Lex Ferenda

Kristen Murray of the Law School at George Washington University has written a note on technology and the classroom, specifically as in the case of the popular first-year legal research and writing (LRW) course, familiar to US law students in particular.

Her paper in a recent issue of the newsletter Perspectives: Teaching Legal Research & Writing, My E-Semester (alternative link), sets out a range of techniques she used last year, including a ‘paperless classroom’ based on PDF (and coursework returned with electronic comments), in-class document editing (complete with the author’s fears about typos on a big screen), the use of video and audio clips, and more. Lots of links to other law journal publications are included.

It’s a useful article, and doesn’t go overboard with new-new-new applications. Though some comments like “all of our classrooms have ’smart podiums’ and wireless Internet access; a classroom computer with full Microsoft Windows and Office capabilities and Internet access; a VCR, DVD player, and a video camera; and a camera that projects the images from the computer and video equipment onto an in-class screen” (in this part of the world, our larger lecture theatres have some of these, but our smaller rooms rarely do) and “Internet resources fall within the jurisdiction of my teaching assistant” just inspire the green-eyed monster!

Great use of a mixture of forms - poster advertising, viral marketing (through comments on websites, blogs, like-minded networks etc), word-of-mouth, word-of-email and a classy website to go with it.

Come to Camp Okutta.

Somehow I missed this one - while everyone and their dogs (yours truly included) seemed to welcome the Google Public Policy Blog, Verizon has been doing it for much longer. Google, of course, say that they’re “seeking to do public policy advocacy in a Googley way”, although I don’t see a huge difference between the Google Public Policy Blog and the Verizon effort (other than the fact that the Verizon lobbying position is a little different!)

Approval of Verizon’s blogging and transparency (though if only we could get them to stop throwing cash at politicians…12m a year and here’s a list) does not, of course, suggest approval of their views

John Markoff’s article on access to legal materials in yesterday’s New York Times has triggered a round of interesting blog posts Slaw, Citizen Media Law Center, Susan Crawford and Tim O’Reilly all chip in.

Carl Malamud, the subject of the story, is a hero. Confirmation comes from this wonderful letter (PDF) that he has just sent to West Publishing.

Some of the posts mention Tim Wu’s baby, Alt.law, a great site, or note that some cases are already available through various sources. The more the merrier, I say. There are few things more resonant (as examples of unfulfilled democratic promise) than locked-down, tolled, proprietary, restricted access to the fruit of the people’s courts.

sharona of Sharona’s Shambles and I are working our way through the longlist for the Booker Prize. While it’s not as much of a challenge as Christopher Beha’s year-long reading of the entire Harvard Classics collection, we are comforted by the knowledge that the good people at the Guardian Books Blog are doing the same with their “Booker Club” series of posts.

I’m not really a reviewer of fiction, and we’re reading for pleasure, but I’ll share some brief notes. No spoilers. Anyway, I started with Michael Redhill’s Consolation, which according to figures checked by the chair of the judging panel has the lowest sales on Amazon; it’s both novel and historical novel (with real-life borrowings from old and new) set in Toronto in the 19th century and the present day. It is a loving (but critical) portrait of the city in both eras, geographically accurate to a fault, and I rated it quite highly, while wondering if I would have had such affection for it had I not been a former resident of that fine city! It’s not a typical novel (although it is comfortably Can-Lit) and it’s also not the only historical novel on the list - but it may make some slow impact in this part of the world. I followed that with Nikita Lalwani’s Gifted (here’s a recent Guardian review), which I found to be a quick enough read, without a huge emotional impact (which surprised me) but with admirable portrayal of the young mathematical mind and some great insight on questions of race, family and identity. I tried not to do this, but I found myself comparing the book and the imagery with Zadie Smith and others, and personally I find it hard to love anything more than White Teeth, so it may be a little unfair to say that I enjoyed, but wasn’t overwhelmed by, this book.

For light relief, the Guardianistas (literally) judged the books by their covers in this post.