> sometimes try to read the things that I wrote in English, and they do not know English, so that is very useful.
(00:38:34):
When you are talking about books or teaching materials, you need the best quality that you can have. And for that, automatic translation is not good enough. When you are a native speaker and you read an automatic translation, you can say that that is automatic.
(00:38:54):
And if you are going to find that, as I say again in a book, or in a paper, in a teaching material, it is not nice because you realize that this is still need work. You are not giving me the same quality content, that you are giving to the English speaker. So if you are going to do it, if you are going to take that stake and that effort, do it well. Do it with a quality.
EW (00:39:25):
You mentioned localization, and we have been talking about pedagogy and teaching. When you are teaching someone it is often better to put it in terms they understand, like "temperature anomalies" is something people understand. It reduces the cognitive load.
(00:39:43):
In my book, I definitely try to make things funny, as well as trying to appeal to the person, just to keep them reading. But those are the hardest things to translate! You can translate them, but then you need to go back to the localization. Which is to say, the words strung together do not make sense as if they were written in the local vernacular, dialect, language.
CW (00:40:14):
Or worse, is something idiomatic.
EW (00:40:16):
Right.
YBS (00:40:16):
Yes!
EW (00:40:16):
And idiomatic is nice, because people like to learn things like that. They get used to it. It feels good to be part of the in-group, but then that makes it so much worse to try to translate and localize.
YBS (00:40:30):
Yes. Localization is key, so the text is more close to the people you are focused on. So we did localization, for example, when we translated "Teaching Tech Together." We take some analogies and some examples- There was an example with some cities in Canada that has no sense for us. <laugh> So we use similar example with some cities of Brazil, that means exactly the same, and has a lot of sense and we understand.
(00:41:04):
We also change or replace some idioms. So there is some phrases and things that you say, for example, there is this phrase of "Birds of feathers flock together"?
CW (00:41:21):
Mm-hmm.
EW (00:41:21):
Mm-hmm.
YBS (00:41:21):
Okay. If you translate that literally to Spanish, it does not mean anything. But we have a similar phrase <laugh> that is, "They rise and the wind pile up." That is how we say that. And it has a lot of sense in Spanish, when you say in Spanish. So we changed the "bird of feathers" for this other one. It means the same and people will understand.
(00:41:51):
That is a lot of work, because you need people who understand the meaning of these idioms. Of these phrases. Of these things that come from the culture, that are not a thing of the language per se, but it is more a linguistical and cultural knowledge. Yeah, it is really hard, but it is going to make the material more appealing, or more close to the people that you want to reach with that.
(00:42:25):
About the humor, it is always tricky even in your language. I only use humor <laugh> when I talk about myself. I use that a lot, because humor can be- You do not know how that can affect the people who are listening to you, or are reading to you. So I know that if I made jokes about myself, first I am going to have an infinite source of material.
EW (00:42:54):
<laugh>
YBS (00:42:54):
<laugh> And second, it is about me. So I am not talking about any group or any people or any geography or any circumstances, that perhaps can be tricky for my students. So that is the only way that I use humor. I try to be very careful with that. It works amazing when it works, but it is tricky.
EW (00:43:23):
Are there ways that English speakers can be more aware, or make things easier for non-English speakers? And as a corollary to that, is it our responsibility to take those actions?
YBS (00:43:41):
I would say that when someone is in a position of privilege, and that is not only English speaker. I mean, I am a white Latin-American woman, cisgender, heterosexual, so I have a lot of privilege. I am educated, I can speak other language. So, analyzing this position that I have. I feel that I have an ethical, moral obligation, to help those one that do not have that privilege.
(00:44:17):
English speaker have a privilege, because English is the lingua franca in almost everything. So how you can help? First be aware of that, knowing that perhaps that person you are communicating, talking about, I have this funny ascent and this thinking a lot before to answer, or is shy when try to communicate, is speaking in another language. So that is a lot of work to try to communicate in that way.
(00:44:48):
The second aspect is if you are in an organization, for example, you are organizing a conference, try to provide content in another language than English. Accept abstract in other language than English, do the review, do the feedback back. Allow to have workshop in other languages. Try to have the communications- I am not saying that it is easy, I am not saying that it is without cost, but it can be done.
