Law School 2.0

Bridges to the Future Event

This evening, I participated in DU's Bridges to the Future event over at the Newman Center.  Bridges is a community outreach effort (among many) of the University of Denver, and it brings in prominent speakers on topics relevant to the theme of each year.  This year's theme is education, and tonight's program was about technology in education.  So the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at DU asked me to bring a poster presentation on the my use of Wikis in Administrative Law.  Here is a picture of my table:

There seemed to be a lot of interest in the attendees (of which there were about 75-100) for Wikis in Education. I had a lot of interesting conversations, including one with Jerry Wartgow, the former Superintendent of the Denver Public Schools (and now Interim Dean at DU's College of Education), and retired Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Peter Ney.  

But the highlight of the evening for me was the keynote speaker, Steven Johnson, the author of Everything Bad is Good for You (and several other interesting books).  I found his talk to be both interesting and inspiring.  I think he gets a bit of a bad rap about that book - as if he said that video games - even the violent ones, and pointless shoot-em-up ones - are OK, and even good for our children.  But he did not say that - and clarified this point tonight.  Instead, his view is that some of the complex simulation games - such as Sim City, Civilization and Spore - are often very good for our children because they immerse them in complex worlds that are far more interesting and challenging than many things that are going on in their schooling.  More on this can be seen in the video of his appearance on The Daily Show when the book came out.

At the end of the talk, he was signing his new book, The Invention of Air, about the scientist Joseph Preistly and his role in the founding of our country.  A fascinating book in its own right, although a bit further afield from "Everything Bad..."  Anyway, I had the honor of giving him a copy of my book, and he was very gracious in receiving it.

I am going to check out his blog, and follow Steven more closely.  I think he is a fascinating guy, and very smart. 

The LEARN Announcement

An interesting announcement was published on several Teaching and Learning listservs recently.  It is from a new group that has formed to work on reform in legal education.  It is called the Legal Education Analysis and Reform Network (LEARN).  You will find a copy of the announcement here. 

 

There are several things I find interesting about this announcement.  First, it includes some very influential folks who have signed up to the effort, including representatives from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and NYU.  It also includes several folks not from those schools, but who have already established themselves in the field of legal education reform, such as Elizabeth Mertz (at Wisconsin) and Ed Rubin (at Vanderbilt).  Overall, it is a very impressive group.

Second, it contains a well written and concise precis on the current state of legal education and its criticisms (pp. 7-10).  Third, it announces a number of "proposed projects" that it states are underway in the LEARN network, including an effort to prepare a comprehensive report on efforts to implement curricular reform in law schools, a summer institute on law teaching, and a network for institutional leaders in the area.

It also addresses squarely - more so than the Carnegie report did - the importance of assessment and assessment tools, by dedicating several projects to this subject.  So, for example, they have a proposed project to "assess the use of interactive classroom technology."  This part seems to be focused just on clickers for assessment, and (in my view) has a somewhat limited view of how clickers can be used in the law classroom.  (Has anybody read my book over there yet?)  But at least they have announced a study of the subject - here is a quote on this from the document:  "LEARN intends to study how this technology can or cannot be effectively used in various law school settings.  The results of this study will be disseminated widely and would be expected to have significant impact on whether law schools and instructors adopt these devices, and if so, how they will utilize them."  

What I find encouraging about this last bit - even if it seems a bit uninformed about the broad and effective uses of clickers in the classroom (and much other technology) - is that finally, there seem to be folks making the connection between reform in legal education and the intelligent use of educational technology.  While it remains to be seen what this group can do, I think its formation and this announcement are an excellent development.  Here is an encouraging quote from the conclusion of their document:  "The stars have aligned now to create a prime moment of opportunity for reflective, thoughtful, meaningful and lasting change.  But we need to seize the moment."

Trip to Orlando

Greetings from the land of Mickey!

I have been in Orlando, Florida for the last few days.  I am here to participate in a meeting of the Law School Advisory Board for Lexis, of which I have been a member for the last two years.  I find these twice-yearly meetings enjoyable and interesting.  They are enjoyable because the other members of the Board are colleagues I admire and respect, and they have - through this work - become friends. It is a diverse group of legal educators, including other LRW directors and Associate Deans and Deans of a mix of schools of various sizes, both private and public.  

