Today is the first day of my fully asynchronous Professional Responsibility summer school class at Wake Forest Law School.  It’s our first such PR offering at Wake. Interestingly, over 65% of the students enrolled have taken a fully asynchronous course prior to law school.

While we will not have any real-time meetings with all class members present simultaneously, this does not mean we will not have robust collaborations and connections via TWEN, WebEx, Google Hangout and other eLearning resources.  In addition to readings and original instructional videos, students will collaborate through weekly discussion forums, wikis, and a class blog.  I plan to chronicle our summer class in this blog, posting each week on what we’re planning to do and how we’re planning to do it in the virtual space.  Also, I will report on how the previous week’s assignments and activities worked.

We begin the course with introductory exercises, an overview of the rules governing lawyers and the basics of the regulatory framework, and perhaps most importantly, thinking about why we study PR.   One of the things I enjoy most is considering how to translate what I do in a physical classroom to the virtual space.  In my traditional class, I show the 60 Minutes Alton Logan clip at the very start of our first in-person meeting, which fosters great Day 1 discussion.  For our asynchronous session, student must view the clip and write a responsive blog post – you can follow the blog and see the assignment here.

You can find the syllabus here.  I welcome your questions – murphyme@wfu.edu!