CALIopolis

Just A Podcasting Test

Here is my test podcast.

Click to listen or right-click to download - JustATest4Podcasting.mp3

Case Law Wordles

One of the cool things about having a commons that contains public domain versions of case law is that it invites experimentation.

I ran across this nifty toy the other day called Wordle (www.wordle.net) that let me create the above graphic. I grabbed a random Supreme Court case from CALI's Legal Education Commons (www.cali.org/lec or www.legaleducationcommons.org) and produced the Wordle you see above. Can you tell what the case is about?

BTW, clicking on the image will take you to the text of the case.

I will try to post a new one of these every couple of days just to see what happens as I run various famous cases through Wordle.

CALI Tools For Law Faculty in 15 Minutes from AALS 2009

Here is the link to a screencast of my presentation at AALS on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 in San Diego. I was participating in the "Redesigning Legal Education" session. I had 15 minutes to cover a lot of ground, so I apologize for my fast-talking.

Here is the Powerpoint file... 2009AALSClassroomTechnology.ppt

Here is an MP3 of my talk... 2009_01_07_ClassroomTech.mp3

Mayer, Lazar, Devenny, Marik, Robinson, Kokosz Families Sing the 12 Days of Christmas

The picture does not capture the participants - unfortunately, no one took pics at this year's Christmas gathering.

Some may say this it is better that no pictures were taken if you listen to the singing in the podcast.

Just saying...

Here is the podcast ... MayerFamily12days2008.mp3

Click to play or right-click to download.

Blogging Hiatus Ends

I am back to blogging. I had to take some time off to recover from quintuple bypass surgery. Let this be a reminder to get your cholesterol checked - mine was over 330 last April - now it's around 150 thankyouverymuch.

I've been back to work for quite some time now (since May), but I had fallen so far behind that I just didn't know where to pick up the blog. Well, it's a new year and I know what my first blog post of 2009 must be...See the next post.

New Podcast Launched - PLEASE PAY ATTENTION

"Please Pay Attention" is the working title of the new podcast series. We would love to get suggestions from listeners to name this podcast.

Elmer Masters and I talk about legal education-related IT topics several times a week and we have threatened in the past to turn some of those conversations into podcasts because we believe that others might benefit. Alternatively, others might listen and set us straight.

So we have followed up on our threat and recorded the first in a series of podcasts. The general topic area is IT in legal education/law schools. We don't expect to be the only voices on this podcast as we will be inviting "guest speakers" - that is - real IT folks who work at real jobs in real law schools.

But for this first podcast, we decided to keep it between just me and Elmer and talk about Drupal (Elmer attended DrupalCon in Boston last week), Drupal, the massively popular open source content management system and related topics on law school website design, development and administration issues.

We talk a bit about the planned DrupalFest to be held during the 2008 Conference for Law School Computing on June 18-21, 2008 in Baltimore, MD at the University of Maryland School of Law.

Give it a listen, give us some feedback and in a couple of weeks we will see if this a drive-by podcast or we will be repeat offenders.

Here is the podcast ... LegalEdITpodcast001rev1.mp3 (updated version after running The Levelator to clean up sound volume levels)

iTunes links to be added soon.

Intro and out-tro music is Creative Commons licensed and was found at Podsafe Audio. The artist is Heather Sullivan and the tune is "I Believe".

Transforming Legal Education - 2008 CALI Conference Theme

We have a theme!!!

"Transforming Legal Educaction" is the theme for the 2008 Conference for Law School Computing.

We'll be posting links for registration and putting out a call for speakers soon. All of these links will be here.

2008 Conference for Law School Computing - Help Me Pick a Theme

The 2008 Conference for Law School Computing will be held on Thursday - Friday, June 19 - 21, 2008 at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, MD.

We haven't set up the website or even put out a call for speakers yet because I am stumped on deciding a theme for this conference. After AALS, I was thinking of something like "From MacCrate to Carnegie: Back to the Future", but it doesn't have that much to do with Law School IT.

We ARE planning to have a dedicated track just for law faculty with all sorts of innovative presentations on technology that are specifically aimed at the classroom and teaching, but I can't really figure out how to make this work theme-wise.

So....

Below you will find some mockups for themes. Take a look and send me a note (jmayer@cali.org) with your suggestions or whether or not you especially love/hate any of these. I currently have comments turned off due to frequent comment-spam attacks.

I won't say which one is my favorite. You can probably guess.

CORRECTION - CALI currently has 208 U.S. Law School Members

CALI's Director of Membership, LaVonne Molde has pointed out that in my talk at AALS and in my slides, I list CALI as having only 206 U.S. law school members when that number should actually be 208!

