Digital Directions

Field Trips for Law Students?!

Last month, Matt Lister at The Faculty Lounge wrote about Field Trips for Law School Classes and this was followed up by the Law School Innovation blog.  From the replies and comments so far, it looks like the following issues exist:

Preventing issues:

• Inertia on the part of the academic
• Fitting a visit in around other classes
• Large classes
• Cost of transport

Possible solutions:

• Share ideas (see the comments here and below)
• Set aside full days in the timetable for visits
• Suggest students make visits themselves!

One comment in particular from Doug B suggests using videos (in this example from the Eastern State Penitentiary) as an alternative.

Eric Fink suggested visiting landmarks relating to cases, in particular the bridge from Rockingham County v. Luten Bridge Co., 35 F. 2d 301.

On the issue of multimedia resources, there are many sites with stuff that can be used to augment lectures or the VLE - In particular, scottishlawreports.org.uk have pictures of 'the most famous litigant of all time' May Donoghue, the Paisley Snail Bottle and the Wellmeadow Café.

Although Paisely is almost on the doorstep to many law students in Glasgow, a visit is perhaps less valuable than the image of the bottle - which takes some effort to explain why the 'the bottle is brown and opaque, its content completely incapable of intermediate examination'!

On a related note, I remember being 'taken on a walk', by the law teacher of the year at the 2009 LILAC conference as part of his conference presentation - this was easy enough with small numbers, but I also know staff members who regularly take students to a variety of places:

• courts
• employment tribunals
• buildings (historical)
• construction sites
• prisons
• police stations

The list can be expanded, but rather depends on where you are located, how much time you have and, of course, the willingness of the hosts to receive a bunch of students!

HEA Conference 2010

Okay, so this is old news, but the summer holidays have distracted me from blogging about the Higher Education Academy's conference back in June.

You can read the conference highlights, which includes a video of 'what people thought', some photos and commentary from Calie Pistorius, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Hull who delivered the keynote address.

The posters are also available online and the EvidenceNet wiki contains materials and presentations arising from the conference.

I also managed to miss the next HEA conference from my last blog post about conference dates for 2010/11 - The Annual Conference 2011 will take place on the 5-6 July at East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham.

I didn't attend, but have seen some blog posts from Paul Maharg at zeugma.typepad.com recently, so here's a few snippets and links to the 2010 conference in Hertfordshire that have a legal education slant to them:

HEA conference, day one

from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

Am at the Annual HEA conference, this year being held at the U. of Hertfordshire, de Havilland campus.  On budget day.  Folk are checking the plasmas in the breakout areas, not for the football/tennis results, but to see how bad it will be for education.  Subdued atmosphere, in spite of the blistering weather.  Keynote by Calie Pistorius, on innovation -- useful comments on innovation, attractive slides.

HEA conference, day two, Panel
from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

Quality was the agenda for the Panel session.  What sort?  Quality based on diversity, of students and institutions was Aaron Porter's answer.  But, he warned, if students are going to be paying more for that experience, there needs to be a better experience.  They can't be expected to be given the same at a higher price. Phil Willis raised a similar issue; and Mike Baker, in the Chair, raised the comparison of Vice Chancellors and football managers, not least in terms of pay...  

HEA conference, day two
from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

Attended session by Sue Watling on 'Gutenberg to Google: access denied'.  Interesting points on disability and access to digital data -- she compared access to physical access, lowered kerbs, etc.  One basic point was that the shift to a Windows GUI was a setback to access because of the visual cues it introduced to the interface.  Inclusive practice, for her, should include unknown users, diversity of preference, and avoiding the MEE-model.  She gave an example: a drag & drop activity where the items were one whole graphic, and therefore not available to keystrokes.  Text as graphics was another example...

HEA conference, day two, nomadic devices
from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

The blurb for this session -- 'we will discuss how nomadic technology will utterly transform learning' -- is irresistible.  Stuart Smith (3 Sheep Ltd, in association with MIMAS), started by defining nomadic learners pretty broadly as anyone with mobile devices + travel + working & learning.  

He started with the example of a hairdressing salon -- no space for computers, but there is space for digital resources on mobile devices...

HEA conference, day two, mobile learning
from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

Linked to HEA IMPALA.  Good to see IMPALA as the basis for this work -- really good project.  Session on mobile learning by mobile devices and educational context, by Don Vinson, Simon Padley and Joanna Hardman, U. of Gloucestershire.  Physical sciences disciplinary context, but in many ways applicable to almost all disciplines.  Three examples were given, below the fold...

HEA conference, day two, Simshare session
from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

No surprise that I was at this session since I was part of the team delivering it, with Karen Barton and Patricia McKellar.  Lots of ideas re SIMPLE and other sims, Simshare and OER slides in 30 mins...  