The meetings are interesting because Lexis shares with us information about the company's initiatives, and asks for our input and suggestions.  This information is interesting for two reasons: to hear about how a big company such as Lexis is responding to developments in legal education, and also to hear what a diverse group of legal educators tells Lexis about those initiatives.  I always learn a lot from my colleagues about what is important in legal education - to me and to other very thoughtful people.

Nice note on the Legal Writing Prof Blog

Jim Levy, who writes for the Legal Writing Prof's blog, picked up Mitch Rubinstein's review of the book on the Adjunct blog.  A nice note from Jim, with links to the book on Amazon, and to Mitch's review.  Thanks, Jim.

Visualization of large data sets

I write in the book about the importance of some of the work being done on visualization of large data sets (at p. 84).  Especially with the rise of electronic media, I think this work is very interesting, and exceedingly important to the future for lawyers.  The most immediate example of how important large data sets are becoming is the burgeoning field of electronic discovery. 

Each chapter of the book begins with a Wordle, which is a form of visualization of large amounts of text.  To create a wordle for text that you have, visit www.wordle.net.  Here is a Wordle that was generated from the text posted to date at the Law School 2.0 blog:

- Click the image above to see a larger version on the Wordle site -

With thanks and appreciation to www.wordle.net.

Review of LS2 on Adjunct Professor's Blog

Mitch Rubinstein, an adjunct professor at St. John's and New York Law Schools, posted a short review of my book on the Adjunct Law Prof Blog here.

Just to clarify, I don't think all law profs have to be practitioners first.  But I do think law school should have more of a mix of traditional, skills, and clinical teaching than many currently do. Certainly the skills and clinical teachers should have practice experience, but that is the way it already is, for the most part.  

The main point of the book is this: if indeed we need change in the legal academy - and there are a lot of reputable people who think we do - it won't happen without the help of technology.  It has not happened for 100 years primarily because it is too expensive.  But with recent developments in technology - just over the last 5 to 10 years - we finally have tools that can allow us to deliver effective legal education in a way that does not have to blow up the costs.  I write about some of my own experiences using these emerging tools in the book, but there are many other law profs around the country who are doing similar things (see March 5 post).  I want to raise and spotlight that discussion: about what works, and what does not, in using technology to deliver legal education more effectively than we currently do.

And yes Mitch, I did intend that the audience for the book would be all members of the legal academy.  Perhaps even beyond, to educators in other settings.  I have had, for example, quite a bit of interest from international law schools oversees.  My trip to China, where I spoke at a two day conference for law school deans and professors, was eye-opening for me.  I discovered that there is great interest in China in the things I discuss in the book, and that law professors in China share many of the same concerns that we have over here in the U.S. about legal education.  I have a blog post here about the trip to China. There is also a short video about it on the video page of the book's website.

LS2 - Book Review on SocialMediaLawStudent

Josh Camson posted a nice review of my book on the SocialMediaLawStudent blog.  His point about the potential conflict between encouraging collaboration and the curve is a fair one, but in practice, I have found ways to address that with students.  There are certainly good arguments to be made against the curve, they just are not part of my arguments in the book.

Josh assumes that I am the only law teacher involved in using some of the advanced pedagogical technology I describe in the book.  But the references section points to some of the scholarship written by other professors who have done similar things.  Professor Paul Caron at the University of Cincinnati, for example, was the first law prof to use clickers in the law school classroom.  I believe some others are using Wikis as well, in various ways - I describe only two ways I have used them in the book.  Several others preceded me in teaching law courses online, among them Peter Martin at Cornell. I feel like I stand "on the shoulders of others" who are also involved in this effort, and that our joint efforts are only just beginning.  (In one of the videos on the book's website I address this point directly). I wrote the book in part to encourage more of these sorts of efforts, so we can all learn from each other, and to elevate the discussion beyond just the latest new whizbang approach to teaching with technology (which seem to appear at every conference).  One of my hopes is to unify these efforts behind the banner of effective and appropriate change in legal education.

What I found most interesting about Josh's review is that - from a student's point of view - I did not go far enough in LS2.  There are probably law professors who think I went too far. Indeed, I have already heard from one of them, a "laptop banner," who was displeased with my arguments against banning laptops in class.  But if the student view is that I could or should have gone farther in LS2 - particularly from a student immersed (as Josh is) in the use of social media - I think that sends an important message.

Video on the LS2 Website

I have posted some new video files on the Law School 2.0 website, here.  These videos are designed to introduce the major themes in the book, and thus supplement it.