Click here for the complete list and if you are a student or faculty at a law school that is NOT a member ... please tell me why not.

2008 Annual CALI Members Meeting - Screencast Version

Here is the link to the screencast version of my talk at the 2008 Annual CALI Members Meeting held on Friday, January 5, 2008 in New York during AALS.

I had previously posted the podcast/audio recording and Powerpoint slides.

Podcast of AALS Session: Rethinking Legal Education For The 21st Century

Here ...

AALS2008Carnegie.mp3

... is the recording of the AALS Session: Rethinking Legal Education For The 21st Century. The speakers included...

Moderator: Edward L. Rubin, Vanderbilt University Law School
Speakers: Vicki C. Jackson, Georgetown University Law Center
Robert Mac Crate, Esq., Senior Counsel, Sullivan and Cromwell, New York, New York
Martha L. Minow, Harvard Law School
Suellyn Scarnecchia, University of New Mexico School of Law
William M. Sullivan, Senior Scholar The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Palo Alto, California
Judith W. Wegner, University of North Carolina School of Law

CALI 2008 Annual Members Meeting - CALI and Carnegie

Here is the recording of my talk at the 2008 Annual Membership Meeting for CALI during AALS in New York, NY on January 5, 2008 ... AALS2008CALIBreakfast.mp3

Here are the slides ... 2008AALSBreakfast_final.ppt

I will be posting a screencast version soon and posting more information about ELangdell into the future.

Mayer Family Sings the 12 Days of Christmas - Think of the Children!!!

The Family was over to the house to celebrate Christmas yesterday. One of our many annual traditions is to sing the 12 days of Christmas with different individuals/groups handling each "number". Others are tasked to try to confuse them with alternate lyrics ... hilarity ensues.

Here you go... MayerFamily12days2007.mp3

Advice to (soon-to-be) Dean Chemerinsky of UC-Irvine

Paul Caron, blog-emperor and CALI Board Member asked me to contribute to the fascinating thread about "Advice to Erwin Chemerinsky".

The biggest constraint was the 250 word limit.... here's my advice...

As the Executive Director of CALI, I read a lot of feedback from students that pertains to their perceptions of legal education. The single biggest thing that students crave is more feedback. Imagine if you took a job where you were paid at the end of 15 weeks based on your performance -better performance= more pay, but you weren’t told how well you were doing until the end of the 15 weeks. That’s law school. Students are studying hard, but they aren’t sure that they know what they know until the results of the final exam are in.

I would advise Dean Chemerinsky to mandate that all classes provide some form of personal feedback to all students. This doesn’t have to be graded, but it should be substantive. This could be in the form of midterm exams, quizzes or even students evaluating each other’s mini-essays or shared collections of multiple choice questions. The technology tools exist so that this isn’t an undue burden on the instructor or require the hiring of teaching assistants for every class.

It is worth noting that feedback can be bi-directional. The aggregate results of weekly quizzes can tell the instructor where she has lost the students and should provide some additional instruction. If instructors want to read really excellent final exams, then you have to make sure that students are on track throughout the semester. The surprises you get reading the finals are no less disconcerting than the surprises that the students get when you grade it.

Announcing Elangdell: Berkman Center, CALI Announce New Partnership to Create A Legal Education Commons

I am so excited to make this post.

Here's the press release.

Cambridge, MA – Today at the 17th annual CALI Conference on Law School Computing, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School and the non-profit Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) proudly announced a new partnership to stimulate innovation in American law schools through a new educational resource sharing platform. This work will be perpetuated by the establishment of the CALI-Berkman Research Fellowship.

“We are looking forward to renewing a fruitful relationship with Harvard Law School through the Legal Education Commons project, which will provide innovative tools and access to open-licensed course materials to our more than 200 member law schools” said CALI Executive Director John Mayer.

The partnership will establish the Legal Education Commons – known as eLangdell for Harvard Law School’s first Dean and the Law Library’s namesake, Dean Christopher Columbus Langdell – where law faculty can share and use openly-licensed course materials to offer students free or low-cost course packs, casebooks, podcasts, and video. Berkman and CALI will also research and develop innovative teaching tools to advance practice skills like client interaction, negotiations, and trial advocacy.

The first CALI-Berkman Research Fellowship will be held by current Berkman Fellow Gene Koo, a 2002 graduate of Harvard Law School, whose research has centered on the use of technology in legal instruction. Gene also helped found Legal Aid University, which provides training and development to poverty lawyers across the country.

“The Berkman Center is happy to build on the relationship Harvard Law established some 25 years ago as co-founder of CALI,” added Berkman Center Executive Director John Palfrey. “Gene’s devotion to improving education through technology will certainly make this effort a great success.”