The 2006 CALI Conference for Law School Computing

To comment on this blog, you need to complete a Captcha. This one requires you to type in a sequence of numbers, something I’m invaribly going to get wrong more often than not. I wonder if, instead, we could use KittenAuth instead. Ok, they’ve recently rewritten it so it’s a bit buggy, but I find it much easier (and more fun) to click on pictures of cute animals than type boring numbers. (Ok, I know we can’t really use KittenAuth; I just find it amusing.)

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

Authoring a CALI lesson, whether as part of a CALI Fellowship or alone, requires faculty to approach, and to think about, the material that makes up their courses differently. The Family Law Fellowship started in January 2006, and the Fellows are still immersed in the lesson-writing process. To date, only four of each Fellow�s lessons have been written (and re-written). From this unique vantage point, four of the team’s Fellows will share their observations and insights about the impact of authoring on both their teaching and their writing.

MP3: BiernatLLSat900.mp3

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Len Biernat
Professor of Law
Hamline University School of Law

Andrea Charlow
Professor of Law
Drake University Law School

Deb Quentel
Director of Curriculum Development & Gen. Counsel
CALI

Janet Richards
Cecil C. Humphreys Professor of Law
University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law

Cynthia Starnes
Professor
Michigan State University College of Law

Audience: Authors and Web Coordinators
Technical Level: Medium to ? (basic concepts will be of interest to all)

Web sites and collections of course materials present challenges in editing, updating and presenting information in the most highly usable forms. Information is most useful when it is categorized and indexed, but kept separate from the delivery mechanics.

This presentation will introduce the basic principles of content management and information presentation with immediately-usable examples of content placed on the web. Specific examples include the use of database-driven web pages, style sheets, XML systems (podcasts, newsfeeds, etc.) and content management systems.

MP3: DanielsLR5Sat1200.mp3

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Earl A. Daniels
College of Law Web Coordinator
Georgia State University College of Law

This presentation will introduce the basic principles of content management and information presentation with immediately-usable examples of content placed on the web. Specific examples include the use of database-driven web pages, style sheets, XML systems (podcasts, newsfeeds, etc.) and content management systems.

Earl A. Daniels
College of Law Web Coordinator
Georgia State University College of Law

Further Information:

• Separation: The Web Designer’s Dilemma
• W3C Draft Finding – Separation of semantic and presentational markup, to the extent possible, is architecturally sound
• The Myth of CSS – an alternate view blog entry and discussion
• WebAIM: Using CSS to Your Advantage
• Styled XML news feed: ZDNet News

Mentioned during session:

• Faculty Publications Database
• Course Listing and Class Schedule
• Good style sheet editor: TopStyle

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

Not gettin� along�not listenin��wantin� to leave�thinkin� of someone else�

These phrases could have come from a George Strait or Brooks & Dunn song. Unfortunately, they also can describe the frustration of your customers about the service they�re getting. Technology professionals sometimes focus on the technical nature of customer problems, rather than on the human nature. As a result, though they may solve the technical problem, they leave the customer upset.

This presentation will discuss principles of communications and customer service, and help you reduce the chances that customers will view your customer service as a country music song.

MP3: SunLR4Sat1200.mp3

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Calvin Sun
NEED TITLE
Temple University School of Law

Audience: Everyone
Technical Level: Extreme Geek

Running Apache, MySQL, and PHP or PERL out of the box can be a very satisfying experience for most law school websites. Yet all of these applications can be easily re-configured to run more efficiently and faster, providing real snap to your website. If your website is humming along, this session will show you how to make it purr.

MP3: MastersLR3Sat1200.mp3

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Elmer Masters
Director of Internet Development
CALI

Intro Gnomes

Elmer’s del.icio.us tags for Apache.

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

The best way to increase CALI usage in your law school is to roll out all those multi-disciplinary skills and start thinking outside of the box. In addition to Door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales, auto sales, shoe sales, and retail management experience Washburn University’s Andrew Evans also discusses how his skills and experiences of owning his own business, being a union organizer and a former law student helped him to increase usage of CALI.

Since Andrew has taken over as Washburn Law’s CALI representative, CALI usage has more than tripled. He knows exactly what to say to get a room full of 75 students to flip open notebooks and grab writing utensils in order to write down the CALI password. He also found creative ways for faculty to motivate students to do CALI lessons. Faculty members are so excited about CALI that they have even expressed interest in writing CALI lessons in their specialized fields. Andrew will show you how to get your people jonesing for CALI!

Did we also mention that Andrew will be discussing how his martial arts experience comes into the mix? That’s right! You can’t be a good pimp without a good pimp slap.

MP3: EvansLR1Sat1200.mp3

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Andrew Evans
Government Documents Librarian
Washburn University School of Law

Audience: All
Technical Level: Edgy

As technology permeates our lives, we find that students not only use it but expect its use in the classroom. In response to this expectation, more and more faculty members use technology, and primarily PowerPoint, in lectures. Unfortunately, their use is often ineffective to the point that the technology not only loses its benefit but detracts from the learning environment.

This presentation will focus on the effective use of technology with vibrant examples of audio, video, PowerPoint, wireless control technology, and responder units to enhance the learning experience.

What this presentation is: This presentation will demonstrate the power of technology with the tools that virtually all faculty have and will include a look at more advanced tools. Specifically, the use of Flash Animation created though Swish, the tool Snag-it to capture information from the Web, video editing tools to use clips within a PowerPoint presentation and others. As an added bonus, a teaching technique will be demonstrated with common objects (non-technological) that illustrate the power of the way information is presented and how the methods we employ affect the listener – our students with a twist – that is, illustrating how technology can enhance a non-technological teaching tool.

Additionally, this presentation will illustrate common mistakes most presenters make and offer simple solutions on how to avoid these mistakes.

What this presentation is not: This is not a �how-to� course. This will not teach the intricacies of how to create a PowerPoint presentation or how to use the various tools utilized in the presentation. In a short time, one can only wet his or her appetite to learn the skills needed to prepare powerful and effective presentations for the classroom.

This proposed topic illustrates audio stimulation, video stimulation and student participation of a kind that is rarely utilized in today�s teaching environment but is extremely effective.

MP3: BeckmanLLSat1200.mp3

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Sydney Beckman
Assistant Professor of Law
Charleston School of Law

Audience: All
Technical Level: Low

All Law school admissions offices have been using ACES to communicate and exchange data with the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) for the past 7 years and over 150 law schools have elected to use LSAC’s Admit-M product as their primary admissions database. Beginning in the summer of 2006 LSAC is merging these two products into a single next generation admissions system called ACES2.

This session is an overview of the technical aspects of this next generation admission system and is an update to the ACES2 technical conferences LSAC held around the country in the fall of 2005. ACES2 will allow law schools to have a system which uses the latest technologies and advances, and which will serve as the launching pad for new services that can be provided by LSAC over the next 10+ years. The goals of the new system will be to merge ACES and Admit-M into one seamless application, to automate as much of the transfer of data as possible, and to provide easy access to data for admissions professionals in the office and on the road. Details will be given on ACES2’s interaction with schools systems as well as the application’s security, office software integration, reporting capabilities, maintenance and architecture.

MP3: LowryLR5Sat1030.mp3

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Troy Lowry
Director of System Software Development
LSAC

JoAnn Sabol
Senior Manager of Software Services
LSAC