{"id":14758,"date":"2011-09-14T22:02:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-15T03:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=14758"},"modified":"2011-09-14T22:03:40","modified_gmt":"2011-09-15T03:03:40","slug":"reminiscing-about-legal-education-%e2%80%93-how-technology-changed-examinations-course-materials-and-instruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/09\/reminiscing-about-legal-education-%e2%80%93-how-technology-changed-examinations-course-materials-and-instruction\/","title":{"rendered":"Reminiscing About Legal Education \u2013 How Technology Changed Examinations, Course Materials, and Instruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>[Editor’s Note: This month, we asked a few veteran faculty members to share their reflections on what has changed the most in legal education since they became law professors. This post is the second in the series.]<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1983 when I became a law professor, no one had a personal computer.\u00a0 Dictaphones were a common piece of office equipment.\u00a0 Secretaries typed our syllabi, handouts, and examinations. Examinations had to be reproduced on the mimeograph machine and collated by hand. Of course, students handwrote exam answers in bluebooks.\u00a0 The law school didn\u2019t allow students to type their answers, even if they offered to provide their own portable typewriters.<\/p>\n

Around 1985 faculty members received personal desktop computers for the first time, thanks to Dean Frank DeGuire\u2019s advocacy and generous donations from the members of the Woolsack Society. Those computers changed our lives and made instruction so much more efficient, especially once we learned how to press \u201cEscape,\u201d \u201cTransfer,\u201d and \u201cSave\u201d to save a document to a 5 \u00bd\u201d floppy disk. (Lost documents were a constant problem for neophyte computer users.) \u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, we still didn\u2019t have access to the Internet yet, so we couldn\u2019t instantaneously upload a handout to our course page, or email it to our students.\u00a0 Instead, we had to distribute handouts in class. Students had to avoid misplacing them and hope that if they lost their copy an extra would be available on a shelf in the professor\u2019s office complex.<\/p>\n

Email also didn\u2019t exist when I starting teaching law. And, it was many years before we could actually communicate with students electronically.\u00a0 \u201cBack then,\u201d students had to make appointments to ask their professors questions. They still do \u2013 or, they visit us during office hours. But now, students can ask questions any time, any day and we can respond within minutes.\u00a0 Recently, I was talking with a student in my office and explaining how much I like being able to answer students\u2019 questions by email, especially because of the detailed responses I can provide. The student said, \u201cYou probably don\u2019t remember this, but a year and a half ago, I sent you an email late on Easter Sunday.\u201d \u201cAnd,\u201d she continued, \u201cyou responded 20 minutes later.\u201d\u00a0 I can\u2019t say that I can always answer a student\u2019s question that fast, but there is no doubt that my \u201cstudent contact hours\u201d have increased now that I can meet with them personally or virtually. Sometimes I\u2019m tempted to \u201ctweet\u201d my random thoughts about my courses, but that would probably be overkill. Would anyone \u201cfollow me\u201d? Besides, lecturing has never been my preferred teaching style \u2013 I really prefer \u201cquestions and answers.\u201d Usually, I\u2019m asking the questions, but there\u2019s nothing like a great student question to prevent complacency!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Editor’s Note: This month, we asked a few veteran faculty members to share their reflections on what has changed the most in legal education since they became law professors. This post is the second in the series.] In 1983 when I became a law professor, no one had a personal computer.\u00a0 Dictaphones were a common […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,102,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","category-marquette-law-school-history","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}