Blogging from the CALI Conference in Baltimore

Keynote – Paul Maharq – Transforming Legal Education - http://simplecommunity.org

Keynote summary from Liveblogger, Gene Koo – http://lsi.typepad.com/lsi/2008/06/liveblogging-th.html
Slides: http://slideshare.net/paulmaharq

Session 1 – When to jump on the IT bandwagon, when to jump off… – FSU College of Law

2 librarians surveyed their law students and came up with some bluntly honest comments, yielding surprising results for those of us choosing new IT applications of all types

• good AALL publication on using wikis
• offer a prize to get good results on students completing surveys
• 63% IM, 82% use MySpace or Facebook
• 98% rarely used Second Life, 89% rarely used RSS
• Google  analytic tools – free – put cod on all your webpages

Session 2 – Our Clicker presentation with UTexas College of Law

It seemed to go well – Dan & got a lot of positive feedback.  UTexas uses Turning Point (one of the conference sponsors.)  The only downside of their clicker system is that it only works seemlessly if you are a PowerPoint user.

                                              

Session 3  – Where the magic happens  – Nova Southeastern

• turn off the light and put a lamp behind your monitor!?
• Firefox has cool add-in
• free software tools
  • flickr for photos
  • photoshop express for editing
  • piclens – 3D viewer
  • animoto – slideshow creator ($10-15)
  • eyespot – video creator
  • palbee – videoconferencing (6 users)
  • Magtoo.com - create a virtual tour – html code provided

VARK – one method of identifying learning preferences – the VARK Questionnaire (www.vark-learn.com )

Session 4 – The Nuts & Bolts of using MediaNotes – Gene Koo (CALI)

Great – very Informative!!  I really understand how to use MediaNotes to annotate video, what to buy to make it happen (and I sat next to Paul Maharq).

• red pen for video
• need a laptop and a webcam (logitech top of the line $100)
• camera comes with the software
• hit start & hit stop when done – video is automatically saved on the laptop
• audio is more important than video so if room is noisy, use a headset mic
• have students review their own - give them a set of tags (concepts – ex: closed question, summary, open question…)
• or give them a video of a TV show or movie to use
• can count # of tags, can filter by tag
• tagging is done by the reviewer, filter is done by the tagger
• to start: select new project, find the video, hit + sign and add comment or create a tag (pick a color) and drag onto event, can import tags
• details checkbox shows comments belwo each tag on right
• can separate video in a separate location or packpage the project (tags & video) and save it
• buy 2 GB USB flash drives to exchange files
• upload load speed to CAI spaces is slow
• CALI is going to set up a chain in the next few months (send an email to the next reviewer, etc)
• software is free for faculty & staff (use CALi id on website to download)
• $20 for law students – price will be coming down
• outside services that charge $2/min to transcribe MP3 audio, you can copy and paste the transcript into event
• uses .wmv, mov or mp3 file formats not flash
• tags are shared in to MediaNotes community (interviewing & counseling tags)
• in March – new harware options will be coming out

Dinner & tour of the aquarium

Mac vs PC

In this month’s ABA Journal, two lawyers  re-visit the MAC vs PC debate. Here at the law school, we find that more 1Ls have MACs than previous years.  We do not provide technical support for  MAC users other than setting up their wireless Internet access.  We are this semester for the first time allowing students to use MACs for their final exams if they own an Intel MAC (MACbook or MACbook Pro) running Windows XP or Vista on Bootcamp.

 According to the magazine article, here are the advantages of each -

MAC:

• Easier to choose a model (there are fewer)
• New ones can run any Windows program when necessary (PC World reported that the fastest Vista notebook is a MAC)
• you do not need anti-virus, anti-spyware or security protection
• they rarely crash
• there are free seminars at stores including a free “Genius Bar”
• better tech support (repairs are made promptly with free shipping provided)
• for lawyers
  • Daylite – links various types of documents
  • LawStream Pro - office management program
  • Circus Ponies  Notebook -
  • Rocket Matter  for billing & case mangement (web-based)
  • MSOffice – word-processing
  • NeoOffice
  • Apple’s iWork
  • Apple’s iKeynote - superior to PowerPoint
  • TrialSmart – trial presentation package
  • iMovie – for video depositions

PC:

• cheaper (more brands, more competition)
• more choices
• 90% of the population use them
• more choices for software
• can buy their components anywhere
• Dual booting is time consuming 
• More people/vendors available to fix your PC
• for lawyers
  • Amicus Attorney - office management 
  • Thomson‘ Elite – time/billing
  • LexisNexis’ PCLaw- time/billing
  • MSOffice
  • WordPerfect – superior to Word
  • Sanction – best trial presentation package
  • SmartDraw – graphics/timeline software

As for me, as a teacher, I began my computer using days by owning several MACS.  When I went back to grad school for Instructional technology in 1994,  I entered the PC world and completely switched over.  I have been using PCs ever since.  Just recently, since my 6 yr old SONY laptop (which has given my problems since day one) is approaching extinction, I have considered buying a MACbook Pro or a Ferrari …LOL