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February 29, 2008
My Passions
Yesterday, the provost organized a "meet-and-greet" lunch for about a dozen faculty members. Her idea was to create an informal space for faculty to discuss issues with her. As an icebreaker, she asked each attendee to introduce themselves and to say what their passion is. I don't normally think in these terms, but here's how I described them:
1) My intellectual passion is Internet law
2) My true passion is my family
3) My secret passion is slinkies
Posted by Eric at 05:14 PM | Family & Friends | TrackBack
February 25, 2008
Tushnet on IP Teaching Props
Rebecca Tushnet has posted Sight, Sound and Meaning: Teaching Intellectual Property with Audiovisual Materials, an article on the use of teaching props for intellectual property courses. Of course Rebecca also manages the Georgetown Intellectual Property Teaching Resources database, a fantastic resource that helps our entire community easily find appropriate audiovisual teaching props. Many kudos to Rebecca for undertaking that selfless task.
The article gives some great examples of how she uses props in her class. I wish we had a better way of sharing these kinds of tips with each other. I have probably come up with some interesting props, and I often learn about other interesting ideas when the topic comes up. Maybe we can have an AALS session on teaching props at some point.
The abstract:
This short article addresses my experience using audiovisual materials from the Georgetown Intellectual Property Teaching Resources database. I use audiovisual materials extensively in class to allow students to see the subject matter of the cases rather than just reading verbal descriptions and enable them to apply the principles they read about to new, concrete examples. Many students in IP courses have special interests in music, film, or the visual arts, and the database allows me - and other teachers - to present materials that engage them. I have found that students are more willing to speak up in class when they can see or hear for themselves and can point to specific aspects of the underlying materials. I also briefly address the copyright question: should teachers worry about using digital materials in class? Fortunately, the available statutory exceptions are supportive of in-class teaching. Using images and sounds to illustrate litigated cases and hypotheticals is pedagogically valuable and legally justified.
Posted by Eric at 05:24 PM | Life as a Law Professor | TrackBack
February 14, 2008
Epinions Commercials on Youtube
I found a couple of the original Epinions commercials on Youtube. These were a classic example of dot com advertising and one of the early examples of user-generated content for advertising purposes.
Jay and his iMac:
Jeff trying to snowboard Alta:
[one minute version]
[30 second version]
Perhaps I'm biased, but I think they are still funny today.
Posted by Eric at 09:39 PM | Former Employers | TrackBack
Family Album Online
Lisa has gone crazy with digital scrapbooking, producing a 60+ page tome documenting Jacob and Dina's life over the past 12 months.
Posted by Eric at 09:53 AM | Family & Friends | TrackBack
February 07, 2008
Happy Blogiversary
Today marks the three-year anniversary of my blogs. It has been an absolutely terrific ride, with about 1,200 posts and about 5.7M page views over the past three years. You can read some of the highlights and lowlights in my Blog Years-in-Review from 2005, 2006 and 2007. I am very grateful for your continued readership, especially long-time readers who have allocated a little piece of the past 3 years to reading the blog. You make it all worthwhile!
Posted by Eric at 05:24 PM | Blogosphere Issues | TrackBack