International

Shooting the INTERNATIONAL BREEZE

Doug Pfeiffer, professor of entomology, is exploring the use of Web-based multilingual oral presentations for the international delivery of information. The approach uses Macromedia Breeze Presenter, a developmental tool that allows users to easily record, edit, and synchronize digital audio with PowerPoint slides to create Web-based presentations that can be translated into multiple languages. Pfeiffer hopes that researchers around the world will use

Breeze technology to share valuable information. Breeze presentations are currently being used domestically to convey a variety of information. Examples include presentations on Pierce’s disease in Virginia vineyards and on pesticide resistance management in fruit crops.

Pfeiffer is involved with the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CRSP), an international research and Extension effort fostering modern and appropriate pest management tactics in a range of developing countries. Multiple U.S. universities are participating in regional projects in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.

Pfeiffer, who is Site Chair for the Eastern Europe project, hopes to use Breeze technology to bridge the communication gap among the countries involved. In the original phase of the Eastern European project, Albania was the only participating country, and there were few communications difficulties. In the new phase of the project, there was an expansion into two additional countries, Ukraine and Moldova, making communications more difficult. Host country specialists speak four different native languages: Albanian, Ukrainian, Russian, and Moldovan (Romanian). Specialists must not only communicate in order to conduct their research, but they also need to be able to share their results with pest managers (Extension personnel and farmers) across the regional project.

Pfeiffer and his colleagues have created two pairs of multilingual presentations. The first summarizes an economic analysis of the first phase of the Eastern European regional project, focused on Albanian olive pest management. It is recorded in English and Albanian. The second presentation, recorded in English and Ukrainian, summarizes the expanded project. These presentations can be viewed at http://everest.ento.vt.edu/Fruitfiles/ Albania/EasternEuropeIndex.html. Pfeiffer plans to create more technical presentations for the stakeholders in each country.