What’s New at Albany Law for Fall 2009?

 

 

 

Digital Signage – a small screen outside the Admissions Office, 2 large screens – one outside E117 in the 1928 and another in the lobby of the 2000 building.  Theses screens will be used for important announcements and to eliminate all the paper signs hung around the buildings.

E115

New classroom configurations

• W120 – previously a seminar-style room, now a traditional classroom with desks in rows (Smartboard & all techology in front)
• E117 – previously a seminar-style room, now a traditional classroom with desks in rows (Smartboard & all techology in front)
• E115 – previously a seminar-style room, now a traditional classroom with desks in rows (screen & lectern in front)

Replacement plan for classroom projectors

• DAMC, W120, E117, U300 - 2 yrs old
• Matthew Bender, WW – 1 yr old
• EW, E115, 200 – brand new
• Other rooms – 2-3 projectors will be replaced each summer

More blogging

• Dean’s Blog
• Constitutionalism and Democracy blog
• blogs.albanylaw.edu - WordPress blog-editing software on our server

More digital video capability and editing

• new camcorder – Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Pro Camcorder, Phantom powered shotgun mic and wireless microphone system
• video editing software – SONY Vegas Pro 8
• video format conversion software – Aiseesoft and Xilisoft- used for converting DVDs to .wmv so that digital content can be posted to the web

Switch from Groupwise to Outlook for e-mail – Outlook Web Access will begin Aug 3 followed by the Outlook client.  Training will be scheduled, as well as .pdf guides and instructional videos posted.

Switch from GWAVA to Postini – spam filter change

New updated user friendly technology for the classrooms

• Room 200 – new Crestron control panel configured exactly the same as DAMC’s, new projector, DVD/VCR, sound system, mics
• E115 – new lectern, document camera, screen, ceiling -mounted projector, DVD/VCR, speakers, Extron media link controller

This same controller will be used on the existing lecterns when the Extron switchers are replaced.  This same lectern will be added to rooms without lecterns.

Videoconferencing in the Boardroom- The Tandberg Mediaplace has been moved from a classroom to the Boardroom.  This will facilitate its availability for videoconferencing events such as  - seminars, depositions, interviews, classes, etc. This equipment will also add technology to this room (in addition to the videoconferencing codec, it has a laptop connections, lcd projector, dvd/vcr player, speakers, document camera, wireless lavaliere Mic)

Assignment Dro Box in TWEN

 

 

 

 

 

Secure Logins for WestLaw & TWEN - beginning September 30, 2009, all users of WestLaw/Twen will have to update or create their OnePass accounts – Click HERE for video instructions on how to update your WestLaw ID to the new OnePass sign in.

SmartBoard Use - a  rear-projected board complete with lcd projector, DVD/VHS player, speakers, Document Camera, laptop connection is in W12o and in E117.  Training will be scheduled for faculty that teach in those rooms. A Go-Wire has been purchased with allows one to connect to the SmartBoard without having the software on their laptop.

Mobile Multimedia Carts – equipped with 42″ LCD monitor & speakers, laptop connection, document camera, VCR/DVD player

• one inL211
• one to be loaned out in 1928 bldg
• one  to be loaned out in 2000 bldg
  These carts will facilitate technology equipment setup requests in rooms without any technology.

Maintenance Contract for all classroom technology- at the beginning of each semester, all equipment will be cleaned and tested – throughout the semester, repairs will be made immediately. The  company selected is AVSSI who is familiar with our school’s technology and has provided support on numerous  occasions the past 2 years.

Audio Visual Staff joins ITS – AV support and services will be integrated into support for Instructional Technology.

