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I previously blogged about Mitch Berman’s work on sports jurisprudence. Mitch is liveblogging at Volokh this week, so I thought I would repost some of my initial questions on this topic in the context of Armando Galaraga’s almost-perfect game.

As you may recall Detroit Pitcher Armando Galarraga was throwing a perfect game through 26 batters. 26 up, 26 down. Batter number 27 hit a ball to second base, Gallaraga covered first. It looked like the throw to first was in time but the umpire, Jim Joyce, called the runner safe. Joyce totally blew the call. At the time I wondered whether the fact that this was the 27th batter should have made a difference, and whether the Umpire should have “let ‘em play” and called it an out.

With much nachas, I previously blogged about Erin Olson, a member of the Harlan Institute Teacher Advisory Network, and whose class was inspired to protest the Westboro Baptists after learning about Snyder v. Phelps through Harlan Connect who was featured in a front page New York Times article about her use of social media in the classroom.

Kvelling aside, there are a number of broader pedagogical points I would like to make that fits into my research agenda about the classroom of tomorrow.

First, on the use of a “back channel” in the classsroom:

Instead of being a distraction — an electronic version of note-passing — the chatter echoed and fed into the main discourse, said Mrs. Olson, who monitored the stream and tried to absorb it into the lesson. She and others say that social media, once barricaded outside the school door, can entice students who rarely raise a hand to express themselves through a medium they find as natural as breathing.

“When we have class discussions, I don’t really feel the need to speak up or anything,” said one of her students, Justin Lansink, 17. “When you type something down, it’s a lot easier to say what I feel.”

With Twitter and other free microblogging platforms, teachers from elementary schools to universities are setting up what is known as a “backchannel” in their classes. The real-time digital streams allow students to comment, pose questions (answered either by one another or the teacher) and shed inhibitions about voicing opinions. Perhaps most importantly, if they are texting on-task, they are less likely to be texting about something else.

Nicholas Provenzano, an English teacher at Grosse Pointe South High School, outside Detroit, said that in a class of 30, only about 12 usually carried the conversation, but that eight more might pipe up on a backchannel. “Another eight kids entering a discussion is huge,” he noted.

I first learned about opening a backchannel in class from Erin last year. I incorporated it into my law classroom and it worked remarkably well. I blogged about my experiences with a backchannel here and here.

Second, the article addresses skeptics who view backchannels as a form of distraction in the classroom:

Skeptics — and at this stage they far outnumber enthusiasts — fear that introducing backchannels into classrooms will distract students and teachers, and lead to off-topic, inappropriate or even bullying remarks. A national survey released last month found that 2 percent of college faculty members had used Twitter in class, and nearly half thought that doing so would negatively affect learning. When Derek Bruff, a math lecturer and assistant director of the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, suggests that fellow professors try backchannels, “Most look at me like I’m coming from another planet,” he said.

“The word on the street about laptops in class,” Dr. Bruff added, is that students use them to tune out, checking e-mail or shopping for shoes. He acknowledged that often happens, but argued that professors could reduce such activity by giving students something class-related to do on their mobile devices, which are ubiquitous and not going away.

…

But the technology has been slow to win over faculty. It was used in just 12 courses this spring. Sandra Sydnor-Bousso, a professor of hospitality and tourism management, said Hot Seat did not mesh well with her style of walking around class to encourage a dialogue. She also fears that requiring students to bring wireless devices to class would increase the already high rate of social e-mailing and checking of Facebook.

“The last thing I want to do is to give them yet another way to distract themselves,” she said.

Third, social media in the classroom allows quiet students to speak up, without fear of embarrassment, a point I have made several times. Also, more students can be heard in a shorter period of time due to the equality of voice.

Purdue University, in Indiana, developed its own backchannel system, called Hot Seat, for use in all classrooms two years ago, at a cost of $84,000. Hot Seat lets students post comments and questions, which can be read on laptops or smartphones or projected on a large screen. Sugato Chakravarty, who lectures about personal finance to crowds of 400, pauses every 10 minutes to answer those that have been “voted up” by his audience.

Before Hot Seat, “I could never get people to speak up,” Professor Chakravarty said. “Everybody’s intimidated.”

“It’s clear to me,” he added, “that absent this kind of social media interaction, there are things students think about that normally they’d never say.”

…

During a reading lesson, she recalled, a story included the word “queue.” Using a school-issued Macbook, “one student asked, ‘What is a queue?’ ” Mrs. Weber said. “If they’d have read that individually they wouldn’t have been brave enough to raise their hands. They would have just read over it. But another student answered, ‘It’s a ponytail.’ The whole class on the backchannel had an a-ha moment.”

“I am in awe at how independent they’ve become using that as a means of comprehension,” she added.

The 11th graders in Mrs. Olson’s class said the backchannel had widened their appreciation of one another’s thoughts and personalities. “Everybody is heard in our class,” said Leah Postman, 17.

Fourth, an important note: students today learn differently, and can thrive with this type of interacting education:

“You’d think there’s a lot of distraction, but it’s actually the opposite,” she said. “Kids are much quicker at stuff than we are. They can really multitask. They have hypertext minds.”

I am in the process of putting together an article on this topic. I will try something new, and liveblog it with an open google doc. I should have it posted by later tonight. This will be cool.

Chris Lund has an interest post at PrawfsBlawg, document that the price of Charlie Sheen tickets on Stubhub has plummeted following his dismal show in Detroit. But, after a recent show that went well the price rebounded.

