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Google Custom Search Engines

Google just launched a customized search service called Google Co-op (screen shots below). Co-op allows a user to create and launch a search engine with just a few specific websites included. Searches will return results from only that website.

Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Google Co-op Launches

I’m all over this:)  I added a CSE for law schools at Learnthelaw.  I’m sure it will be quite useful for all of those interested in attending law school.  I’ll add one at CALI too just as soon as I figure out where it should live.

The great thing about this Google offering is that it really works.  Unlike other custom engines, there is no apparent limit to the number of sites you can add to your CSE.

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Announcing Classcaster.net: BYO Classcaster System

After fiddling with Classcaster for a year and a half, I’ve finally gotten around to launching Classcaster.net as a site for Classcaster developers and those interested in building their own Classcaster system. The site includes detailed instructions for putting Classcaster together, links to info about Classcaster and a forum to discuss the deployment and use of Classcaster.

Please note that this is not intended to be an end user support site, but rather a site for those interested in deploying their own Classcaster system or learning more about how Classcaster works.

So, if your interested in running your own blogging, podcasting empire, this is a good place to start.

Classcaster is a course blogging system that provides faculty, librarians, and staff with a new way to interact with students and communities. A Classcaster blog provides authors with tools for posting not only traditional blog articles but also tools for podcasting and sharing any documents and/or files with students and communities.

CALI‘s implementation of Classcaster is here. It is a thriving blogging and podcasting network and community with over 50 active bloggers and almost 2000 hours of podcasts that cover a wide range of subjects taught in law schools across the country.

John Mayer and I will be giving a presentation on Classcaster at Educause on 10/11/06, so if you’re in Dallas, do drop by.

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Self Help LEgal Movement Gets a Blog

SHLEP’s goal is to bring the benefits of a daily weblog to the Self-Help Law movement. Developments and news about self-help will be presented (often thanks to the efforts of the good folk at SelHelpSupport.org). In addition to creating or organizing background materials for those who want to find self-help resources, your editor will attempt to keep readers informed of self-help resources available to the public and to professional providers of those services, of studies and reports on self-help law and related issues, of relevant symposia and meetings, and of the people and groups aiding (or obstructing) the movement.

shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress » About shlep

Found via BoleyBlogs! SHLEP will blog the coming legal literacy revolution.

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HyperScope Arrives, Serves Up OPML

The HyperScope is a high-performance thought processor that enables you to navigate, view, and link to documents in sophisticated ways. It’s the brainchild of Doug Engelbart, the inventor of hypertext and the mouse, and is the first step towards his larger vision for an Open Hyperdocument System.

HyperScope

This is great stuff.  Basically it extends OPML in a number of useful ways and provides a mechanism for viewing OPML files in a browser.  This will be useful as I work on eLangdell.

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Is Classcaster CLE Worthy?

I recently received the latest update from West LegalEdcenter regarding the recent additions to their online CLE (continuing legal education) programs. The message featured the following:

Award Winning ‘Justice Talking’ Programs
from NPR Now Available on West LegalEdcenter

NPR’s award-winning ‘Justice Talking’ programs are now available for CLE credit at West LegalEdcenter! Created by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and hosted by veteran NPR reporter Margot Adler, the series features an entertaining and educational mix of voices and opinions from the nation’s leading advocates, legal scholars, and policymakers.

Select from a list of more than 25 recent ‘Justice Talking’ programs or choose our featured program, recorded earlier this month.

Of course I followed the link.  It took me a page offering to sell me downloadable versions of NPR’s Justice Talking series for $60 a piece.  $60!  Just listen to this and receive CLE credit in 19 states.  Wow!  I then decided to delve a bit.  I surfed over to the Justice Talking site and found the very same episodes available for free download.  Of course just downloading them doesn’t mean you can get the credit:)  That would be too easy.

Anyway, I gave a listen to the free NPR downloads and it occured to me that there is not a lot of difference between Justice Talking and some of the podcasts on Classcaster.  So what if we licensed the podcasts on Classcaster to awest for use in CLE?  Of course only with permission of the authors.  Something to think about.

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New Orleans Law Firm Revamps Backups Post Katrina

That revealed a flaw in the law firm’s disaster planning. “We had our data, and it was safe in New Orleans, but it was inaccessible,” he says. “We were protecting our data, but we weren’t fully protecting the processes of our business.”
Zeller has set up a Web-based e-mail system to forward mail so during a blackout when both Baton Rouge and New Orleans are shut down, e-mail would be available through a separate Web site domain.
Also, the law firm has set up a Web site where employees can log their current location in an emergency. The site also contains phone numbers of close friends and relatives who live out of the likely path of hurricanes who will know the locations of employees.
Chaffe McCall has learned that the best disaster recovery planning can’t bring the business back up any faster than the people who work there can learn to cope. “That first week a lot of people were still getting their acts together on a personal level realizing they had just lost everything they owned,” Zeller says.

Law firm retools its backup scenario

There is a lot here for law schools to learn. When disaster strikes, are you prepared? Reminds me of the Law School Emergency Planning Project, described here and talked about at the 2006 Conference for Law School Computing®.  Law schools really need to be working on this sort of thing because when it happens, it’s too late.

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Law Students Online, All the Time

John pointed the CALI staff to this presentation done by Sam Ruby for IBM’s New Paradigms for Using Computers.  In a nut shell the presentation points out the ‘always connected’ nature of today’s teenagers.  Of course these teens are becoming today’s law students.  There was not a lot new for me in the presentation but it did bring into focus the some of the challenges we face in bringing technology to legal academia.

As time marches on  incoming law students are more comfortable with different communication channels having been raised in a world of plentiful bandwidth, cheap cellphones, and ready Internet access.  Unlike some previous technological innovations (word processing, email) the sorts of things that today’s new law students are accustomed to using are available right in the classroom.  That is the real challenge to legal academia and law professors everywhere: how to deal with the pervasiveness of the net in the world of today’s law students.  For us the challenge is to position CALI as a resource for both teachers and students in an environment where the net is always on and the students are always logged in.

We need to be able to provide teachers with resources to harness the possibilities of the pervasive net, to turn it from a distraction in the classroom to a useful teaching tool.  Certainly one way to keep students from surfing the web is to engage them and their computers, focusing them on the task at hand: learning the law.  At the same time we need resources for students that draw them into the new world of collegiality and professionalism that is the practice of law.  Tools that foster the social networking and collaborative skills  they will need to succeed in the practice of law.

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