Highlights of the CALI Conference For Me

In no particular order:

• Boulder is beautiful!! So are the new law school classrooms & library.
• I love the 2 screens in each classroom. Laminated directions in a plastic folder on the wall. All classrooms are identical.
• Great article on using DropBox for library document delivery http://tinyurl.com/clxkth courtesy of Tom Boone
• Adobe Captivate seems to be the prefered Screen Capture Video software (over Camtasia) & costs about $300
• Everyone is talking FLASH
• There are other free screen capture software that I want to try(Jing, uTipU) -maybe they are better than CamStudio which I use.
• In addtion to Skype, thre are some other free webconferencing tools, too (sightspeed, oovoo, palbee, dimdim, wengo, paltalk).
• My Thursday & Sat. session choices were so much more useful for me than my Friday ones.
• WestLaw has the best freebies – flash drives, pads, pens, & mice
• I learned a lot about using Google apps and embedding media into TWEN
• I learned about WestLaw watch – subscribing to newspapers, articles and can embed into TWEN
• Great to see that the other Ed. Technologists are facing the same issues and we will be developing some type of sharing/networking site
• I think I want a Kindle…
• A FLIP video camera looks very useful – easy to use and convenient for sharing videos
• You could use Adobe Connect for recording student simulations (they are web-based & saved as flash)
• WestLaw Exchange is evolving and may be a good place to store audio & video files (in the future)
• I hope I remember and have time to use half of what I learned..
• If not, they were recorded and slides posted:
  • iphone slides- http://tinyurl.com/law-iphone
  • 55 gadget slides -  http://w.cali.org/conference/sites/default/files/Cool%20Gadgets.pdf
  • in-house video tutorials – http://w.cali.org/conference/sites/default/files/CALI09_0.ppt
  • ed tech job descriptions – http://w.cali.org/conference/sites/default/files/positiondescriptions.doc
  • Kindle use – http://w.cali.org/conference/sites/default/files/Kindle%20for%20Law%20SchoolsBlueWave1.pptx
  • videoconferencing – http://w.cali.org/conference/sites/default/files/cali.ppt

Live Blogging from CALI Conference – Day 3

Session 1 – Law School Educational Technology Specialist: What is it? – Suffolk Law, Cal. Western, Boston College, Elon U

• 11 job descriptions were handed out
• this session came out of a need – looking for job duties that one should do and looking for a networking group
• survey was sent out thru teknoids
• results & descriptions are posted on cali conference site
• 110 completed survey
• 80% have this position
• faculty love this position and it enables them to use more technology
• neg – too many duties – some not related to ed
• most are new positions – less than 7 yrs
• most report to law school IT or law library director
• most do not supervise any staff but many supervise students
• ed. requirements – many different backgrounds – most associated with the library, many have JD or Ed Tech degrees
• these meet the needs of the position
• most work with IT and relationship works well
• top responsibilites 
  •  training faculty on hardware/software,
  • troublehooting hardware/software issues
  • pedagogical training (how to teach with tech)
  • distance ed support
• goal should be to  bridge IT and faculty – how do you accomplish this?
  • Use faculty that adopt tech as models
  • IT has to make the technology work so faculty are comfortable
  • Collaborate with librarians more
• other responsibilities – many varied – faculty scholarship, av, etc
• software & hardware training – many
• faculty training – most individual training – most can’t get fac. to group training unless required, show & tell at faculty mtg, having faculty train other faculty, must be TOP DOWN
• course management – most say that more than 50% of faculty use it
• post  just syllabus & docs – most say this is the case
• use tech during class time- most say that most faculty do not
• student use required – most do not
• U Texas Law School – Ed Tech page with many handouts for faculty on software
• how do we stay connected? cali, social media, wiki, website? One or more of these will be developed – stay tuned…

Live Blogging from CALI Conference – Day 2

Session 1 – IT & Faculty as Partners in Education – Basic Tools for Change - N. Carolina Central U School of Law