(00:45:19):
If we in Latin America run a completely volunteer conference in three languages, it can be done. With a lot of work, but it can be done.
(00:45:31):
And be kind. Be kind, be patient. Understand that the other person is trying to communicate in words that are not familiar for them. They are trying to sort and build the thought, and trying to communicate with you. If you are kind, and if you are patient, you are going to help a lot. And probably you are going to enjoy and learn a lot too.
EW (00:45:59):
Our show does transcripts. We have reviewers, they get automatically transcripted via some AI, and then we have a primary transcription person who does a great job. Then we have a secondary person who goes through and makes sure that the technology is good. That used to be me, but now Rene does it, and I am so thankful.
(00:46:26):
One of the things with the transcripts that we decided was worth it, was to have it be keyed to the times so you can read and listen at the same time, when I found out that that was very helpful for folks learning technical English.
YBS (00:46:41):
Yes, this is a very good example. I listened to several of the episodes of the podcast and have the transcript help me a lot. Will help also the people who are hard of hearing, they have some issue there too. When you try to do things more accessible, you usually helps a lot of people. Not only for example, the one that the English is a second language.
(00:47:15):
I would say that have the transcript, will allow me to go to Google Translate and have a translation by my own, that probably will be good enough for me to take the main ideas of the podcast.
(00:47:29):
For teaching materials for example, going back to some of the topics that you invite me, when you generate a slide is usually very good to have a speaker notes. To have alternative texts in images is going to be very useful, if you can share the teaching material before the class. So people who do not speak the language or have some accessibility need, will be able to go through the material before and be better prepared for that class with question. They are going to be able to looking for the words and the term they do not know, or they will be ready to ask you for that.
(00:48:17):
To share the things with a license that allow derivative work, is also very good. For example, I would not be able to translate "Teaching Tech Together," if Greg did not share this material with a license that allowed me to do translation. Even when I asked for permission, we of course contact the author in the first turn, the fact that the license allowed to do this, is what gives us the opportunity to have now the book in Spanish too.
(00:48:53):
All these little details are very good to the English speaker native, that really little things that you can do to help to access the material, or to translate the materials to another language for people [to] access easily.
EW (00:49:11):
But translation, as you have said, it is not just a matter of swapping the words. There is more to it. There is the localization part. And if you are localizing into many different languages, there is the internationalization part, which is getting all that ready.
YBS (00:49:29):
Yeah, the internationalization, the concept of that is more related to the technology. It is the infrastructure that you create. For example, for a software or for an application to be able to support different languages and different localization, without the need to touch the base code of the application of the software.
(00:50:00):
So for example, we can have a webpage that can have multilingual content. So you can have your webpage in English, in Spanish, in Portuguese, or the different language that you want to. The infrastructure and the technology that allow you to have that multilingual language in your website, is what we call "internationalization."
(00:50:25):
So that means that you can create a webpage and without the need to touch the codebase of your website, you can also have the webpage in English, in Spanish, in Portuguese, in Japanese. So you are only need to touch the content, and not what is taking the content and giving the look and feel and publish on the web. Or the search engine that you have in the webpage, and all those kinds of things. So internationalization has to do with that, and translation is one aspect of localization.
EW (00:51:11):
You had a couple of questions for us. Let me see.
YBS (00:51:14):
Yes.
EW (00:51:14):
Let us ask the one to Chris first.
YBS (00:51:19):
Yeah, because we were speaking about teaching, and teaching technology, and education. I would like to know, Chris, if you can think about a lesson, a class, a course that you take that was really good. Which one was? And I would like to know why you like so much.
CW (00:51:42):
Wow. I have to think back. It has been a while since I have been in school. On the computer science side, the courses I liked most were hands-on more than textbook stuff. Our main intro CS course was called "CS 60," and that was somewhat hands-on, but I did not enjoy it because it was very exercise and textbook based.
YBS (00:52:14):
Mm-hmm.
CW (00:52:14):
I enjoyed "Operating Systems," because that was more- We had an open-ended project we could do at the end. And in "Networking" we did too. Elecia is making faces at me.
EW (00:52:35):
You did not go to either one of those classes.
CW (00:52:36):
I did! I went to both of them.
EW (00:52:38):
You were excused from both of them, because you were a sysadmin.
