Fred Light, Professor of Law at St. Thomas University, a small Catholic law school in Miami, will discuss his experiences since 1999 in using the LEXIS version of Blackboard 5 in the required first-year Civil Procedure course. He will demonstrate web-based PowerPoint multimedia presentations on Civil Procedure topics, through which students proceed through a set of hypotheticals followed by sample answers. Each of the presentations is themed [Civil Rights for "Provisional Remedies," Back to the Future on "Relation Back," DisneyWorld for "Seventh Amendment," Star Trek and Explorers [using Glannon's study aid] on Scope of Discovery, etc.].

Professor Light will also discuss other innovations in his use of web-based materials. At the beginning of fall semester, he posts short excerpts from scripture bearing some relationship to the Civil Procedure topic at hand [e.g., the story of the widow's mite in connection with Procedural Due Process, the parable of the Good Samaritan in connection with Waiver Under Rule 12]. See Alfred R. Light, Civil Procedure Parables in the First Year: Applying the Bible to Think Like a Lawyer, 37 GONZAGA L. REV. 283 (2001/2002). The Biblical references (with web links) serve as aids to memory regarding principles in the Federal Rules. The web is also used to incentive class attendance and participation. For example, the professor e-mails students missing a class a written "homework" assignment to be turned in at the beginning of the next class. The professor then posts class notes for the previous class, which included a "sample answer" for the question posed to absentees. Class attendance soars, rendering professorial review of the "homework assignments" moot after several weeks.