Ancient Rome, Millennial-style . . .

Like any new technology, the Internet has been a blessing and a curse in the educational setting. Computer and Internet use have been huge distractions in classrooms, according to some educators. However, they've also allowed us to do and see things that were never possible before. If you want to know how to captivate students to learn things that "every educated person ought to know," particularly when they have the option of just Googling the answer when they need it instead of storing it in their brains for a rainy day, you could do something like the Ancient Rome 3D project from Google Earth. If anything can encourage students to learn tons of potentially useless information, it's cool computer stuff.

From an e-mail I received from Google Educator:

A joint effort between Google, the Rome Reborn Project, and Past Perfect Productions, the new Ancient Rome 3D Layer in Google Earth allows users to view and explore over 6700 3D buildings as scholars determine they stood in 320 AD. If you ever dreamed of walking along the same streets as Constantine or gazing up at the Coliseum as it stood in ancient times, you'll be amazed at what you can experience behind your keyboard!

So what does this have to do with law school? Well, what if you could explore a courtroom virtually? It's pretty feasible to even do it now. For example, you could pretty easily put together a courtroom in Second Life and have students try cases virtually and record what they do before trying it out in person. It strikes me as a pretty cool way to learn the lightning-quick reflexes you need for, say, evidentiary objections. Now that would be a cool way to take a final.