Digital Directions

E-learning SWAP-shop!

As it is being held on my own campus, I thought a one-day event on Authentic assessment, e-portfolios and e-learning would be of interest.  Run by the Social Policy and Social Work Subject Centre, I thought there would be some overlap that could be brought to the field of legal education.

Professor Richard Kimbell - leader of the e-scape project and Professor of Technology Education, Goldsmiths, University of London started the morning session with an overview of Project e-scape: e-solutions for creative assessment in portfolio environments.  I hadn't come across this previously, and neither had a few other Scottish delegates whom I spoke with during the coffee break - although the main focus of e-scape seems to be secondary education so that might be why.

Richard's presentation focused on two key issues -portfolio creation and assessment - my own notes reflected more on the issue of assessment and in particular Pollitt's comparative pairs methodology (also known as Thurstone's Methodology (see pp 57-59 here) to create a rank ordering that is more reliable than typical criteria based assessments.  I'm keen to have a go at this, especially for a short piece of formative assessment and think that peer-assessment (getting the students to do the judgment on which of two pieces of work is the better) would be an interesting way to get the students to read and evaluate their own work.

After lunch, a choice of three workshops were advertised:

• Workshop 1: Authentic voices : using audio and video resources within the “Clydetown” virtual community - Janice West , Glasgow Caledonian University.
  This workshop will allow participants to work with the resources of Spoken Word Services to create online learning and teaching resources.
• Workshop 2: Creating your own video resources - Phil Wane, Nottingham Trent University.
  Utilising some of the new handheld digital video equipment that is available, participants will develop proposals for how this technology can be used to support learning and teaching
• Workshop 3: Making best use of ‘learning objects’ - Neil Ballantyne , IRISS.
  Demonstration of some of the growing number of e-learning resources currently available for social services education, and discussion of how they can be integrated into a blended learning environment.

I signed up for the second one as I was familiar with some of the Spoken Word Services in the first, and to be honest, not too sure what the last one was!  The workshop was really interesting and sparked a lot of thoughts that might be best in a post of their own tomorrow... TBC!

What McMaster did for medical training, can York do for legal education?

McMaster University in Canada is often cited as the pioneer and world-class leader for problem-based learning (PBL) which was developed in the medical school in the 1960s.  Using the ‘case approach’ to drive learning (rather than consolidate previous learning - whether practical or purely theoretical) is more accurately, if not awkwardly, termed “small group, self-directed, self-assessed PBL”.

 

The UKCLE has some resources on PBL for the law curriculum, many of which will be used in discrete parts of the LLB across the country, but York appears to be taking the McMaster approach to the entire curriculum and re-designing the student experience:

During much of the course, you will be based in student law firms where the primary learning will take place. You will decide what the firm will be called, how it will operate and how work will be divided within the firm.

Your firm will deal mainly with simulated real-life problems brought to you by virtual clients, which will be the primary device through which you will learn the law. These will be supplemented by large-group plenary sessions, which will provide overviews of specific topics or discuss selected issues in greater depth.

Each firm will be guided through its learning by‘facilitators’ who will be there to help you through the process, to illuminate particular points and to give you regular feedback on your progress. In many situations you will have to interact with other firms, sometimes working alongside them, sometimes working in opposition. You will form strong relationships with your firm, adapt to working with people with different strengths and weaknesses and thereby learn to work in a team, tackling problems in a realistic way.

I write this blog post on the train home from York as, along with Chris Ashford from Sunderland, I’ve just presented at a departmental seminar for the fledgling York Law School.  Chris and I discussed some of the e-learning tools that can be combined with problem-based learning: mainly discussion boards and blogs.  The issue of reflective learning brought Twitter and Facebook into the discussion as some of their PBL groups (acting as law firms) have voluntarily set up Facebook sites and some even invite their tutors to what is essentially their own private space.  Of course, the concern over whether students will use blogs (or other resources) for true reflection is ‘will they be honest’ when they know staff can also view; and conversely, do we know that they are being reflective if it’s done in private?!  I’m yet to be convinced by Twitter (quote from friend: Twitter is an abomination and almost entirely without merit - suited to insecure techo-geeks who lack confidence and social skills), although I can see a benefit to a PBL group who may wish to know ‘what I’m doing at the moment’ – not reflective learning, but a useful communication tool!