CW (00:52:42):
<laugh> No, I was not excused from either of them. Later than that, in grad school where I took physics, the classes I enjoyed most were the ones where the instructor was excited.
EW (00:52:59):
Yes!
YBS (00:52:59):
Mhm. Yeah.
CW (00:53:02):
That is a through line through all the courses I enjoyed, was if the instructor was excited. And you could tell that they enjoyed the material, or found interest in it, or something about it resonated with them. Those were the ones I had the most fun with.
(00:53:17):
The ones where the instructor was just going through the notes in a monotone, not very interested. And the exercises were difficult, and the back and forth, like the Q & A with the instructor, was either not very helpful or they were not digging into what you were really asking. Those were the ones that I had trouble with.
(00:53:40):
It really comes down to the quality of the instructor, and whether they at least could make you believe they <laugh> were having a good time teaching.
EW (00:53:48):
<laugh> They were good enough actors.
YBS (00:53:52):
No, I agree. I think that students can feel when you are excited about the topic, when you care. Usually people who enjoy what they are teaching, they take the time to prepare the lesson, the class and the exercise. You can realize that and you can enjoy that, as a student.
(00:54:14):
Thank you so much for that answer. I really enjoy. Thank you for sharing that.
(00:54:18):
Elecia, for you, I have a question for you. I know that you also teach, so I would like to hear a reflection on your teaching, in the light of some of the things that we chatted today in the show.
EW (00:54:39):
Hmm. Well, going back, the enthusiasm part and the prepping part, I do drive some of the folks at Classpert crazy, because every time we run the class I update things. I cannot not. There is always something I could be doing better.
(00:54:58):
I do use a lot of humor. It is not all about myself, but it is also not about other people.
YBS (00:55:07):
Mm-hmm.
EW (00:55:07):
I have a whole section about chickens. <laugh>
YBS (00:55:12):
Oh, my God.
EW (00:55:12):
Because chickens are funny.
YBS (00:55:16):
That is interesting.
EW (00:55:19):
A chicken pushes a button, which leads to an interrupt, which leads to an interrupt service routine, which leads to this and this and this and this. And it is all because the chicken pushed the button. I do not know why I find that hilarious, but I do. And the students seem to enjoy the animals. I guess I like the animals in it.
(00:55:38):
And imagery. I like having good images, which I am not sure how well they translate.
YBS (00:55:49):
Yeah, that can be tricky. Yes. <pause> Yes. <laugh> Because yes, if that brings some memory that has to do with some cultural things, that are more not so worldwide, perhaps. For example, you show me. I will look at you with thought, my eyes a little close, and trying to say, "Oh, what is she trying to tell me with this?" <laugh>
(00:56:22):
So yeah, it has to do always, again as we say at the beginning, with the context. On who your audience is, who are your students. If they are beginners, if they are expert, if they are competent practitioners. This concept of learner personas, thinking about who you are teaching, and then using that you build your teaching material. So in your case, it makes sense for your students, so it is a good strategy to use it.
EW (00:56:57):
I have a section where I have built- It is about memory maps, which are- I do not know if you have had to deal with them. They are an embedded thing. But they are an embedded tool that is complicated and scary from the outside, and incredibly useful if you can get over the fear and confusion.
(00:57:18):
I made this treasure map, that describes all of the pieces you would find in a map file. And one of the difficulties is map files are all different. So I cannot just say, "This is what happens." I have to say, "You have to go out and look for all these pieces," like you would in a treasure map.
(00:57:37):
Which is a very- I do not know whether that is a North American sort of thing, that we like treasure maps. That it makes things fun when you are searching, if you have a treasure map. But if you are just searching for technology things, it is tedious and hard and boring. But if you have a treasure map, suddenly it is fun again! I do not know if that would translate.
YBS (00:58:00):
Yes, we do treasure hunts.
CW (00:58:01):
Everyone has got pirates!
EW (00:58:02):
<laugh> Everyone has got pirates <laugh>.
YBS (00:58:04):
Yes! Exactly. Yes. Dinosaur, pirates, spaceship. I think that is something that we all enjoy. <laugh>
EW (00:58:13):
I have a dinosaur section too, but I do not have a spaceship. That is a good idea.
YBS (00:58:16):
Wow. <laugh> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this.
EW (00:58:23):
Getting back to your career, you have several courses online. Could you tell us about those?
