Let’s recap where we’ve been, where we’re at, where we’re
going.
Where we’re at; bottom line for tomorrow evening:
Bring your personal bookmarks floppy disk.
We will meet in Room 125, as usual. We will then go to the
Boyd Law Building computer lab (library, first floor).
Our purposes: (1) to make sure everyone is more or less at
the same level of proficiency in surfing the Internet. This includes knowing
how to (a) get a boot-up disk from the library check-out desk, (b) boot
up a lab computer, and get connected to the Web, (c) move from one URL
to another (by clicking on a bookmark, or entering a URL address in the
(on Netscape) “Location” line, and (d) both get access to the bookmarks
on your personal disk, and add a new bookmark to that disk file.
(2) Have you demo for me some of the sites you’ve found already, and tell
me why you find them useful. [To remind: see the section headed “’Document’
Assignment” in the January 6 memo, “Assignments and Overview,” available
from our Web site, https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/cls99/memos.html]
(3) Play a little; see what we can find; drill on some of the routines
for those not yet familiar.
In this connection, I would appreciate it (as would your
colleagues) if those of you who are already even more proficient than I
with all of this would offer to be checked out first, and then use the
remaining lab time to help answer questions and train the others.
OK?
So far as I’m concerned, we can spend the entire time this
way – so long as it appears to be productive for you. On the
other hand, we may be able to wrap it all up in a half-hour or so.
That being the case, . . .
I’m assigning each of you one case (only) for which you will
be responsible for presentation to, and discussion by, the class
(i.e., each of you will have a different case; and you will be leading
the class, not me). The general subject is “privacy” – something that has
always interested students in the past. The source, as I indicated last
Wednesday evening, is the Internet – specifically, David Loundy’s list
of cases. (His URL, and a list by your names and his cases, is the last
page of this memo.) Be prepared. Please note that even if we do not
get to these presentations tomorrow evening – and my guess is we will
– your preparation time will not have been wasted, because anything we
don't get to this week we will get to next week.
Please send me an e-mail, mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org,
so that I will have your e-mail address and know that it is operable.
If it is possible to communicate with an entire class that way it is much
faster and more efficient (and cheaper) than having to distribute these
memos to you.
“Personal Bio Writing Assignment.” If you have not already
done this, please get it to me by early next week. For directions (and
to save my rewriting them) check out the memo by the same name at URL:
https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/lem97/lembio.html
(Of course, the due date is not, as that memo suggests, “September 2”!)
Where we’ve been:
We’ve held our first meeting. We have a Web site:
https://www.nicholasjohnson.org/cls99
The classroom has Internet access. So we projected on the screen, and walked
through the Web site-posted January 6 memo, “Assignments and Overview.”
To provide early illustrations of the range of cyberlaw issues available
for seminar papers, we went through David Loundy’s “E-Law Update #9 Parts
1 and 2” and made reference to the assigned Findings of Fact 1-48 from
ACLU v. Reno as one of the best factual descriptions of the Internet/Web.
Prior to that class a hard copy memo, “Opening Seminar Session/Assignments,
“ was distributed via your mail folders. (Each of the documents just referred
to are available online at our Web site.)
Where we’re going:
As with any “seminar,” our ultimate goal and purpose is
to provide each of you with the experience of (a) initial research, (b)
topic formulation (and revision), (c) outlining, (d) research, (e) writing,
(f) editing, (g) my editing of your paper, leading to your (h) rewriting
(as much as necessary; minimum one rewrite), along with (i) presentations
along the way of your “work in progress,” and ending with (j) your presentation
to the seminar of your final paper. We want to help you help yourself
to improve your writing and presentation skills.
There are two documents you should read in this connection.
Both of these pieces came out of frustrating experiences
with student writing in the past. I recommend them to you as a way
to help ensure this seminar remains the pleasant and productive experience
it should be for all of us.