FSU College of Law Research Center Blog

Legal Digital Audio Content

AudioCaseFiles describes itself as the leader in AudioCaseFiles.  From their website:

AudioCaseFiles provides law school students with digital audio recordings of the legal opinions they read to learn the law (patent pending). The company was founded on the principle that auditory delivery will enhance and supplement the law school learning process. We currently have hundreds of popular cases and are in the process of continuing to record the most frequently requested cases. Please check the site frequently.

The Company distinguishes itself from other study guides which detract from the law school learning process by spoon feeding students black letter law by offering content that challenges students to thoughtfully engage in the same analysis that reading requires. However, the key advantage that ACF affords is portability, as students can listen to the cases they are required to read for class while in the car, at the gym, or at home.

The Company also believes that it can save students money by allowing them to selectively download the cases they want and need for only .99 cents. Students are no longer deluged with the useless, irrelevant, and sometimes harmful information coming from study guides and can focus on learning and knowing the important cases emphasized by their professors.

Try it here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Stanford Center Advocates for Fair Use on Web

npr has an interesting podcast on the Stanford Center's Fair Use Project.  You can listen to it here:

Posted by Jon Lutz

What makes a great reference librarian?

What makes a reference librarian great?  Two things are crucial:  the will, which is almost an obsession, to find the right answer, and a love of helping others find the materials they need.  For insight into the minds of five superb reference librarians, listen to a discussion with Mary McCormick, Margaret Clark, Marin Dell, Pat Bingham-Harper and Jon Lutz of the Florida State University Law Library.  The discussion was prepared for students of Professor Lorri Mon, Florida State University, College of Information in fall 2006.

Posted by Faye Jones  

Legal Education Podcasting Project

During the Spring semester 2006, CALI sponsored a project to investigate the efficacy of podcasting in legal education.  Faculty from various schools recorded their lectures and posted them to the CALI website.  Mary McCormick was one of the participants.  After the course ended students were asked to respond to a survey.

Here is a brief summary of the some of the results:
To the question, would you like future law school classes to use podcasting?
     79.5% responded Yes.
To the question about representing their activities when listening to a podcast:
     38% said they listened to a part of the podcast to clarify a point.
     46.5% said they listened to all of the podcast to see if they missed anything.
     57.2% said they listened to take notes or updates class notes.
     19.9% listened multiple times to a single podcast.
To the question, rate the overall value of the podcasts you have listened to:
     47.5% claimed 'excellent value.'
     26.3% claimed 'above average value.'

You can view the results of the entire survey here.  You can learn more about CALI efforts in classcasting here.  And view a CALI Legal Education Podcasting Project faq here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Advice for Incoming Law Students

CALI's Pre-Law Blog had posted several podcasts for incoming law students:
Advice for 1Ls from Prof. Douglas McFarland
Preparing to Study Torts by Ron Eades
Study Advice from Professors Joe Grohman and Ron Brown for 1Ls

Also see my earlier post for more advice for 1Ls.

 

Posted by Jon Lutz