YBS (00:58:30):
Oh yeah. Yeah. I teach at several universities, and I also teach a lot in my community of practice. So I do workshops at rOpenSci. I also for R-Ladies and for The Carpentries. Always related with computational skills, for software development, for reproducible science, or for open science. Also related with agricultural sector, because I did, for 24 years, <laugh> it was my career.
(00:59:07):
I teach those for free, or for charge. Depends mostly who is calling me to teach. In my country, university are public, so you can go to the university without pay. That is why someone like me with my origins can actually have a degree. I usually teach for free for the universities in my country, because it is a way to give back the education that I get.
(00:59:41):
But if a bank or insurance company or something like that comes to me, I usually going to charge. <laugh>
(00:59:48):
But one of the things that I do, is to publish openly all my materials. So in my webpage you are going to find all my workshops there for free. You can reuse it. The only thing that I ask is to give me the credit, if you use some of the lesson.
(01:00:09):
You are going to find the slides, and you are going to find the exercise, and the script that I use. Everything is there, because I believe that we can build on the work of other people. It do not have any sense to spend your time creating something that someone else already did, and is working. So if that can be useful for other people, I going to be more than happy that they use it.
EW (01:00:40):
You have some in English, like "Developing Software Together: using Git."
YBS (01:00:43):
Yes.
EW (01:00:43):
Which is a three hour course. And then you have some that are in Spanish. "Gestión de Datos," which is?
YBS (01:00:54):
Yes, that is the data management. Databases, essentially. Yes.
EW (01:00:58):
And that is a semester long course.
YBS (01:01:02):
Yes, exactly. That was developed for one of my courses in one of the universities. It is focused on how to use databases for doing data science. It is not a general database administration or management, but with the focus on doing analysis and prepared modeling and that kind of work or task.
(01:01:33):
One of the workshops that people ask me a lot, it has to do with go from using a spreadsheet to use programming languages, which is R of course. That one is in Spanish and English. We teach people who are working in Excel or Google Sheets, how to move or migrate from there to use R, to create reports and automatize some of the tasks they have to do. That is a three hour workshop. It is the one that people ask me the most.
EW (01:02:09):
And you just put them online for free.
YBS (01:02:11):
Yes. <laugh> Yes. You know as we say, I have a very good life, and I have a very good job. I have more than I need actually, so I can give a little bit back. And if those teaching materials are useful for other people, yeah, why not? I can do it. I understand that other people cannot. And I also know that education can be expensive and hard. So if I can help a little bit, why not do it? I can, so why not?
EW (01:02:49):
Yanina, it has been really good to talk to you. Do you have any thoughts you would like to leave us with?
YBS (01:02:55):
Yes. I will say for anyone who is perhaps that has same background like me, I am Latin American, not English speaker, that we usually get into this category of under-represented groups. I always say that, first, know that we can be as good as anyone in the world.
(01:03:21):
And the second is, take the opportunities and apply for things. Apply for that scholarship, apply for that job, apply for- Because the scholarship that you are not going to get, or the job you are not going to get, is the one that you do not apply.
(01:03:41):
Probably or sometimes you are going to get rejection, but let the other people say "No." Do not be the one to say "No" to the opportunity. And if you get a rejection, do not worry. You are going to learn, and at some point you are going to get the "Yes."
(01:03:57):
Watch me. I did not speak English seven years ago, and now I am here chatting with you and sharing with you the things that I know. So we can do it. You can do it.
EW (01:04:09):
Such great advice. Our guest has been Yanina Saibene, community manager of rOpenSci. I will put links in the show notes to her website with its courses, and to rOpenSci, as well as R-Ladies, The Carpentries and Teach Tech Together. I will probably link the English version, but the Spanish one is right there.
YBS (01:04:35):
Thanks Yanina.
(01:04:36):
Thanks to you.
EW (01:04:37):
Thank you to Christopher for producing and co-hosting. And thank you for listening. You can always contact us at show at embedded.fm or hit the contact link on embedded.fm.
(01:04:47):
And now a quote to leave you with, from César Aira, "The Literary Conference." "Each person possesses a mind with powers that are, whether great or small, always unique. Powers that belong to them alone. This renders them capable of carrying out a feat, whether grandiose or banal, that only they could have carried out."