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We only started getting DishNet FL programming around 2008. (Because UF is such a huge school, SCOLA is prohibitively expensive). Since then budgets have been cut and for a couple of years my entire budget was taken up by the fees; then I discovered that in fact the fees had doubled and Campus Cable, which had been quietly picking up the slack, could no longer afford to do so-nor could I. In 2010, when this all came out, we slashed 10 channels down to 4, and this year I was able to get completely out from under the subscription, but there are really only 2 channels left, one funded by European Studies (Polish, much used by the Polish prof) and one by the International Center (Al-Jazeera, a good choice, I think). Last year I funded Russian, because the Russian profs used it for teaching and also research, but this year they agreed that the Web provides better material, for teaching anyway. The Portuguese teacher funded the Brazil channel for an extra year, but realized how little use it actually was.

Most of the teachers would rather assign material posted on the Web, and most students would rather view it that way, not necessarily (or usually) in the language center.

An archived web broadcast is a stable entity that can be assigned for time-shifted viewing; a TV program can't, unless you tape it or have some other equipment to record it. So it's used by native speakers, by truly dedicated language learners, or by curious drop-ins who have the time to spare.

Judy Shoaf





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