Today I got the following email from a salesman at ExamSoft, the company that makes the final exam software my school uses, SoftTest.
Hello Laura,
We met at the CALI conference, where we discussed some features that could be incorporated into SofTest that would be useful to students. You suggested that we add a keyboard shortcut to display the word/character count within an exam. Well, we have! I wanted you to be the first to know that the new version of SofTest released for the new academic year on September 1st will include the option of using CTRL+W to display the word/character count. Thanks for your suggestion and no there is no licensing deal for you forthcoming. :)
Bryant Weaver
Client Support Manager
I was disappointed at first that there wasn’t a big announcement on the ExamSoft website naming the ctrl+W functionality after me, but then I saw that their website doesn’t really outline any of the software’s functionality, and I felt better.
So all of you 1Ls who ctrl+W your way to a well-edited exam answer (I had two classes last semester that required word counts on the final), saving you two whole mouse clicks that it used to take to get you that same piece of information, you may not know it, but you have me to thank.
I recently discovered that my school is one of only five ABA-accredited law schools that doesn’t belong to the consortium called CALI. CALI is the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction. Sounded right up my alley, so I looked a bit deeper and ended up feeling… pretty jealous. Thousands of law students – my peers across the country – have access to a steady stream of interactive lessons on many topics. Online, any time of day or night. From following CALI on Twitter I was introduced to more content– this free for anyone: webinars and online articles on seriously relevant topics like “Engaging Laptop Users” (for profs who know students spend more time on Facebook and IMing than on typing notes…) or using MediaNotes (a CALI program for tagging video for evaluation of mock trial, oral argument, etc.). Check out the Spotlights on their homepage for more.
Granted, CALI’s website looks like it was created in 1998 (oh, color scheme!…[though I should talk, since this blog's contrast is only readable on 1/2 of all LCD monitors]), and there seem to be two competing main sites? But what they’re doing and attempting is amazing: leading law schools along the path to adopting and utilizing modern technology in the classroom. Not for the sake of technology (like every PowerPoint presentation I sat through in college in the late 90s), but for the sake of more effectively delivering content and engaging participation with users who are eternally hunched behind their screens. I’m impressed and I hope my school and the other holdouts will see the value ($5,000 per year = <$9/student at my school) and give it try. We’re only about three decades behind the times, since CALI was incorporated in 1982…