Questions were taken, eg about the sustainability of digital resources -- good point, though it goes beyond the Simshare project.  LPs > CDs > digital files... as a society we've still to come to terms with that.  Other questions concerned the nature of the community.  Good session (though I say so myself...). 

HEA conference, roundup
from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

On the train, back to Newcastle.  Reflections on the last two days...

No surprise that I was at this session since I was part of the team delivering it, with Karen Barton and Patricia McKellar.  Lots of ideas re SIMPLE and other sims, Simshare and OER slides in 30 mins...  

Questions were taken, eg about the sustainability of digital resources -- good point, though it goes beyond the Simshare project.  LPs > CDs > digital files... as a society we've still to come to terms with that.  Other questions concerned the nature of the community.  Good session (though I say so myself...). 

HEA conference, roundup
from Zeugma by Paul Maharg

On the train, back to Newcastle.  Reflections on the last two days...

2010/11 Conferences

For those with a brand-new academic diary this summer, here are some dates for forthcoming conferences in 2010/11:

ALT-C is to be held on 7-9 September 2010 in Nottingham, with the theme "Into something rich and strange" - making sense of the sea-change.

Shortly followed by SLS in Southampton(13-16 Sept), whose main theme is "The Human Rights Act Ten Years On" with Lord Justice Sedley of the Court of Appeal and Lord Reed of the Court of Session in discussion with Professor David Feldman.

LILAC will be from 28-29 January 2011 in Warwick, with a submission deadline coming up soon on 10 Sept 2010.  The keynote speaker will be Professor John Brennan, Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) and Professor of Higher Education Research at the Open University.

The dates for the 26th annual BILETA conference are 11-12 April 2011, two weeks before Easter.  Manchester Metroplitan Law School at hosting the event, they will be using twitter @bileta2011 for regular updates.

The SLSA will be in Brighton at the University Sussex (12-14 April) immediately after BILETA.

The 46th ALT conference will also be the week before Easter from 18-20 April in Cardiff.  Their website is yet to be updated, and information will appear soon.

As usual, the UKCLE diary contains many other events and has an RSS feed to keep you up to date.  Listed below are 10 forthcoming events:

Some developments in Wales

Ever since the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) launched its Reaching Higher strategy for higher education in 2002 its policy has been to encourage collaboration between higher education institutions in Wales. 

One area where this policy has borne fruit is in higher education provision through the medium of the Welsh language.  Y Porth (literally “the Gateway”) is an innovative Blackboard based e-Learning platform for the Higher Education sector in Wales and was launched in August 2009.  Developed by Universities across Wales, with funding from the Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education, the resources available on Y Porth include:

• A central repository of electronic resources for Welsh-medium students and staff from every HE institution in Wales
• Collaborative modules using a Virtual Learning Environment to guide the learner
• A register of Welsh Medium Academic and Support Staff

The amount of the materials available on Y Porth has been increasing quickly.  One of the collaborative modules that started in 2009 was Law in Welsh with Health Law starting in September 2010. 

It will also be of benefit to the Coleg Ffederal which is not a degree awarding body but will work with and through existing higher education institutions.  Its mission will be to maintain, develop and oversee Welsh medium provision in HE in Wales.  An Implementation Board was set up in May 2010 to oversee its establishment.  As it will be multi-site, it is unsurprising that an E-learning/Blended Learning Group has been set up to support the planning process.

Devolution to the National Assembly for Wales has created a need for a need for a research tool that identifies the functions that have been transferred to the National Assembly for Wales and WAG, as well as the law in Wales.  The Government of Wales Act (GoWA) 2006 altered the powers of the National Assembly quite significantly.  It provided for the step by step devolution of powers within 20 fields.  This has been referred to as quasi-law making powers as the Assembly has the power to alter the primary laws of the UK Parliament where it has the competence to do so.  There is also provision within GoWA 2006 for an all at once transfer of powers coterminous with the 20 devolved fields following approval in a referendum which, at the time of writing, looks likely to be in the spring of 2011.  This makes an updating service of the law in Wales a complex task but of importance to legal practitioners not only in Wales but in other parts of the UK as well. 

Wales Legislation Online has stepped into the breach.  It has been running since 1999 and is a free service funded by the National Assembly, WAG, the Centre for Welsh Medium Higher Education and the support of Cardiff Law School and the Wales Governance Centre.  The overall aim of the new website is to show clearly and systematically:

• all the powers of the National Assembly for Wales
• all the powers of the Welsh Assembly Government
• the law made in Wales by the National Assembly for Wales
• the law made by the Welsh Assembly Government under devolved powers
• the law made by Central Government under devolved Acts

It is available at this link: http://www.wales-legislation.org.uk/

An up to date record of all specific matters which have been devolved to the National Assembly is maintained on the Assembly’s website which is available at this link:

http://www.assemblywales.org/bus-home/bus-legislation/bus-legislation-guidance/bus-legislation-guidance-documents/legislation_fields/schedule-5.htm