• faculty are key part of testing technology to be used
• SMART boards, screens to the right, mic for each 2 students in all rooms
• student study rooms – vga adapters to  connect to lcd screens, SMARTsympodium
• 90% of faculty use technology
• 100% use TWEN
• 75% use ppt
• 15% use clickers
• 85% use screen capture (video)
• key to partnership – solution driven, minimize tech jargon, IT approachable
• senior faculty partner
  • smart classroom – good for large classes, visual & audio enhancements – 2 large screens, prof wireless mic, student mics
  • goal is engagement – good prof doesn’t worry about competition from students on the web
  • use of techology should be seamless – students shouldn’t notice
  • solution to a malfunction should come after school – just revert to “old school”
  • the problem is with the faculty not IT
• junior faculty partners
  • knowing how to sell it to faculty is important
  • uses clickers – keeps students engaged, assesses students, leads to discussion, enables participation in largr classes, surveyed students & they liked them
  • all classes are recorded (video capture) - encourages students to watch them for review & clarification
  • taught while at a conference – used logme in and skype
  • watched her class via webcam – they were doing a mock trial
  • why she was comfortable?
    • pedagogical goal – good for students
    • supportable & encouraging environment
    • students are customers, must serve the students
    • IT folks must approach the faculty, bring in people to show the faculty the effectiveness of the technology
    • use videoconferencing for interviews
    • use YouTube videos – such as stem cell
    • examsoft – loan laptop to students if they don’t have one
    • dragon naturally speaking – convert voice to text
  • use coursecasting for recording ALL classes - software driven – all content is wmv and you own it – subscription-based
  • located on the portal
  • 600 students
  • $300,000 for new tech to a room

Live Blogging from CALI Conference- Day 1

Keynote - John Palfrey – Harvard Law Library

• digitize, digitize, digitize
• open acess to all content -DASH
• collaborate and share
• organize content – collaborate & share
• team up law librarians with faculty
• re-introduce contemplative space for students
• stop competing in library collections – c0mpete in services provided
• post library collections on the web = share & collaborate!!!
• post unique materials & share, post public domain materials
• avoid redundancies – use consortiums – work together
• unite repositories – Google??- other search engines?

Alan Kaye -” the best way to predict the future is to invent the future.”

More live blogging – http://lsi.typepad.com/lsi/2009/06/liveblogging-calicon09-john-palfrey-keynote.html#more

Session 1 - Creating in-house video tutorials – Lindsay Matts -William Mitchell School of Law (MN)

• Best Practices in E-Learning
  • no longer text-based
  • many types of instructional media
  • media elements are important – text, graphics, audio
  • 6 principles
    • multimedia  – adding graphics to words can improve learning – pictures, org charts, graphs, transformational (change), interpretive (explain)
    • contiguity – placing text near graphics can improve learning
    • modality – explaining graphics with audio can improve learning
    • redundancy -explaining graphics with audio AND redundant text can hurt learning (read off the screen)
    • coherence – gratuitous visuals, text, audio can hurt learning
    • personalization – conversational tone & pedagogical agents can increase learning
  • questions to ask before creating the screencast - goal, audience, time frame?
    • goals – inform, peform procedure or perform principles
• Products
  • Jing – by techsmith – free – www.jingproject.com – 5 min only- very easy – hosted in screencast.com or export not both - swf only – cannot edit – $15/yr – record from webcam & can export
  • UTipu www.utipu.com – free – hosted – 20 min – add notes & text – pulbic or private – can edit voice, can’t edit video,  swf
  • Adobe captivate – expensive – her fav – no time limit  $700 per license – 30 day free trial – canadd text boxes or audio and annotations, can edit , many file types-
  • Camtasia – similar to Captivate – less expensive
  • Animoto – fun slideshow with music 30 secs
• Existing tutorials
  • www.atomiclearning.com – expensive
  • www.lynda.com
  • www.cali.org
• Mics
  • headset
  • mic off webcam
• Host solutions
  • TWEN – needs to be small
  • LexisNexis Blackboard – 3 mb
  • YouTube
  • on school’s server

Social Networking session recording -

Clinic Students Teach & Use Technology

The Low Income Taxpayer Clinic (”LITC”) and Family Violence Litigation Clinic (”FVLC”) students were asked to prepare and present an interactive class to share the knowledge that they had gained throughout the semester. During the first hour of class, the LITC students discussed issues.  Throughout the second hour of class, the FVLC students presented a Power Point presentation entitled Domestic Abuse and Financial Abuse for Tax Professionals.

