Tech in Yoruba,How I Think About Topics
Last weekend, I uploaded the 40th video in the Tech in Yoruba series(yayy). When I made the first video,it wasn’t some long thought out plan. I had the expertise of both Yoruba language and technical concepts ,so I spoke to the camera and put it online because I can.
So how do I decide on what next to teach, you could be asking this question out of curiosity , as a baseline because you’ll like to teach technical concepts in your language , as part of research or for whatever reason.
The thematic classification of what I teach is about 3
- General Computing : where I meticulously covered foundational tech concepts in Yoruba like what is the internet,email,database,search engines, e commerce,computing,cybersecurity
- Careers: where I teach all about career option in Tech, I enjoy the feedback on this because I get messages all the time when people use the videos to explain what they do to their relatives.
- Data Science and AI: this is about 60% of what I have taught so far, we have covered both foundational and applied Data science and AI concepts in Yoruba. From algorithms to architecture to underlying principles.
I have the good fortune of a mixed and transcending audience, the videos are in Yoruba but I do the hard work of subtitling for the subtitle only audience who do not understand a word of the language but they are consistently watching. I am also aware that the appeal to the audience varies. For example my mum found Recommender systems very interesting because it answered her question on why she sees certain things but not my Dad. She didn’t fancy Artificial Neural Networks but I have the audience who are watching for that. I try to stagger the topics for coverage of both the deeply technical and “lightly”technical.
About vocabulary and new words, I wrote an article about that here but the answer to that is that again I have the leverage of both expertise in AI and Yoruba language. The Yoruba langauge is highly descriptive and I have hands-on experience implementing the topics I teach about, so I simply describe in the most authentic words possible while paying attention to those things that may seem like the translation in literal terms but that’s not exactly how it works.
Do I have syllabus of topics, yes I do. I aim for self contained videos but I was excited when I realised I had taught enough foundational topics to layer more complex stuff on. For example when I taught Generative Adversarial Networks, I was happy I had a prior class on Neural Networks.
For those who want to create and teach content in their language too, this is your cue to go ahead.
