On Wednesday, the second of August, I was lucky enough to be able to welcome 7 students from Oxford Bright Scholars to our CSOFT office in Shanghai and host a Globalization and Localization workshop. Relating the content specifically to China, we discussed how we do things at CSOFT. These talented students came from around the world, including the USA, Pakistan, and Denmark, and showed an avid interest in the topics being discussed, remaining proactive throughout.
Creating and presenting a workshop can often be a daunting task. Planning content to ensure you’re giving people ideas and concepts they will be interested in, creating activities to make them apply what they have learnt, and presenting the techniques in an engaging way, can be difficult to balance. However, I personally found from the feedback given by the students – as well as through my own experience – that giving them well-thought-out activities was really one of the key parts of my workshop that made it a success.
Samuel Austin teaches about the importance of localization
For example, to actually apply the information I presented, I split them into groups and asked them to think up a music app, localize it to a country of their choice while considering factors such as taglines and design notes, and present it to everyone. I felt like the students really enjoyed this, and was able to learn a lot more by applying their new-found knowledge rather than just staring blankly at a screen while taking notes.
OBS Students presenting how they would localize
Overall I feel like this was a positive experience for both sides. The students gained a new appreciation and understanding of localization and globalization, and now have new knowledge and interest in who CSOFT is, and what we do. Hopefully, this will only be the first of such events.
-Written by Samuel Austin, Technical Writer at CSOFT
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