SIMPLE – Not just the law curriculum

The afternoon session comprised further project case studies, although this was not repetitive due to the different approaches taken, and the variety of disciplines using SIMLE.

Karen Barton from GGSL at Strathclyde started with their own issues of transferring from the previous bespoke tool-set (from which SIMPLE arose) and adopting the new platform for five existing simulations used by 272 diploma students – all over a short period of 4 months!  Karen also introduced the Narrative Event Diagram (NED) that appears to be the key instrument is designing and deploying a simulation – once you’ve found an initial idea.  At this point I wondered if a wki might be useful for the ‘second wave’ of participants to get to grips with terms such as ‘blue prints’, ‘non-player activities’ and the like.

Mel Cadman and Kate Cameron from Strathclyde’s Social Work school then brought a very different perspective; for two reasons.  Firstly, it is outwith the law discipline (although there were legal issues for the social workers! But not taught by law academics), and secondly it has not yet been implemented fully and had to be fun from their VLE as a contingency plan for the first year.  This was interesting because it highlights the amount of work and preparation required, especially if a large amount of additional resources need to be fed into the simulation (i.e. social work departments and the wide variety of associated local authority and external agencies).  Also, to maintain a high level of authenticity – the group relied on practitioner input from a local authority to develop plausible narratives.  The simulation was strategic within the curriculum to provide level 2 students with some form of experience prior to their practical placements the following semester.

Emma Nicol, although not an architect, followed on from this by explaining how SIMPLE was used in a Design Management & Practice module within the architecture degree.  Unlike the social work, the students used the sim after their placements.  This was purposeful to allow the students to see contracts and clauses in real life, and then have a chance to draft their own – this was not an option in their placement as their would typically be undertaking the role of an architect’s technician.  Emma is an evaluator in the JISC funded SIMPLE project and elaborated on how part-time students found the sim easy to access from home and allowed them to manage family or work commitments.

Helyn Gould then described a further non-law subject (management science) but the main message was how to use ‘SIMPLE on a shoestring’ – with barely any resources or funding!  Instead of replicating many real world requirements into the simulation (i.e. populating Ardcalloch (the virtual town), Helyn relied on various external internet sites and the real facilities of Glasgow to enable her students to project plan a music festival internally using a very slim sim.  Some very helpful points on student expectations were also presented – over the entire day it became clear that a turn-around policy is definitely required to make the students explicitly aware that they would not always receive immediate email responses – and perhaps they might not get a response at all!  If we are mirroring real life, this does happen!  Both Karens (Counsell and Barton) seemed to enjoy wearing different hats and hiding behind their online roles to send students a variety of real life responses – ranging from ambiguous to rude as well as delaying them!  Again, this is real life, and lecturers would not be able to do this in a classroom setting.

Following coffee, the session on Future Directions took in a tour of CyberDam – the Dutch equivalent to SIMPLE.  This project is in the process of being translated into English and will also be able to function in other languages, which would certainly make European and International simulations very interesting.  There are a number of games for healthcare, social sciences and law on their site: www.cyberdam.nl.

Michael Hughes, the IT developer behind the SIMPLE project then spoke about new features, drag-and-drop technology and how bugs had been found (and fixed!).  The future plans will look at integrating SIMPLE into other systems to make it more extensible – perhaps hooking into Second Life, or even sending emails direct to your regular account to avoid having to log into the sim repeatedly to check for progress.

The session closed with Paul Maharg extending a (???)-esque invitation to “Join Us…”!  With the formal JISC project coming the end of its funding, a SIMPLE Foundation (www.simplecommunity.org) will act as a hub to share resources based around a Creative Commons licence for free academic use.

SIMPLE Launch Event

Today was the first of a two-day launch of the SIMPLE suite of tools for SIMulated Professional Learning.  Paul Maharg started with three key issues that the platform showcases:

• Interdisciplinary - not just law, but social work, architecture and others are using SIMPLE
• International - it can be used anyway
• Authentic - professional practice can be experienced in a realistic manner

Additonally, Nick Johnson later added a fourth: Transparent.  Unlike other group projects (where students may often complain that group members are not pulling their weight, or that their own high input is not recognised), both students are tutors can see the group dynamics and assess their participation.

The basic concept behind SIMPLE is transactional learning.  This encompasses fact finding, communication, developing a negotiation strategy and deploying that strategy.  Fact finding is something that we do not often ask students to undertake: problem scenarios are generally ready populated with facts for the student to then consider and apply the law.