From the IBTimes:

After the unfortunate performance in Detroit tickets for his show at Radio City Music Hall dropped to $24 on StubHub.com Monday morning, according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter.

Within 24 hours, though, ticket prices bounced back up to $40 and $42 for his New York City shows.

According to The Hollywood Reporter there are a good number of seats left. There are 1,127 tickets left for $42 and 1,587 for tickets priced at $40.

This is still quite a low cost considering their initial face value was $126.

Lund notes that StubHub serves as an barometer of Charlie’s #winning.

One of the things I love aboutStubHub is that it acts as a moral compass for me about what’s popular and what’s not.  (Okay, it’s not a moral compass, but whatever.)  Tickets for really popular events sell for way more than the ticket’s face value; tickets for unpopular events sell for way less than the ticket’s face value.  Prices float around, acting as crude popularity barometers.  Efficient-markets people must love this stuff.

Yep. Love it!

Markets like Stubhub, or FantasySCOTUS, aggregate popular sentiments, and show what large groups of people think about a certain case–in this case how much people value Sheen’s madness.

Professor Richard Albert, who sits on the Harlan Institute’s Board of Advisers, has a Symposium piece about Justice Thomas, wherein he asserts that Justice Thomas may be leading a constitutional revolution. Here is the abstract of The Next Constitutional Revolution:

In these brief reflections presented at the University of Detroit Mercy Law Review’s March 2011 Symposium on “Celebrating an Anniversary: A Twenty-Year Review of Justice Clarence Thomas’ Jurisprudence and Contributions as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court,” I advance the view that the history of the United States is a series of constitutional revolutions that have defined and redefined the nation and its people. I illustrate how constitutional revolutions have shaped the United States using three different examples of revolution leadership: legislative, presidential, and judicial. My objective is to suggest that America may now find itself on the cusp of yet another constitutional revolution – a modern conservative constitutional revolution that could change much of what lies at the foundation of the United States Constitution.

The constitutional revolutionary leading this transformative movement is neither a president nor a legislator nor an amorphous aggregation of political interests. It is instead a single, and indeed singular, individual who currently sits on the Supreme Court of the United States: Clarence Thomas. His judgments have come to constitute the intellectual core of a persistent movement to return the United States to its founding confederate design. The battle pitting nation-centric federalism versus state-centric confederalism may be the next frontier in American constitutional law.

For years I have commented that it is Thomas, and not Scalia, who is carrying the banner of limited government and constitutional liberty. Albert writes that “Specifically, I will suggest that Clarence Thomas is a modern constitutionalrevolutionary whose vision for the United States is as transformative as had been in their daythose of Roosevelt, Lincoln and the Federalists.” Should we be so fortunate.

Albert writes further:

But amid these doubts about the future course of American constitutional law, two thingsremain certain. First, Justice Thomas will continue to interpret the United States Constitution inconfederalist terms, concerned first and above all with promoting state supremacy, protectingstate sovereignty, and neutralizing the concerns that give him and others reason to be suspiciousof the power-arrogating tendencies of the national government. Justice Thomas is a jurist ofprinciple who heeds only what he believes to be right, not what he regards as expedient. And forhim, what is right as a matter of constitutional law and founding history is to reclaim America’sconfederalist roots.

The second thing we can be sure of is the continuing influence of Justice Thomas. Even ifthe current conservative movement fails to consummate its revolutionary aspirations, there willnevertheless remain hope for the movement’s revival sometime in the future because JusticeThomas is not expected to retire anytime soon. He only recently entered his 60s.138 He couldvery well remain on the bench for the next two to three decades. We could see anotherconservative movement spring between now and then. And with Justice Thomas likely still to beon the bench when it does, the next conservative movement after the current one may very wellbe the one that becomes the next constitutional revolution.

I may quibble, and note that Thomas is much more libertarian than conservative, but this is a fascinating piece. Take a look.

One of the first things I read in law school was I Pencil, an essay that describes how a pencil, such a simple item, can only be assembled based on inputs from countless source across the globe driven by the invisible hand. There is no “master mind” that creates it. People take for granted how interconnected our society is, and how all aspects of our lives are premised on free trade and exchanges. This article from the Times about the disruption in Japanese supply chains reminds me how people forget this principle. Even American auto manufacturers, who compete with Japanese auto manufacturers, cannot thrive without receiving various parts from abroad.

And that has left many overseas customers and trading partners in something of an information vacuum, unsure how soon the effects of any supply-chain disruptions would make themselves felt — and how long they might last.

Even General Motors, a company that might seem to benefit from disruptions to Japan’s auto industry, finds itself in a period of watchful waiting. For one thing, the new Chevrolet Volt plug-in-hybrid from G.M. — whose sales could conceivably benefit from any production snags in Toyota’s popular made-in-Japan Prius — depends on a transmission from Japan.

Mark L. Reuss, G.M.’s president for North American operations, said Wednesday that he did not yet know whether his company could count on an uninterrupted flow of that Volt component from Japan.

“We just don’t know from a supply standpoint; there’s so many great things that come out of Japan for the whole industry,” he said, speaking to reporters after a speech at the University of Detroit Mercy.

With all the hullabaloo (and gazillion dollars) for GM to build an “American” electric car, we should never forget that significant portions of the vehicle are manufactured overseas.

I quote now from I Pencil.

I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.

Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.

Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.

…

There is a fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work. This is the mystery to which I earlier referred.

…

The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the good earth.