Big Machine

It's that time of the semester: when my classes are working on their research papers. Since so many students rely so heavily on the internet for research, I always spend at least a day giving them tips on how to find quality websites rather than letting them rely on Google or Wikipedia. One exercise that I have found useful is to give them a list of URLs and ask them to visit those websites and determine whether they would be useful sites for a college-level research paper--a sort of internet scavenger hunt. This semester, I have added a couple of new sites to my list of websites. One of them is Ray Beckerman's blog. Beckerman is the attorney defending a number of clients against the RIAA in some high profile cases. On the one hand, Beckerman's blog is just that--a blog, and blogging inhabits a sort of uncertain space between legitimacy and illegitimacy with respect to blogs' usefulness for college level research. On the other hand, Beckerman is as familiar with the legal issues surrounding the digital music as anyone else, so he is clearly an expert.

Anyway, I posted a link to his blog in my course wiki last week and asked my students to visit it. On Monday, I was surprised to receive a short email from the man himself--Mr. Beckerman--letting me know that he noticed I had linked to him and asking me to let him know how my class goes tonight. I'll send him an email tomorrow morning.

It's pretty cool hearing from "famous" people like that. I've had a couple such contacts in the past. I guess it's another example of how much easier it is to get in touch with people online--people that one wouldn't ordinarily have any contact with otherwise.