Karen Counsell illustrated how SIMPLE is used for first year students in term 2 for their Torts module at Glamorgan.  Previously, students were able to identify a 'duty of care', but not so good at exploring remedies: a professional situation will help to develop this missing skill-set.  Karen added that staff were able to 'hide' behind their 'online persona' to add realism, although the downside is the student expection of immediate replies... the solution lies in clear expectations at the outset that tutors will access the system 2 or 3 times per week.

Nick Johnson from Warwick law school was able to benefit from UKCLE expertise on-site to lead focus groups and gain a better understanding of the student experience.  Nick also emphasised that there is no technical expertise required to deploy a simulation - although there will be occasional glitches, as with any system.  One interesting, if atypical view was "SIMPLE: the greatest misnomer since Microsoft works"!  The recipe for success seems to be developing the scenario and materials in advance to ensure that the project runs smoothly - a pilot may also be useful to identify potential pitfalls.

More from after lunch to come.

SIMPLE Platform gets set for second-wave launch

Over the past two years, along with JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee), UKCLE has funded an ambitious project which involved the development of a SIMulated Professional Learning Environment (SIMPLE) as an open-source software application for use in UK Higher and Further Education.  Based on the concept of Transactional Learning and the Virtual Community of Ardcalloch, SIMPLE has been developed to allow academics to design and build their own educational simulations for use within the curriculum.  A small number of Law Schools, along with colleagues from three other disciplines (namely Social Work, Architecture and Management Science), have been involved in the pilot stage of the project and will be coming together for two days in early June (9th and 10th) to share the experiences of the past two years with one another, as well as pass on their new-found knowledge with the ‘second wave’ of Law Schools and other disciplines who are interested in using this approach in their teaching and learning.

In what promises to be an exciting couple of days, we’ll hear about the highs and lows, successes and challenges and, most importantly of all, students’ views of SIMPLE and how it has been integrated into the curriculum across a range of courses and programmes.  All of us who have been involved in the implementation of SIMPLE will have our own stories to tell.  However, as well as the academics involved in each of the pilot sites, the project team will also be present to share the results of their evaluation and present their plans for the final version of SIMPLE that will be made available to the rest of the academic community in July. 

A big challenge for everyone who has been involved in SIMPLE over the past two years will be to continue to develop our ideas and improve our practice by holding on to the ties that we have made through working on this project together.  It is also important that we start to widen this small group so that we can continue to push the boundaries of simulation learning for the benefit of all our students.  We’ll hear from a significant number of potential second-wave projects, from SIMPLE’s sister project in the Netherlands, Cyberdam, and there will be at least one representative from the legal profession, and a representative from a US law school keen to take part in the second wave.  We’re keen to grow this nascent ‘Community of Practice’.

This SIMPLE Project has been hugely important in many ways and, while not without challenge, has been successful in showing how Law Schools can work together under the aegis of the UKCLE to develop innovative methods of teaching and learning and disseminate good practice. I intend to report during the event in this Blog with views from the participants as well as provide a summary of proceedings, so even if you can’t be there in person, hopefully, you will get a flavour of what is happening and be able to share in some of the main discussions that take place.  Watch this space!

Moodle Links and tips

As Moodle increases in popularity, those of us who already use Moodle and know how much you can do with it are often asked for more information. The best place to go is the Moodle site, but there are a number of other useful sites which can give you ideas and information. Some of my favourites are set out below. Some of them are links to Moodle service providers with whom I have either worked directly or know through MoodleMoot, the annual UK conference that I helped to organise until last year.

http://moodle.org This is the main site address. The documentation section is very useful, although the contributions vary and some are less detailed than others.

http://fraser.typepad.com/moodle   This is a Moodle blog which is written by Josie Fraser who knows her moodle!

http://www.pteppic.net Sean Keogh’s site for Moodle hosting and support. Sean is a Moodle partner, which means that he is endorsed by the inventor of Moodle and is in regular contact with him.

http://howtomoodle.com a Moodle training for teachers at all levels of education. The training is in small groups and is very thorough.

http://moodlemoot.org  This has papers, podcasts, slides etc from this year’s conference and previous years as well. Well worth a look as there is a lot of “here’s what we are doing”, which can be very useful for new ideas, applications, contacts etc