Getting in Touch | Digital resources for Indigenous Languages

The Getting in Touch workshop was held in Alice Springs in April 2014. It brought together teams from Indigenous communities, linguists and technology experts. The workshop discussed issues and ideas about digital tools for Indigenous Language Speakers. Everyone brainstormed these ideas and created maps and plans for future resources.

Getting in Touch is a project of the Research Unit for Indigenous Language at the University of Melbourne and was hosted by Batchelor Institute’s campus at the Desert People’s Centre in Alice Springs. The workshop was funded by the University of Melbourne Social Equity Institute, and supported by the Australian Government’s Indigenous Languages Support Program, the Australian Research Council, Batchelor Institute and First Languages Australia.

Marie Ellis, Margaret Carew and Inge Kral presented a summary of the Getting in Touch workshop to the Indigenous Focus Group as part of the 2014 Broadband for the Bush Alliance Forum in April 2014. Here are the slides from that presentation:

Here is a film about the workshop made by David Nixon, ABC Open producer in Central Australia. This film is also part of an ABC Open blog post about the workshop.

Since the workshop the interest in apps and digital resources for Indigenous languages has grown even more. There are many app projects underway and we hope to see some of these new resources getting produced and used in language communities.

Getting in Touch poster

The Research Unit for Indigenous Language have produced a poster based around the activities at the Getting in Touch Workshop. Please contact them if you would like to get a copy of this poster.

Poster design by Chris Storey