Legal Commentary

Law professor bloggers haven't said much about the iPad, aside from the bloggers at Law School Innovation who have posted some interesting thoughts (1 2 3). To celebrate iPad launch day, let me explain why I plan to buy one to use in the classroom.

This semester, I taught a class in math for lawyers, and in class I found myself drawing lots of diagrams and equations for the students. I had never used the chalkboards in our classrooms before, because I ordinarily teach from the projected video from my laptop (I don't use Powerpoint; I project a mind map in each class.) After two, failed classes with the chalkboard, I borrowed an old tablet PC our IT department had lying around, installed Linux and a piece of sketching/notetaking software called Xournal.

Now, in class, I sketch to my heart's content to the projected image on the wall. I can switch pen colors whenever I want, or change the background to lined paper or graph paper or yellow, legal pad paper. I can find documents or images online, import them into my notes, and annotate them. And most importantly, at the end of class I export my notes to PDF and post them online.

This is why I will buy an iPad for classroom instruction. Using a tablet is far, far better than using a chalkboard--I get to face the class as I write, I don't end up with chalk dust all over my clothes, the students can see what I'm writing without straining--no ghost images from the prior class; no weird lighting days--and they get to keep a copy of my notes for later study. And none of these benefits apply only to teaching math; I think teaching from a tablet makes as much sense if you're writing down the elements of a tort rather than drawing histograms. And an iPad will be miles better than my clunky, old tablet, which has needed rebooting during class a few times.

In fact, once the economy recovers, we should simply remove all of the chalkboards and whiteboards from our classrooms and replace them with projectors and video-input cables. That's at least what I would do if I were in charge.