--- Forwarded Message from Thomas E Griffin <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 13:12:59 -0500 (CDT)
>From: Thomas E Griffin <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Use of TV Broadcasts in FL instruction

I am looking for ways to use live cable TV broadcasts in the Northeastern
Illinois University Foreign Language Lab.  The cable system has limited
Bprogramming in Spanish, French and Italian, and a few programs in Korean
and Japanese.  I have been trying to get students and faculty involved in
using the cable broadcasts.  I first tried offering a recording service to
faculty who could play the taped broadcasts in classes.  I next tried
showing these tapes and live broadcasts all day in the lab to attract
students' curiosity.  I feel that the problem is that students do not want
to see what they already have at home.  My chairperson does not want to
outlay the expense of subscription if nobody uses the broadcasts.  We
thought of temporarily disconnecting but an institutional account is not
like John Q Public's house.  It would cost hundreds of dollars and an
interdepartmental administrative hassle to reconnect.

Our language department requires students to do web-based cultural and
linguistic activities as part of their assignments for general education
courses (FL 101, 102 and 103).  By the nature of overloaded faculty these
assignments need to be somewhat standardized.  I do not have the time
myself to make assignments that change weekly as the TV programs change.
Furthermore, to simply record a few clips to use repeatedly for
assignments is not cost effective, since I or any instructor can do that
at home.  I need to find language learning activities that involve live
broadcasts, current events and culture that do not require constant
revision and engage students in hearing and writing the target language,
but do not intimidate beginning students and overworked faculty who do not
want to grade essay answers for classes of fifty students.

Which leads me to our next solution for all our lab activities.  We are
planning to put these on-line using a program called Web-Assign (God
willing that the program becomes operational on our server before the end
of the millennium.).  This program is used for all types of on-line testing
and homework; it will even correct students and provide instant feedback
in a homework type activity.  The difficulty is with the open-ended
communication in the target language that is appropriate for live TV
broadcasts which teachers all love to see but hate to grade.  I need
something that a cgi-based program like Web-Assign can easily handle if I
input the possible student responses.  To keep our instructors involved in
the lab component of our courses we need to automate as much as possible,
since it is often the lab that undertakes the technology in teaching
initiative.

Any suggestions? Please reply to the listserv or to me directly.

Thomas Griffin
FL Lab Director
Northeastern Illinois University
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