UpDate - Vol. 13, No. 20, Page 8
February 17, 1994
TechTalk
UDTV expands traditional classroom

     Destinos, a serial drama designed to help teach Spanish, is expanding
the traditional classroom for Delaware students enrolled this spring in
Spanish 105, 106 and 107 classes.
     While characters in the series search for the truth about the past of
Fernando, a dying patriarch, students in the courses take a journey through
Latin America and Spain, gaining extensive exposure to the language.
     As soon as they learned of the possibilities of the University's new
cable television system, faculty members Gerald Culley and Jorge Cubillos
of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures said they
immediately thought of this innovative application.
     "UDTV's Channel 48 is an exciting means of getting information to
students," Cubillos said. "By viewing the program, which will be broadcast
three times a week this semester, our students are presented extensive
exposure to the language, taking them beyond the traditional classroom. The
broadcast provides an interesting, relaxed way of doing homework while
exposing students to high cultural content."
     Cubillos said the broadcast gives students the opportunity to view the
program in the relaxed atmosphere of a residence hall room or lounge. For
students who live off campus, the program is aired in Studio A in Newark
Hall. Tapes also are available in the Foreign Languages and Literatures
Media Center and the Media Center in Morris Library.
     According to Lonnie Hearn, director of University Media Services, the
opportunities for faculty use of the service will expand enormously by next
fall as all classrooms and other academic spaces are connected to the UDTV
network. This continues a campus cabling project begun last summer, when
residence halls were wired for cable television, and five satellite dishes
took up residence in the General Services Building parking lot off South
Chapel Street. The antennae are on top of Christiana Towers.
     Hearn encourages faculty to consider ways to use the new cable
television service to reach students across the campus with a wide variety
of course material. Programs on satellite and campus cable television
channels can be taped and rebroadcast on the system's 20 UD-originated
channels, so Hearn suggests consulting such publications as Satellite
Scholar and Cable in the Classroom for detailed information on upcoming
satellite and cable television programming.
     In addition, the University is a member of AGSAT, a consortium that
broadcasts conferences on various agriculture-related topics, and of the
National Technological University, which is composed of 45 engineering
universities and government sites.
     Faculty members also are able to videotape courses for use in the
University's FOCUS distance learning program or have them broadcast to
residence halls and lounges. Through a satellite uplink from Newark Hall,
the colleges of Nursing and Engineering have broadcast courses to other
areas of the country. From McDowell Hall, several hundred hours of nursing
classes are recorded and sent to hospitals. Last fall, two University
basketball games were uplinked from the Bob Carpenter Center by satellite
to commercial television channels. National teleconferences also have been
shown live over the network and taped as well.
     Newark Hall, featuring three instructional television classrooms,
serves as the origin of UD instructional programming and television network
control. In the studios, instructors are able to videotape classes as they
happen. A satellite downlink and transmission system are located on the
roof of the building.
     Department of Communication classes have been scheduled in the
television studio in East Hall. In the near future, the Willard Hall
Education Building, a multimedia facility, will be linked directly to
Georgetown.