According to the professor, Debbie Kearns: “If you ask the students, it was the best class of the semester and they snicker because they taught it.  Little do they know, by encouraging collaboration we taught them a thing or two as well.”

Of course, it was great to see students using technology in the classroom.

Clicker Survey Results for Spring 2009

As the semester has drawn to a close, I again asked students to repond to an Online Survey on their experience with “Clickers.”

Question #1: How has the professor’s use of the clicker ENHANCED your understanding of the course material?

• The professor and the clicker are both great! It is very useful. It made me read Dressler’s Understanding Criminal Law which otherwise I would not have done.
• I have found the questions have helped me to apply the theory of case law.
• I have found particularly helpful the questions my classmates have posed to Prof.
• The poll feature after the question is submitted is very helpful in figuring out the ideas and understanding of our classmates.
• It helped apply the principles to fact situations.
• I think it makes for pretty good discussion
• It has given the class, in my opinion, a good opportunity to put what we have learned to use & provided the professor the chance to offer feedback where we may have some confusion.

Question #2:  Can you suggest any improvements in the use of this technology during class?

• Having more time for discussion of the results would be good.
• The quizzes are very helpful. I would suggest that we have more time to spend in discussing answers and methods to use to properly address issues contained in the quizzes.
• It would have been fun to take more class polls with the clicker system or to use it throughout class for questions just so we could see if we were all on the same page. The system could prove to be pretty useful and valuable if it was utilized more.
• Maybe there can be questions posed throughout the lecture that are designed to test how well the students as a whole are grasping the material.
• Since it has been brought to the professor’s attention he has been requiring that all students hand in written answers (the alternative for using the clicker if a student forgets theirs or just wants to write in an answer) before discussion of the answers begins.  However  until this change was made  students would wait until the answer came up on the screen to hand in theirs  taking advantage of the system and leaving those students who took the time to prepare answers of their own  without that same benefit. 
• Make the “little blue man” more random and/or remove the ability to call on the same student twice in one class. I saw it twice that the same student had to go in the same class. In fact one person got “picked” twice in a row.

Upcoming CALI Conference

Keynote Speaker is John Palfrey, Professor of Law and Vice Dean of Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School, as well as a Faculty Co-Director at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Here are some interesting sessions that I hope to attend:

• “IT and Faculty as Partners in Education-Basic Tools For Change”
• Classroom Simulations and Technology Integration
• Multimedia applications: Creating Tools for Instruction and other Law School activities
• Ning: DIY – Building a Social Network from Scratch
• Creating in-house video tutorials to enhance campus training sessions
• Educational Technology Specialist – What Is It?
• Firefox Add-ons for Legal Research
• Videoconferencing Without Busting Your Budget
• Captioning media
• Information Overload
• Teaching with cloud and flash computing
• Flash-based Distribution of Skills Training Video
• Multimedia Tools for Law School
• Video Podcasting: Live from the desert!!
• Using New Media Tools for Recruitment: How we use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter
• Coursecrafting: (def.) Mashing up legal research, moot court, skills training and instructional technology into something new and innovative!

and more…

 

Google Moderator

Even the White House used Google Moderator to allow citizens to submit questions to President Obama for his town hall meeting on March 25, 2009.

Google Moderator lets you not only submit questions but vote on whether or not you like the questions that have already been submitted. In theory, this should sort out junk questions and present only the best questions for the town hall meeting.

There were 465,164 votes on 13,703 questions from 28,427 people!!

CALI presented a webinar on using this tool. (see post from May 6, 2009)

Professors go to: moderator.apps.com, sign in with their Google account, name the series and then email students this link.

Students then can submit questions and vote on whether or not they like the questions that have already been submitted.  This can be used  before review classes for exam in order to sort out what things professors need to review.

CALI Video on BlipTV